The Emperor's Soul, by Brandon Sanderson

The Emperor's Soul is the last of the Hugo Nominees for me to read this year.  Brandon Sanderson is getting a lot of eyeballs these days for completing the Wheel of Time series, but hasn't landed one of the really big awards yet.  He might do it here.  This item was a good, engaging story.  It took a little time to grow on me--very little, which is a good thing since it's a novella.  But once it did, I couldn't put it down.  It's a story of magic, and the magic is Forgery--making a perfect replica of an existing item by causing the history of the replica to change to match the original.  Or for the object to believe it did, rather.  The philosophy is complex, and Sanderson makes use of the complexity--the powers that be don't understand it either.  It's also a nice interplay between Shai and Gaotona, the ultimate con artist and the Last Honest Man.  Quite a lot in a little package, and well worth taking a couple of hours to read.  I give it a strong three stars, and figure he might follow it up since he likes to write in series.