I could hardly get through this long short story. The dry, impersonal narrative didn't engage me at all and made me not give a hoot about the cartoonish characters or the story. There was no build-up, no moving forward. It was clinical, sterile writing. I found no humor in the story. If Martin was trying for any kind of pathos, it eluded me. There seems to be the makings of a beginning of a novel here, one that was aborted and published without being finished. An outline or start of a character study for a better novel, maybe. But in and of itself, a weak and uninteresting try. In my humble opinion, this book would not have received any attention if it weren't written by a well-liked celebrity.