It wasn't until I got to "The Sun and I" that I had an inkling where this collection was going. Even so, I'm not sure that I get it. The themes begin to stick out though. Intention doesn't matter, the work postulates, and certainly the protagonists have the worst of intentions. They are boring self-serving often academic profbros, who care intensely about their professional reputation but have long since lost any curiosity or fire about their actual work. From these cynical and annoying people, clever plots often manage to twist their way out, and the writing is amusing at times in a wry sort of way. Unfortunately it does get formulaic. The protagonist has a fading career, they do something unethical for the sake of prestige or stability, but the naive people are bad at helping and the cynical people are incompetent at harming. Somehow it all gets turned around. It gets to the point where you suspect that any plagiarism or forgery will turn out to be the genuine article and then, while the twist end may well be clever, it's not much of a twist anymore.

Additionally I have no idea what the essays are doing here. Their tone and pace seems strange for this format, and I pictured them instead being read out over a series of funny photos in a youtube video. That's not to put them down, after all many fine things have been taught on video, but in the short story anthology they were just strange. Finally the role of women in this work isn't the most forward thinking. While I understand that the author was creating an environment similar to the slimy halls of academia that I am so familiar with in my everyday life, if one is going to manufacture a world with such gross gender problems, to the point where the protagonists are telling the audience what the problem with women is or female magic users have different, later manifesting, abilities than men which may be affected by whether the woman has had sex, one really ought to do something with it and not just have it there as sleazy window dressing. We never have a woman protagonist for a change, or even a well developed minor character who isn't more than a plot device.