Closing out the year with two stories, PodCastle shows the depth of fantasy as a genre with one contemporary supervillain story full of grief and loss and betrayal and one second world fantasy that manages to build a heartwarming and holiday-appropriate feel and punch with only the lightest touch of grimness. The pieces are incredibly different, and yet both of them deal with protagonists trying to bring something back. For one of them, it's a person, and their mode of choice is necromancy. For the other, it's a holiday, and their mode of choice is a sort of innocent honesty and earnest joy. Both find what they're looking for, in some ways, though the results are very different. Without giving too much away, though, let's get to the reviews!
