"Not to spoil anything, but this story takes place before the novel it's based on. If you read Monster, you'd understand why. If you haven't read Monster, well, it won't much matter to you. The original novel was intended to be urban fantasy without the glamour or grit, just an everyday world where magic happened to be real. It's another common theme in my stories, but it's the central theme of the novel and continues into the short story."
— Author's Notes
Work Ethic is a Comic Fantasy short story written by A. Lee Martinez and published in the 2013 anthology book Robots versus Slime Monsters. The story is set before the events of the novel Monster, following the misadventures of a young cognizant girl named Kristine who, after she and her dad move into a new house full of pixies after a messy divorce.
Work Ethic provides examples of:
- Fantastic Legal Weirdness: Apparently there are legal systems in place that prosecute Cogs that try to take advantage of Incogs, Monster theorizing that Kristine's dad was sold a house full of pixies by a real estate agent on purpose. He then leaves them the number to an agency that will help reimburse them for the house.
- Glamour: It's revealed that pixies only use the illusion of home repair instead of actually fixing anything.Chester: Faerie repairs are always slipshod, Miss. Mostly glamour magic[.] They only work for a little while. Considering the size of the infestation, you'll be fortunate if this place doesn't come crashing down on your heads in a week once they're cleared.
- Honor Before Reason: Pixies seem to prefer taking food as a reward for a job well done instead of just taking the food.Kristine: Why break everything when they could just take the food themselves?
Monster: Work ethic? - Mage Born of Muggles: Kristine is a magically cognizant child born to incognizant parents, meaning, unlike most humans, she can perceive and remember magic and magical creatures.
- Our Pixies Are Different: Pixies are a type of House Fey that can be bribed with food into taking care of one's home, Kristine bribing them with cookies and fast-food to do her house-chores for her. Though later it's revealed that they use magic to disguise the problems as home repair.
- Protection Racket: While the pixies at first operate on a basic payment plan (Kristine gives them food, they fix and clean things), they eventually start purposefully break things just so Kristine can pay them to fix it. This is considered a natural progression of how House Fey operate, according to Monster.
