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Under My Skin
- anyone who reads the right book has an ally
Here is the right book. Under My Skin, K.J. Parker’s superb new collection, includes almost 700 pages of novelettes and novellas, some appearing here for the first time anywhere, with one completely new novel-length tale, Relics.
These stories are everything readers have come to expect from Parker, populated by con men and kings, magicians who don’t do magic and messiahs who don’t offer redemption, by holy men and holy fools. But be warned, not only is all perhaps not what it seems, all can usually be counted on to not be what it seems. Parker’s unruly and unreliable narrators, who sometimes fool themselves even more than they fool us, stride along muddy paths through lonely hills or across marble floors in grand palaces, always finding trapdoors opening beneath them.
In The Thought That Counts, for example, a man who claims to have been magically granted the wisdom of the world finds that he’s not wise enough to recognize a figure from his past who may prove that wisdom isn’t enough in every situation. In My Beautiful Life, a man who starts life as the son of a village prostitute rises as high in his world as anyone can, only to find that tumbling from such a height makes for a long, long fall. And in the epistolary novel Relics, readers are offered not just one unreliable narrator but two, as an archduke and a relic hunter describe their highs and lows to one another in a series of missives that even the writers don’t necessarily fully believe, much less the recipients.
K.J. Parker first came to prominence with The Engineer Trilogy. Since then, the author has gone on to pen dozens of novels, novellas, and short stories, winning a couple of World Fantasy Awards along the way and earning legions of fans. Subterranean Press is proud to offer this third collection from a modern master, a true ally guiding us through an uncertain — but endlessly fascinating — world.
Contents:
- The Return of The Pig (2018)
- The Thought That Counts (2018)
- Mightier than the Sword (2017)
- All Love Excelling (2023)
- Many Mansions (2020)
- My Beautiful Life (2019)
- Stronger (2021)
- Portrait of the Artist (2019)
- Prosper’s Demon (2020)
- The Best Man Wins (2017)
- Habitat (2020)
- The Big Score (2021)
- Relics (2023)
Cover illustration by Vincent Chong
Here is the right book. Under My Skin, K.J. Parker’s superb new collection, includes almost 700 pages of novelettes and novellas, some appearing here for the first time anywhere, with one completely new novel-length tale, Relics.
These stories are everything readers have come to expect from Parker, populated by con men and kings, magicians who don’t do magic and messiahs who don’t offer redemption, by holy men and holy fools. But be warned, not only is all perhaps not what it seems, all can usually be counted on to not be what it seems. Parker’s unruly and unreliable narrators, who sometimes fool themselves even more than they fool us, stride along muddy paths through lonely hills or across marble floors in grand palaces, always finding trapdoors opening beneath them.
In The Thought That Counts, for example, a man who claims to have been magically granted the wisdom of the world finds that he’s not wise enough to recognize a figure from his past who may prove that wisdom isn’t enough in every situation. In My Beautiful Life, a man who starts life as the son of a village prostitute rises as high in his world as anyone can, only to find that tumbling from such a height makes for a long, long fall. And in the epistolary novel Relics, readers are offered not just one unreliable narrator but two, as an archduke and a relic hunter describe their highs and lows to one another in a series of missives that even the writers don’t necessarily fully believe, much less the recipients.
K.J. Parker first came to prominence with The Engineer Trilogy. Since then, the author has gone on to pen dozens of novels, novellas, and short stories, winning a couple of World Fantasy Awards along the way and earning legions of fans. Subterranean Press is proud to offer this third collection from a modern master, a true ally guiding us through an uncertain — but endlessly fascinating — world.
Contents:
- The Return of The Pig (2018)
- The Thought That Counts (2018)
- Mightier than the Sword (2017)
- All Love Excelling (2023)
- Many Mansions (2020)
- My Beautiful Life (2019)
- Stronger (2021)
- Portrait of the Artist (2019)
- Prosper’s Demon (2020)
- The Best Man Wins (2017)
- Habitat (2020)
- The Big Score (2021)
- Relics (2023)
Cover illustration by Vincent Chong
673 pages, Hardcover
First published March 30, 2023
26 people are currently reading
250 people want to read
About the author
K.J. Parker
134 books1,679 followersK.J. Parker is a pseudonym for Tom Holt.
According to the biographical notes in some of Parker's books, Parker has previously worked in law, journalism, and numismatics, and now writes and makes things out of wood and metal. It is also claimed that Parker is married to a solicitor and now lives in southern England. According to an autobiographical note, Parker was raised in rural Vermont, a lifestyle which influenced Parker's work.
According to the biographical notes in some of Parker's books, Parker has previously worked in law, journalism, and numismatics, and now writes and makes things out of wood and metal. It is also claimed that Parker is married to a solicitor and now lives in southern England. According to an autobiographical note, Parker was raised in rural Vermont, a lifestyle which influenced Parker's work.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
June 3, 2024
I wish I had taken notes for individual stories but I only rated them and it took so long that I don't remember them. Parker's short fiction--more the stories than the novellas--don't live in my brain very long. This collection, however, is another solid example of why Parker is one of my favorite authors.
The novellas included in here alone--including the brand new Relics appearing for the first time here--make this book worth the price of admission. Some of my favorite of his novellas are here. As for the short stories (I still long for more nonfiction essays like in Academic Exercises, of special note is "Portrait of an Artist", "The Best Man Wins", and "All Love Excelling".
I think I enjoyed this collection more than Father of Lies, but AE remains my favorite of the collections.
The novellas included in here alone--including the brand new Relics appearing for the first time here--make this book worth the price of admission. Some of my favorite of his novellas are here. As for the short stories (I still long for more nonfiction essays like in Academic Exercises, of special note is "Portrait of an Artist", "The Best Man Wins", and "All Love Excelling".
I think I enjoyed this collection more than Father of Lies, but AE remains my favorite of the collections.
March 26, 2023
Lovely example of KJ Parker writing very near the top of his form. A con-man meets an artist. Neither is what they seem. Hijinks ensue. Wonderful story: 4.5 stars, rounded up. Story link: http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.co...
Don't miss!
My review is solely for the title story. I haven't (yet) seen the collection. Which is not held by any of our libraries, boo hoo, not even as an ebook.
Don't miss!
My review is solely for the title story. I haven't (yet) seen the collection. Which is not held by any of our libraries, boo hoo, not even as an ebook.
