Five Letters from an Eastern Empire

This Penguin 60 book is an excerpt from the authors book Unlikely Stories, Mostly, a collection of short stories, so as I understand it, this story is published here complete.

An epistolary novel (ie written in the form of letters), it tells of a futuristic Empire, (or mock futuristic?) in a speculative fiction, sci-fi way.

The Emperor of this unnamed Empire has appointed two poets, Bohu (the author, and poet of high feelings) and Tohu (the poet of low feelings). Both poets have had their lives planned to fulfil these roles, but have not yet been instructed to commence writing. Moving from the old capital to the new capital to accompany the Emperor, the poets are finally instructed to write a poem “celebrating my irrevocable justice”.

The strange society in which they exist is unlike any other on Earth, but is described in clever detail for such a short book, and seems plausible - it seems like something that a human society could have come up with in a fantasy based situation.

The poems are written, but the results are unexpected.

Not too much more can be said without the spoiling of a short story!