Still King Under the Mountain!
Anyway, I actually didn't like this story that much, mostly because the conclusion sucked a lot of the drama out of it. I felt that the main character's sudden burst of empathy for the Theriomorphs was weirdly misplaced. This is a race of beings who like to kill humans and regularly steal children away from their families and turns them into monsters to continue the cycle of killing and kidnapping. The main character is clearly (in the first part of the story, anyway) a tough and experienced academic who is used to dealing with the Theriomorphs and their murderous ways. I think it would be possible for the character's turnaround to be better foreshadowed, but I just didn't think the story pulled it off.
What the story did do an excellent job with, however, was New Persia and the tensions between the academics and the people they hired to do their digging and carrying for them. The cultural and economic clash was very interesting, and I enjoyed the tense standoff scene.
Though, in the world of nit-picks, that would have been a good time to foreshadow the fact that the main character carries a big, heavy-bladed knife. I'm not saying she would have pulled it, but she could have rested her hand on the pommel, or thought about pulling it, or thought about how pulling it would be a bad idea. After her response to that stand-off, I found her habitually carrying a knife to be a little jarring.
At the risk of getting political... I think this is the first sci-fi/fantasy story I've ever experienced to suffer from its post-colonial influences.
By post-colonial influences, I mean that the story involves cultural and economic power differentials in the context of clashing cultures. You've seen that a lot in science fiction and fantasy of the last thirty years, but I'm too sleepy (see above re: wedding) to think of any right now.
Anyway, I feel like the Theriomorphs in this story were presented as monsters. Monsters! I had zero sympathy for them, which is what ruined the ending for me. Frankly, I didn't have much sympathy for the diggers, either; if they wanted more money than they were getting, they shouldn't have signed the contract they did. The Wages of Salt relied on its post-colonial context to create my sympathy for the poor (the diggers) and the displaced and less technologically capable (the Theriomorphs) without doing enough work itself to create that sympthathy.
Oh, and a final nit-pick: I really hate the use of the word "morph" in fantasy stories. For me, at least, using the word "morph" (as opposed to the original word "metamorphose") still hearkens back to the 80s and computer animation. I can buy "morph" in modern fantasy or science fiction which exists in our context or in the context of our future, but not in fantasy.
And (really) finally, thanks for the congratulations! My fiancée (she asks me to add: a cute gamer girl who reads fantasy and has been known to listen to the podcast, though she doesn't comment on the forums) was really tickled, and it's safe to say that it made both our days. And man, can our days ever use making right now.
And if it makes you feel any better about your distracting podcast, Dave, I was listening to it while I drove to have lunch with some relatives of mine who have arrived for the wedding. So there.