July 2, 2023
My idea of reading enjoyment. Thirteen stories, novellas, novelettes, whatever, in 700 pages by K.J. Parker. I’d read three previously but they passed the reread test easily and the rest were almost all excellent. And very good value for money in the ebook format!
The author’s full length novels rarely feature magic and are often only just this side of the fantasy/historical fiction dividing line. However, his shorter stories, as in this book, can include some magical or supernatural aspects. A handful of these do. If I recall correctly every story is in his frequently used first person style. Rather chatty, and intimate with the reader, as though the reader and author were in one to one conversation in a pub, for example. And the unreliable narrator style features too.
Several of the stories have very clear pseudo-Byzantium Empire backgrounds, the worldview that the author commonly likes to build upon for his fantasy tales. Having recently read a potted history of 1000 years of Byzantium history I saw links between a couple of storylines and genuine, if bizarre, history. For example, a general marrying his actress/prostitute lover before they both become a successful Emperor and Empress team (Justinian and Theodora in early Byzantium history); the good looking brother of the Chief Eunuch who marries an aging empress after they’ve assassinated the emperor. And the new emperor makes a decent job of being emperor - based on actual history!
My favourite is probably the last story, previously unpublished, Relics. A Duke whose commoner best friend undertakes journeys, far and wide, to buy Holy Relics (a popular activity in the Byzantium Empire - no proper church or holy order could be without some saint’s bones). They communicate only through letters. But the story, revealed through their letters, slowly expands far beyond cataloguing the buying of relics…
The only downside to my read is that you can have too much of a good thing in one serving. There is a common ‘voice’ in this first person narration style, the voice of the author, and a distinctive feature of his writing. A fairly similar personality behind each of the stories. And, although the stories have been written and published over some years, you occasionally come across similarly expressed phrases that wouldn’t have been apparent unless these separate stories had been collected together into one book as here. About halfway through my reading I solved that issue by not reading each story consecutively but by leaving a couple of days between them to keep things fresher.
Overall, all the usual enjoyment I get from reading this author, Wry humour, clever, original, observations and quotable phrases, mild cynicism, fine prose, etc. Just maybe the warning that it’s probably better to space the stories out when you read them rather than attempt them in one go.
Quotes:
“ All Love Excelling Page 181”
Eudo reckoned my mother started the argument, and that sounds right. My father didn’t start quarrels. He created the circumstances whereby quarrels happened but never actually spoke the first angry word; a bit like a canny general who gets there first, digs in, cuts all the bridges and clears the brushwood away from the road to give a clear field of fire, then waits to be attacked.
“Portrait of the Artist. Page 366”
You’ll recall that Saloninus proves, mathematically and by examples drawn from great art, that the divide between beautiful and ugly is almost exactly a quarter of an inch—fifteen sixty-fourths of an inch, to be precise. Take the most beautiful nose you can think of, and shorten it, or lengthen it, one quarter-inch. Result; ugliness. Same goes for lips, chins, distance between eyes, all the geometrical relationships that make up the human face. Seven thirty-seconds longer or shorter you can get away with, but fifteen sixty-fourths is the killer. It’s an absolute rule, infallible, inflexible.
(SK - I’ve always been at least half an inch out…)
“Prosper’s Demon. Page 395” (The tale of an exorcist).
I have an idea you aren’t going to like me very much. That may prove to be the only thing we’ll have in common, so let’s make the most of it. I do terrible things. I do them to my enemies, to my own side, to myself. In the process, I save a large number of strangers (on average, between five and ten a week) from the worst thing that can happen to a human being. I’d like to say I do it because I’m one of the good guys, but if I did that, you’d see right through me.
“ The Big Score Page 588”
Books make you happy, angry, peaceful, discontented, reassured, justified. A book can make me forget who and what I am, for a little while. A book is somewhere I can go and not have to take myself with me.
“Relics. Page 603”
Thank you ever so much for the shin-bone of Corsellus of Radua, the tibia of Herennius, the three vertebrae of the Blessed Virgin of Ans and the jaw of Rubo the Paraclete. At this rate, pretty soon I shall have enough bits and pieces to build my own saint.
“Relics - Page 715”
One of the skills I have and you don’t, because you did Logic in Second Year and I did Rhetoric, is the art of the insincere apology. Basically, you start off declaring your intention to apologise, and then you make the actual apology so involved and long-winded that the other guy gets bored and stops listening; at which point, you can subtly backtrack on your apology, and make out that in fact you were right and he was wrong, and he won’t even notice… I got an A + in that module.
The author’s full length novels rarely feature magic and are often only just this side of the fantasy/historical fiction dividing line. However, his shorter stories, as in this book, can include some magical or supernatural aspects. A handful of these do. If I recall correctly every story is in his frequently used first person style. Rather chatty, and intimate with the reader, as though the reader and author were in one to one conversation in a pub, for example. And the unreliable narrator style features too.
Several of the stories have very clear pseudo-Byzantium Empire backgrounds, the worldview that the author commonly likes to build upon for his fantasy tales. Having recently read a potted history of 1000 years of Byzantium history I saw links between a couple of storylines and genuine, if bizarre, history. For example, a general marrying his actress/prostitute lover before they both become a successful Emperor and Empress team (Justinian and Theodora in early Byzantium history); the good looking brother of the Chief Eunuch who marries an aging empress after they’ve assassinated the emperor. And the new emperor makes a decent job of being emperor - based on actual history!
My favourite is probably the last story, previously unpublished, Relics. A Duke whose commoner best friend undertakes journeys, far and wide, to buy Holy Relics (a popular activity in the Byzantium Empire - no proper church or holy order could be without some saint’s bones). They communicate only through letters. But the story, revealed through their letters, slowly expands far beyond cataloguing the buying of relics…
The only downside to my read is that you can have too much of a good thing in one serving. There is a common ‘voice’ in this first person narration style, the voice of the author, and a distinctive feature of his writing. A fairly similar personality behind each of the stories. And, although the stories have been written and published over some years, you occasionally come across similarly expressed phrases that wouldn’t have been apparent unless these separate stories had been collected together into one book as here. About halfway through my reading I solved that issue by not reading each story consecutively but by leaving a couple of days between them to keep things fresher.
Overall, all the usual enjoyment I get from reading this author, Wry humour, clever, original, observations and quotable phrases, mild cynicism, fine prose, etc. Just maybe the warning that it’s probably better to space the stories out when you read them rather than attempt them in one go.
Quotes:
“ All Love Excelling Page 181”
Eudo reckoned my mother started the argument, and that sounds right. My father didn’t start quarrels. He created the circumstances whereby quarrels happened but never actually spoke the first angry word; a bit like a canny general who gets there first, digs in, cuts all the bridges and clears the brushwood away from the road to give a clear field of fire, then waits to be attacked.
“Portrait of the Artist. Page 366”
You’ll recall that Saloninus proves, mathematically and by examples drawn from great art, that the divide between beautiful and ugly is almost exactly a quarter of an inch—fifteen sixty-fourths of an inch, to be precise. Take the most beautiful nose you can think of, and shorten it, or lengthen it, one quarter-inch. Result; ugliness. Same goes for lips, chins, distance between eyes, all the geometrical relationships that make up the human face. Seven thirty-seconds longer or shorter you can get away with, but fifteen sixty-fourths is the killer. It’s an absolute rule, infallible, inflexible.
(SK - I’ve always been at least half an inch out…)
“Prosper’s Demon. Page 395” (The tale of an exorcist).
I have an idea you aren’t going to like me very much. That may prove to be the only thing we’ll have in common, so let’s make the most of it. I do terrible things. I do them to my enemies, to my own side, to myself. In the process, I save a large number of strangers (on average, between five and ten a week) from the worst thing that can happen to a human being. I’d like to say I do it because I’m one of the good guys, but if I did that, you’d see right through me.
“ The Big Score Page 588”
Books make you happy, angry, peaceful, discontented, reassured, justified. A book can make me forget who and what I am, for a little while. A book is somewhere I can go and not have to take myself with me.
“Relics. Page 603”
Thank you ever so much for the shin-bone of Corsellus of Radua, the tibia of Herennius, the three vertebrae of the Blessed Virgin of Ans and the jaw of Rubo the Paraclete. At this rate, pretty soon I shall have enough bits and pieces to build my own saint.
“Relics - Page 715”
One of the skills I have and you don’t, because you did Logic in Second Year and I did Rhetoric, is the art of the insincere apology. Basically, you start off declaring your intention to apologise, and then you make the actual apology so involved and long-winded that the other guy gets bored and stops listening; at which point, you can subtly backtrack on your apology, and make out that in fact you were right and he was wrong, and he won’t even notice… I got an A + in that module.
March 13, 2024
K J Parker liefert!
Für wenig Geld bekommt man hier eine Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten die in einem erfundenen mediteranen Raum spielen, mit Imperien, Kaisern und einer Religion, die nicht unsere ist aber ihr ähnlich.
Die Protagonisten: Ich Erzähle und Genies allesamt, und alle sind sie Getriebene, egal ob es Künster, Kaiser oder Generäle sind.
Dieses Buch bläst hinfort den Moder, der mir normale Fantasy so vergällt, den dummen Mittelaltermief. Statdessen: Menschen die in einer zynischen und amoralischen Welt leben.
Schöne Sache.
Für wenig Geld bekommt man hier eine Sammlung von Kurzgeschichten die in einem erfundenen mediteranen Raum spielen, mit Imperien, Kaisern und einer Religion, die nicht unsere ist aber ihr ähnlich.
Die Protagonisten: Ich Erzähle und Genies allesamt, und alle sind sie Getriebene, egal ob es Künster, Kaiser oder Generäle sind.
Dieses Buch bläst hinfort den Moder, der mir normale Fantasy so vergällt, den dummen Mittelaltermief. Statdessen: Menschen die in einer zynischen und amoralischen Welt leben.
Schöne Sache.
December 29, 2023
TL;DR: Some good, some bad, and a big dose of WTF.
Parker's 2023 collection contains the following:
The Return of the Pig
The Thought That Counts
Mightier than the Sword*
All Love Excelling
Many Mansions
My Beautiful Life*
Stronger
Portrait of the Artist
Prosper's Demon*
The Best Man Wins
Habitat
The Big Score*
Relics
The marked novellas were all previously published in standalone editions which I've already reviewed separately. (Mightier than the Sword was a bit underwhelming, but I gave the other three five stars when I read them.) Relics is a new novella for this collection. I think the remainder were published in various magazines or anthologies, but were new to me, all of those were shorts, single session reads.
Of the new to me stories, the standout was "The Thought That Counts" which is a Saloninus story. I'd give that one five stars.
"The Return of the Pig" features a sorcerer who is forced to go back to his home town in the sticks on a mission and isn't happy about it.
"All Love Excelling" - What if your dad was the messiah. Sometimes funny, but I was put off by the heavy pseudo-christian stuff.
"Many Mansions" - A scholar, who is definitely not a wizard, goes out to deal with a reported witch. I liked this one, one of the stronger stories in the collection.
"Stronger" - This one started out strong, but soon got boring and the ending sucked. I'd call this the second actual bad story I've read by Parker.
"Portrait of the Artist" - One of the very few Parker stories with a woman as the POV character. (The artist who appears in a few other stories as an antagonist.) This one was good.
"The Best Man Wins" - A predictable, yet still very enjoyable story of a blacksmith hired to make a sword by a strange young man.
"Habitat" - This was a surprise. One of the things I really liked about Parker's stories when I first discovered them was the absence of magic. Sadly, magic has crept into some of them over the years, but this one features a dragon. I saw in an interview after I read this that dragons were one of the things he'd initially decided never to do when he first started writing fantasy, but then the prohibition became a sort of challenge and here we are. This was one of the better stories in the book, and I believe the shortest.
Finally "Relics". An epistolary novella, possibly the longest thing in the collection, mostly told in letters between the current ruler of a smallish state, and one of his friends from his college years who now travels the world acquiring relics on his behalf. (Some other charcters enter the mix later on in the story.) While I generally like epistolary stories, this didn't feel like it was going anywhere until about halfway through and it lacked the charm of Purple and Black.
Worse, whereas Parker's stuff typically has a lot of Byzantine and other historic parallels, this story had some echoes of more current events that occasionally jarred me right out of the story and then there's this:
Um, excuse me?! Note that the word "slave" appears around 35 times in this story. The relic hunter and some others refer to themselves as "slave to" the Archduke in the headings of all their letters, though I don't think that's their legal standing. There's a lovely "aren't we all slaves, really?" type line, and something to the effect of "I knew some slaves back home, they seemed happy".
Now, I'm not the most observant reader in the world when it comes to symbolism or certain types of subtext and I really have no idea wtf he's saying, or trying to say, or unconsciously saying with regards to slavery in this story, but the fact it includes this bizarre dis on MLK and Obama, and is coming (for me) on top of some uncomfortable Israel parallels in Inside Man, and the apparent racial trainwreck that was the Sixteen Ways/Siege series, is raising some questions.
As I read through this entire collection, given my lackluster response to a lot of the stories, I was wondering if I've started getting bored of Parker. It was always the voice for me, more than the plots, and the novellas over the shorts or novels, his stories seem more right-sized at that length.
I'm going to go ahead and give this four stars, as on balance I enjoyed enough of it. But after "Relics", I don't know where I go from here with Parker. I already own a bunch of his other books I haven't read, but I don't know.
Parker's 2023 collection contains the following:
The Return of the Pig
The Thought That Counts
Mightier than the Sword*
All Love Excelling
Many Mansions
My Beautiful Life*
Stronger
Portrait of the Artist
Prosper's Demon*
The Best Man Wins
Habitat
The Big Score*
Relics
The marked novellas were all previously published in standalone editions which I've already reviewed separately. (Mightier than the Sword was a bit underwhelming, but I gave the other three five stars when I read them.) Relics is a new novella for this collection. I think the remainder were published in various magazines or anthologies, but were new to me, all of those were shorts, single session reads.
Of the new to me stories, the standout was "The Thought That Counts" which is a Saloninus story. I'd give that one five stars.
"The Return of the Pig" features a sorcerer who is forced to go back to his home town in the sticks on a mission and isn't happy about it.
"All Love Excelling" - What if your dad was the messiah. Sometimes funny, but I was put off by the heavy pseudo-christian stuff.
"Many Mansions" - A scholar, who is definitely not a wizard, goes out to deal with a reported witch. I liked this one, one of the stronger stories in the collection.
"Stronger" - This one started out strong, but soon got boring and the ending sucked. I'd call this the second actual bad story I've read by Parker.
"Portrait of the Artist" - One of the very few Parker stories with a woman as the POV character. (The artist who appears in a few other stories as an antagonist.) This one was good.
"My father always reckoned his sons moved at the speed of narrative; they could cover a thousand miles in the space of some time later they arrived at their destination."
"The Best Man Wins" - A predictable, yet still very enjoyable story of a blacksmith hired to make a sword by a strange young man.
"Habitat" - This was a surprise. One of the things I really liked about Parker's stories when I first discovered them was the absence of magic. Sadly, magic has crept into some of them over the years, but this one features a dragon. I saw in an interview after I read this that dragons were one of the things he'd initially decided never to do when he first started writing fantasy, but then the prohibition became a sort of challenge and here we are. This was one of the better stories in the book, and I believe the shortest.
Finally "Relics". An epistolary novella, possibly the longest thing in the collection, mostly told in letters between the current ruler of a smallish state, and one of his friends from his college years who now travels the world acquiring relics on his behalf. (Some other charcters enter the mix later on in the story.) While I generally like epistolary stories, this didn't feel like it was going anywhere until about halfway through and it lacked the charm of Purple and Black.
Worse, whereas Parker's stuff typically has a lot of Byzantine and other historic parallels, this story had some echoes of more current events that occasionally jarred me right out of the story and then there's this:
"If you were the sort of leader who hops up on a barrel and yells I have a dream, yes we can, I'd yawn and walk away, because I'd know you're full of it and all you'll ever succeed in doing is making things worse."
Um, excuse me?! Note that the word "slave" appears around 35 times in this story. The relic hunter and some others refer to themselves as "slave to" the Archduke in the headings of all their letters, though I don't think that's their legal standing. There's a lovely "aren't we all slaves, really?" type line, and something to the effect of "I knew some slaves back home, they seemed happy".
Now, I'm not the most observant reader in the world when it comes to symbolism or certain types of subtext and I really have no idea wtf he's saying, or trying to say, or unconsciously saying with regards to slavery in this story, but the fact it includes this bizarre dis on MLK and Obama, and is coming (for me) on top of some uncomfortable Israel parallels in Inside Man, and the apparent racial trainwreck that was the Sixteen Ways/Siege series, is raising some questions.
As I read through this entire collection, given my lackluster response to a lot of the stories, I was wondering if I've started getting bored of Parker. It was always the voice for me, more than the plots, and the novellas over the shorts or novels, his stories seem more right-sized at that length.
I'm going to go ahead and give this four stars, as on balance I enjoyed enough of it. But after "Relics", I don't know where I go from here with Parker. I already own a bunch of his other books I haven't read, but I don't know.
July 3, 2023
Under My Skin is the third collection of short stories and novellas by K.J. Parker. This collection showcases Parker's wit, style and flare for both shorter forms of writing. All the stories are of a high quality and my favourites are, Many Mansions, Best Man Wins and Relics. Parker is highly recommended and this is one of his best collections to date.
December 19, 2022
5* short fiction
Available here:
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.c...
A short Saloninus story! With links to The Things We Do for Love from The Father of Lies Jackpot.
Learn who you are dealing with first in:
- Blue and Gold
- The Devil You Know; and
- The Big Score
I read it together with https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.c... which is a clever play on the myth of the Minotaur. Loved both!
PS: super thrilled about and looking forward to: https://subterraneanpress.com/under-m...
Previous anthologies are one of the best books I own:
- Academic Exercises
- The Father of Lies
Available here:
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.c...
A short Saloninus story! With links to The Things We Do for Love from The Father of Lies Jackpot.
Learn who you are dealing with first in:
- Blue and Gold
- The Devil You Know; and
- The Big Score
I read it together with https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.c... which is a clever play on the myth of the Minotaur. Loved both!
PS: super thrilled about and looking forward to: https://subterraneanpress.com/under-m...
Previous anthologies are one of the best books I own:
- Academic Exercises
- The Father of Lies
March 26, 2023
“A life of honest endeavour; well, why not? Everyone ought to try it at least once before he dies.”
Popcorn for fantasy lovers. Engaging short story about getting what you wish for. Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #250, April 2018.
'“If He says it, obviously there must be something to it. No disrespect, but you don’t carry that weight. You haven’t earned that right to be listened to. It’s not the same.” Annoying, because the Him they were talking about was, of course, me.'
Popcorn for fantasy lovers. Engaging short story about getting what you wish for. Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #250, April 2018.
'“If He says it, obviously there must be something to it. No disrespect, but you don’t carry that weight. You haven’t earned that right to be listened to. It’s not the same.” Annoying, because the Him they were talking about was, of course, me.'
December 27, 2022
This is a superb collection of lengthy K.J. Parker stories, including a novel-length new work. If you know Parker, you know what you will get: wry, first person narration by clever characters, who aren’t so clever that they can’t be outsmarted in an unexpected way. Most, but not all, of the stories feature less than entirely honorable central figures, but they always engaging, rogues or not. If you are new to Parker, you are in for a treat, as he is consistently perspicacious and his sardonic wit is perfectly voiced. I do recommend this volume for fans new and old. What I do not recommend is to read it in one go. Savor the stories and spread them out, better to enjoy as individual morsels of cleverness.
July 10, 2024
This massive collection contains some of the finest works penned by Parker. His sharp, lucid prose and cynical (at times too smart for themselves) characters shine in these novellas. My favourites were~
1. The Thought That Counts;
2. Mightier Than the Sword;
3. All Love Excelling (one of the most hauntingly memorable works that I have ever read);
4. My Beautiful Life;
5. The Best Man Wins;
6. The Big Score.
Such a beautiful edition was strangely devoid of any illustrations. But that grievance aside, the tome is definitely recommended.
1. The Thought That Counts;
2. Mightier Than the Sword;
3. All Love Excelling (one of the most hauntingly memorable works that I have ever read);
4. My Beautiful Life;
5. The Best Man Wins;
6. The Big Score.
Such a beautiful edition was strangely devoid of any illustrations. But that grievance aside, the tome is definitely recommended.
July 12, 2023
It's a bizarre but widespread myth that only heroes have good qualities, and the only qualities heroes have are good; villains are, by definition, all bad. Bullshit. (from "Prosper's Demon")
I dearly love KJ Parker stories: everyone is some shade of grey and they're all doing something morally questionable for impeccable reasons. The difference between his heroes and his villains is all a matter of perspective.
Received via NetGalley
I dearly love KJ Parker stories: everyone is some shade of grey and they're all doing something morally questionable for impeccable reasons. The difference between his heroes and his villains is all a matter of perspective.
Received via NetGalley
May 8, 2023
None of these stories were as good as my favorite of Parker's novels, but I just find the narrative voices so consistently *interesting* and such entertaining company, even when I'd hate it if the people I know in real life were anything like that. His work reminds me a bit of the Screwtape Letters in that way.
CN: All sorts of horrible violent things, small and large scale, far more often mentioned in technical context or alluded to than described gruesomely. Betrayals, many.
CN: All sorts of horrible violent things, small and large scale, far more often mentioned in technical context or alluded to than described gruesomely. Betrayals, many.
September 22, 2024
Still remains my favourite writer. 5⭐️
July 12, 2025
An interesting collection of stories that take place in the same universe, but really have no other connection otherwise. There were some that were great and others that I felt like “wtf did I read”. It is quite a tone at 673 pages so it is definitely a commitment and you really have to enjoy his writing to like these.
They all have a lot of similarities so there were times it felt like you were reading the same thing again, as well, the characters mixed together a lot as well. Then there was confusion as sometimes characters from other stories were referenced in a second so it just felt like one big story with no main plot, just a lot of side quests.
The Return of the Pig- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I love the idea that if you have unresolved business you come back after you die, as a pig or a bear or something in between. The main protagonist is someone who hunts these spectres and deals with them while reminiscing about the effects they have had on his life.
Dreamy and very similar to his other stories, full of wit and keen observation, this story is both deep and entertaining.
Quote:
A man takes two bits of metal and does a trick involving fire and sparks flying about, and the two bits of metal are joined so perfectly you can't see where one ends and another begins.
Or take an even weirder trick. It's the one where a woman pulls a living human being out from between her legs. Weird?
I should say so."
Heshook his head. "Women can't do magic," he said. "Everybody knows that."
A literal mind. Ah, well. "Men can't do it either, because it doesn't exist. Haven't you been listening? But a few men have the gift of concentrating very hard and doing certain processes, certain tricks, that achieve things that look weird and strange to people who don't know about these things.
The Thought That Counts- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A sweet story of love lost and found (for the other party). A story of wish fulfillment gone wrong for the protagonist.
He became entangled with a enchantress who painted people and they would die (she would take their souls through the painting process, then consume them as a tea to get their best attributes)
He wished to be clever instead of rich and she gave him as wanted, but it lead him to a life of being a con man and thief to get by.
He runs away from her for awhile but she eventually finds him, and he does not recognize her as he represents her in court when she is accused of witchcraft. Once he is done he goes to investigate further and realizes who she is.
Quotes-
“...Wanted me to mary Logo the tanner. He's got a beautiful home, she said, and you soon get used to the smell.
Mother, I said, I don't want to get used to the smell. I don't ever want to be the sort of person who doesn't notice the stink of sheep's brains. She just looked at me. That's when I knew I had to leave."
"The wisest man who ever lived would never be short of money," I said. "But a lot of rich men are idiots."
Mightier Than the Sword- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I honestly didn’t really like this until the last third of the book. It was a bit longer than I felt it needed to be, but it was also like a diary of royalty so there would be ups and downs. The familial connections were the best part of the book and those between the aunt and nephew were complicated yet warm, like most families are.
Quotes-
I went back through all the marriages in the various imperial families for the last few generations, as far back as I could remember, which isn't very far, and there haven't been many of them, because of all the civil wars and usurpations and such. Fact; in the last two hundred years there have been thirty-six emperors, of whom nine died in their beds (and three of them were probably poisoned). Of the thirty-six, only ten were born in the purple and only six of them lived long enough to marry. Of those six, five married commoners; the rationale being that whereas the petty kings of lesser nations have to choose their queens for politics and diplomacy, the Emperor of the Robur is so incredibly far above any other mortal that nobody could possibly be his equal, and no other nation could conceivably aspire to a marriage alliance; so, logically, the emperor is free (almost uniquely among humanity) to marry for love. It's the only argument in favour of having the rotten job I've ever come across, and presumably that's why emperors and crown princes are so often the heroes of soppy romances. Anyway, the same principle applies to sons, nephews and first cousins of the Dragon Signet—put it another way, if tradition was to be observed and the prestige of the purple maintained, I really had no choice but to marry out of the gutter.
My duty, in fact. Oh well. Guess I have no alternative but to comply. I still wasn't looking forward to telling my aunt, though.
She's a bit like that. If you brought her the severed head of the Great King of the Sashan, she'd moan at you for dripping blood on the carpet.
All Love Excelling- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Once again, it starts slow and a bit confusing but by the end it is a great story.
A good deal with the devil story with a twist- he had first been a tool of God and felt his power, but when it was no longer needed it was taken away. The father felt empty and prayed for the return of the power to help and heal, but God no longer answered- but the Devil did.
He sacrificed his family to the Savior and felt no remorse, as he knew his future and was willing to take it from the beginning.
Many Mansions-⭐️⭐️
Wtf did I read, there is some magic and portals and a wizard living in someone’s head and a farting dog… it is a ride for sure, but I felt like the plot was lost in the storytelling.
Quotes-
"Actually, yes," I said. "Let me out of here right now, or I'll kill you."
She smiled. "I wouldn't," she said. "I'm sure you could, you're so much bigger and stronger and more aggressive than me, but then you'd be stuck in here for ever and ever, since you can't make doors. Of course you wouldn't be entirely on your own, you'd have the dog for company. But he farts. It can be pretty unbearable in a confined space, believe me."
My Beautiful Life-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My favorite so far, a rich a beautiful tale of a guy who rose well above his station to become emperor and tried to do good, but watched as everything imploded in the end.
Quotes-
WHERE WAS I?
I've really had enough of the pain. It's always there. You think you've got used to it, up to a point, and then it suddenly flares up and reduces you to a snivelling heap. For crying out loud, says the little voice inside me, pull yourself together, try and preserve the ittle dignity you've got left, there are people watching you. And besides, adds the little voice, perfectly correctly, you brought all his on yourself, it's all your own fault, like everything else. And whatever you do, don't you dare ask for sympathy.
Fine. But it's a real pest, because it snaps my train of thought like a carrot and I can't concentrate worth a damn, and when I get one of the bad attacks it wipes my mind clean, so I can barely member who I am. No bad thing, in a way.
And here's a bit of very good advice. If you've got something valuable and you don't want it stolen, don't bother with a dog; get a goose. It costs practically nothing to feed, you can keep it shut up in a cage all day, and doesn't it ever make a racket if something disturbs it in the middle of the night. A goose, for crying out loud.
Stronger- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Interesting story- it started like the labyrinth and the Minotaur, except that it was multiple cities sending people to the monster. Also people lived and worked with the Bulls, so the one they fed was just different somehow but made them all fearful and allowed for power to come.
A boy is fighting to get back his love from the yearly sacrifice and on his way he realizes that the only monster is humanity itself.
Portrait of the Artist- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This almost feels like the other side of the story but a prequel of ‘The Thought That Counts’. She is painting people and taking their lives, all while getting paid and trying to help her family.
Prosper’s Demon- ⭐️⭐️
Disjointed and a bit hard to figure out what is going on. He was a demon hunter and demons would possess people, including all types- rich and poor. I think there was a prince/princess that was possessed as well as the royal advisor- Prosper. There was an exploding horse statue. Just not great.
The Best Man Wins- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A love letter to a sword and a fight. Not my style and not exactly cohesive and logical.
Habitat- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Story of getting a dragon and how they are best kept. A little odd and less like a story and more like a collection of memories mixed with some research.
The Big Score- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A great finish to Saloninus’ stories. He has faked his death, but one person finds him. She knows all about him and makes him a deal- he write her a new play that she can then forge to look older and pass off to be sold. This would fetch them both enough that they could escape into the sunset without any issue. Problem is that nobody will believe it is actually his- they found some reference that was too modern- so he has to come up with something better.
He is such a fun narrator, untrustworthy, but likable. This story was excellent.
Quotes-
If she wasn't scarier than a cave full of tigers, I'd like her a lot. She has a strain of integrity that I can't help but admire.
Relics- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Strong ending story. It is told mostly through letters between two former college friends, one who is royalty and the other who is a relic hunter and has no title. They start off with more congenial letters, but as they go, the drama gets worse as there is a conspiracy in the realm and the relic hunter may be behind it. The friendship and love between the two is strong even when there is conflict and it is well done.
Quotes-
Complete waste of time, of course, since it won’t take them five minutes to drive the proverbial coach and horses through my legislation, and in the meanwhile the honest people who aren't abusing the system (something like sixty per cent, as far as we can tell) won't be able to afford to take on indentured apprentices any more, so a lot of craftsmen won't be able to afford help, and a lot of kids won't have a chance to get out of the slums.
I've noticed this; whenever the Duke steps in to right a wrong, suppress a manifest injustice, do the right thing, what invariably happens is that the wrong doesn't get righted worth a toss, and a whole lot of harmless citizens who were nothing to do with the actual problem get inconvenienced, trodden on or put in jail. But what the hell.
Repeat after me. I can only play the cards I've been dealt. l am not God. If I do the best I can, that's all right. If I try to do better than I can, I'm only going to make things horribly worse. Amen.
They all have a lot of similarities so there were times it felt like you were reading the same thing again, as well, the characters mixed together a lot as well. Then there was confusion as sometimes characters from other stories were referenced in a second so it just felt like one big story with no main plot, just a lot of side quests.
The Return of the Pig- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I love the idea that if you have unresolved business you come back after you die, as a pig or a bear or something in between. The main protagonist is someone who hunts these spectres and deals with them while reminiscing about the effects they have had on his life.
Dreamy and very similar to his other stories, full of wit and keen observation, this story is both deep and entertaining.
Quote:
A man takes two bits of metal and does a trick involving fire and sparks flying about, and the two bits of metal are joined so perfectly you can't see where one ends and another begins.
Or take an even weirder trick. It's the one where a woman pulls a living human being out from between her legs. Weird?
I should say so."
Heshook his head. "Women can't do magic," he said. "Everybody knows that."
