Epilogue to The Quality of Leadership

Epilogue, written by John S. Drew, is a very straightforward ending to Short Trips 24. In it, we return to the home of Mihal on the planet Zalezna.

Lycon the Wise Man has just finished telling the tale of the Doctor and his many lessons in leadership. We get a sense that these stories have been guiding Mihal and his family, and will do so for generations. It fits with what we've been told in this anthology so far, but it gets a little too self-satisfactory here. All the characters talk about how great these stories were, which feels a little unnecessary and unearned.

Still, as a short little finale, it is nice. The Doctor returns to say goodbye to Mihal and meets some of his grandchildren. He is invited to get a sense of the world Mihal built before leaving Zalezna. That's about it for Epilogue. It's nothing special but it was far from unacceptable.

Overall, though, I think Quality of Leadership was a pretty powerful and transformative series of short stories. This was my first Short Trips book so I look forward to seeing how this compares to the others.

For the record, I would rank the short stories as follows:

1. Clean-Up on Aisle Two
2. The Spindle of Necessity
3. The Slave War
4. On a Pedestal
5. The Price of Conviction
6. God Send Me Well to Keep
7. From Little Acorns/Epilogue
8. Peaceable Kingdom
9. One Fateful Knight
10. Rock Star
11. Goths and Robbers
12. Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen