I truly enjoyed this story for the thought-provoking way in which it wove around two things: primitive evolution of trickster tales and the relationship humans have with subservient animals as long as they do not have the ability to talk back or put their thoughts into words ... or even have thoughts. This story proposes that with the words came thoughts and memory; intelligence and cogitation came with the communication and that, as much as anything, undermined the relationship that the human-shaped animals had with their former masters. Earth went from being a planet with one dominant lifeform (based upon sapience) to a world with many.
The interesting thing that this story also did (by accident, rather than design) was inspire in me the observation that some science fiction and fantasy are very, very close to each other. In this case, all that would have been required would have been a few paragraphs giving a scientific reason for "The Change" and this would have been S-F. The fact that it did not makes it fantasy.
I like that and really appreciate this story for making me see the tale that way.
This certainly does not apply to all stories but "Evolution of Trickster Stories..." fits the model.
My only critique would be that the friendship or mutual respect built between the narrator and Gold was of such a level that I felt her emotional response to his death was not genuine. All it would have taken would have been a few sentences showing the depths of her sorrow or, perhaps, that of the dogs to have their storyteller taken from them. Theirs was an emerging culture the center of which was very much based upon those stories. His death was, by contrast, dealt with in a very matter-of-fact way that seemed to run contrary to the rest of the story. That was the only jarring moment to me where the rest of the emotional and event-driven roller-coaster was much more poignant.
That said, this is one of my favorite PodCastles to date and I shall be listening to it again, very soon!
Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)