A literal mind. Ah, well. "Men can't do it either, because it doesn't exist. Haven't you been listening? But a few men have the gift of concentrating very hard and doing certain processes, certain tricks, that achieve things that look weird and strange to people who don't know about these things.
The Thought That Counts- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A sweet story of love lost and found (for the other party). A story of wish fulfillment gone wrong for the protagonist.
He became entangled with a enchantress who painted people and they would die (she would take their souls through the painting process, then consume them as a tea to get their best attributes)
He wished to be clever instead of rich and she gave him as wanted, but it lead him to a life of being a con man and thief to get by.
He runs away from her for awhile but she eventually finds him, and he does not recognize her as he represents her in court when she is accused of witchcraft. Once he is done he goes to investigate further and realizes who she is.
Quotes-
“...Wanted me to mary Logo the tanner. He's got a beautiful home, she said, and you soon get used to the smell.
Mother, I said, I don't want to get used to the smell. I don't ever want to be the sort of person who doesn't notice the stink of sheep's brains. She just looked at me. That's when I knew I had to leave."
"The wisest man who ever lived would never be short of money," I said. "But a lot of rich men are idiots."
Mightier Than the Sword- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I honestly didn’t really like this until the last third of the book. It was a bit longer than I felt it needed to be, but it was also like a diary of royalty so there would be ups and downs. The familial connections were the best part of the book and those between the aunt and nephew were complicated yet warm, like most families are.
Quotes-
I went back through all the marriages in the various imperial families for the last few generations, as far back as I could remember, which isn't very far, and there haven't been many of them, because of all the civil wars and usurpations and such. Fact; in the last two hundred years there have been thirty-six emperors, of whom nine died in their beds (and three of them were probably poisoned). Of the thirty-six, only ten were born in the purple and only six of them lived long enough to marry. Of those six, five married commoners; the rationale being that whereas the petty kings of lesser nations have to choose their queens for politics and diplomacy, the Emperor of the Robur is so incredibly far above any other mortal that nobody could possibly be his equal, and no other nation could conceivably aspire to a marriage alliance; so, logically, the emperor is free (almost uniquely among humanity) to marry for love. It's the only argument in favour of having the rotten job I've ever come across, and presumably that's why emperors and crown princes are so often the heroes of soppy romances. Anyway, the same principle applies to sons, nephews and first cousins of the Dragon Signet—put it another way, if tradition was to be observed and the prestige of the purple maintained, I really had no choice but to marry out of the gutter.
My duty, in fact. Oh well. Guess I have no alternative but to comply. I still wasn't looking forward to telling my aunt, though.
She's a bit like that. If you brought her the severed head of the Great King of the Sashan, she'd moan at you for dripping blood on the carpet.
All Love Excelling- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Once again, it starts slow and a bit confusing but by the end it is a great story.
A good deal with the devil story with a twist- he had first been a tool of God and felt his power, but when it was no longer needed it was taken away. The father felt empty and prayed for the return of the power to help and heal, but God no longer answered- but the Devil did.
He sacrificed his family to the Savior and felt no remorse, as he knew his future and was willing to take it from the beginning.
Many Mansions-⭐️⭐️
Wtf did I read, there is some magic and portals and a wizard living in someone’s head and a farting dog… it is a ride for sure, but I felt like the plot was lost in the storytelling.
Quotes-
"Actually, yes," I said. "Let me out of here right now, or I'll kill you."
She smiled. "I wouldn't," she said. "I'm sure you could, you're so much bigger and stronger and more aggressive than me, but then you'd be stuck in here for ever and ever, since you can't make doors. Of course you wouldn't be entirely on your own, you'd have the dog for company. But he farts. It can be pretty unbearable in a confined space, believe me."
My Beautiful Life-⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My favorite so far, a rich a beautiful tale of a guy who rose well above his station to become emperor and tried to do good, but watched as everything imploded in the end.
Quotes-
WHERE WAS I?
I've really had enough of the pain. It's always there. You think you've got used to it, up to a point, and then it suddenly flares up and reduces you to a snivelling heap. For crying out loud, says the little voice inside me, pull yourself together, try and preserve the ittle dignity you've got left, there are people watching you. And besides, adds the little voice, perfectly correctly, you brought all his on yourself, it's all your own fault, like everything else. And whatever you do, don't you dare ask for sympathy.
Fine. But it's a real pest, because it snaps my train of thought like a carrot and I can't concentrate worth a damn, and when I get one of the bad attacks it wipes my mind clean, so I can barely member who I am. No bad thing, in a way.
And here's a bit of very good advice. If you've got something valuable and you don't want it stolen, don't bother with a dog; get a goose. It costs practically nothing to feed, you can keep it shut up in a cage all day, and doesn't it ever make a racket if something disturbs it in the middle of the night. A goose, for crying out loud.
Stronger- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Interesting story- it started like the labyrinth and the Minotaur, except that it was multiple cities sending people to the monster. Also people lived and worked with the Bulls, so the one they fed was just different somehow but made them all fearful and allowed for power to come.
A boy is fighting to get back his love from the yearly sacrifice and on his way he realizes that the only monster is humanity itself.
Portrait of the Artist- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This almost feels like the other side of the story but a prequel of ‘The Thought That Counts’. She is painting people and taking their lives, all while getting paid and trying to help her family.
Prosper’s Demon- ⭐️⭐️
Disjointed and a bit hard to figure out what is going on. He was a demon hunter and demons would possess people, including all types- rich and poor. I think there was a prince/princess that was possessed as well as the royal advisor- Prosper. There was an exploding horse statue. Just not great.
The Best Man Wins- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A love letter to a sword and a fight. Not my style and not exactly cohesive and logical.
Habitat- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Story of getting a dragon and how they are best kept. A little odd and less like a story and more like a collection of memories mixed with some research.
The Big Score- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A great finish to Saloninus’ stories. He has faked his death, but one person finds him. She knows all about him and makes him a deal- he write her a new play that she can then forge to look older and pass off to be sold. This would fetch them both enough that they could escape into the sunset without any issue. Problem is that nobody will believe it is actually his- they found some reference that was too modern- so he has to come up with something better.
He is such a fun narrator, untrustworthy, but likable. This story was excellent.
Quotes-
If she wasn't scarier than a cave full of tigers, I'd like her a lot. She has a strain of integrity that I can't help but admire.
Relics- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Strong ending story. It is told mostly through letters between two former college friends, one who is royalty and the other who is a relic hunter and has no title. They start off with more congenial letters, but as they go, the drama gets worse as there is a conspiracy in the realm and the relic hunter may be behind it. The friendship and love between the two is strong even when there is conflict and it is well done.
Quotes-
Complete waste of time, of course, since it won’t take them five minutes to drive the proverbial coach and horses through my legislation, and in the meanwhile the honest people who aren't abusing the system (something like sixty per cent, as far as we can tell) won't be able to afford to take on indentured apprentices any more, so a lot of craftsmen won't be able to afford help, and a lot of kids won't have a chance to get out of the slums.
I've noticed this; whenever the Duke steps in to right a wrong, suppress a manifest injustice, do the right thing, what invariably happens is that the wrong doesn't get righted worth a toss, and a whole lot of harmless citizens who were nothing to do with the actual problem get inconvenienced, trodden on or put in jail. But what the hell.
Repeat after me. I can only play the cards I've been dealt. l am not God. If I do the best I can, that's all right. If I try to do better than I can, I'm only going to make things horribly worse. Amen.
January 16, 2023
Under My Skin by K. J. Parker is a massive collection of his more recent short fiction. This is the third such collection, and I enjoyed this book as much as the previous 2 collections. Most of his stories are in a very loosely connected history centered around a college of magic, but magic is used very lightly in these stories. In a Parker story, you can never be sure who is good and who is not, but the journey is a lot of fun, he writes with a sardonic dark humor that I find irresistible, these stories are compulsively readable.
My 2 favorite stories in the book are the first and last stories. “The Return of the Pig” is full of reversals, with the narrator trying to solve a seemingly insoluble magical problem, while trying to distinguish between allies and enemies, and the final entry is a series of letters mostly between an archduke and an old friend who is hunting down sacred relics for him. Again, dark and funny, sometimes at the same time.
Under My Skin is an excellent collection by an outstanding fantasy writer. Well worth reading.
This e-ARC was provided by NetGalley for review.
My 2 favorite stories in the book are the first and last stories. “The Return of the Pig” is full of reversals, with the narrator trying to solve a seemingly insoluble magical problem, while trying to distinguish between allies and enemies, and the final entry is a series of letters mostly between an archduke and an old friend who is hunting down sacred relics for him. Again, dark and funny, sometimes at the same time.
Under My Skin is an excellent collection by an outstanding fantasy writer. Well worth reading.
This e-ARC was provided by NetGalley for review.
April 2, 2023
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.
K.J. Parker's fiction is a marvel— his smart, wry, unreliable narrators always entertain me. This is a big collection that gathers many of his short pieces and one novel-length work together, including Prosper's Demon. Marvelous.
I'm a huge fan, but it took me a surprisingly long time to get through this. Here's the problem: because the stories are first-person narrated but mostly different people— different people who are smart, wry, and unreliable narrators— it is a hard to tell their voices apart. The similarity also lessens the impact of each one. The solution I finally landed on was to just read something else in between as a palette cleanser (or as Evan Ladouceur beautifully put it in his review, spread the stories out to enjoy as "individual morsels of cleverness"). I would have loved a short intro to each story to break this up a little bit. Similarly, I wish the volume had an intro telling us a little more about the author.
My other objection, perhaps unfair, is the dust cover illustration, which would knock a half star off my rating if I took this into account. There is— eventually— a minotaur in this book, but the cover and its violence really aren't representative of the contents. Vincent Chong's done loads of beautiful work, but this one is a total miss for me. Since I already own my favorite story in print and I'm a shallow creature who judges books by their cover, this may dissuade me from purchasing a hard copy for my collection.
K.J. Parker's fiction is a marvel— his smart, wry, unreliable narrators always entertain me. This is a big collection that gathers many of his short pieces and one novel-length work together, including Prosper's Demon. Marvelous.
I'm a huge fan, but it took me a surprisingly long time to get through this. Here's the problem: because the stories are first-person narrated but mostly different people— different people who are smart, wry, and unreliable narrators— it is a hard to tell their voices apart. The similarity also lessens the impact of each one. The solution I finally landed on was to just read something else in between as a palette cleanser (or as Evan Ladouceur beautifully put it in his review, spread the stories out to enjoy as "individual morsels of cleverness"). I would have loved a short intro to each story to break this up a little bit. Similarly, I wish the volume had an intro telling us a little more about the author.
My other objection, perhaps unfair, is the dust cover illustration, which would knock a half star off my rating if I took this into account. There is— eventually— a minotaur in this book, but the cover and its violence really aren't representative of the contents. Vincent Chong's done loads of beautiful work, but this one is a total miss for me. Since I already own my favorite story in print and I'm a shallow creature who judges books by their cover, this may dissuade me from purchasing a hard copy for my collection.
December 30, 2022
Under My Skin has some excellent stories and short novels previously published that I read and reviewed at the time like the top-notch Mightier than the Sword (empire short novel) and the excellent My Beautiful Life (empire short novel) among others, but the new short novel (110+ pages) Relics (empire short novel) with which the collection ends is the piece of resistance and is an epistolary narration in the style of Purple and Black between a duke, leader of a small nation at the crossroads of powerful imperial states and his former college chum who is now buying relics for the duke, with of course a few interludes that explain what is really going on; just superb stuff and among the best of
Also the shorter All Love Excelling and Stronger are original to this one, one a sort of Christ parable in the KJ parker style and another a Minotaur one also in the author's interpretation, so one can expect dark irony, twists, and all that made the author such a favorite of mine; and both are fairly good.
Additionally, there are other earlier stories and short novels like The Big Score (Saloninus short novel), Prosper's Demon (demons and priests short novel), The Best Man Wins, The Thought that Counts, Many mansions, Portrait of the Artist which are all very good, with only a couple of stories that didn't really tell me that much
This is probably the strongest KJ Parker story collection I've read and I highly recommend it
Also the shorter All Love Excelling and Stronger are original to this one, one a sort of Christ parable in the KJ parker style and another a Minotaur one also in the author's interpretation, so one can expect dark irony, twists, and all that made the author such a favorite of mine; and both are fairly good.
Additionally, there are other earlier stories and short novels like The Big Score (Saloninus short novel), Prosper's Demon (demons and priests short novel), The Best Man Wins, The Thought that Counts, Many mansions, Portrait of the Artist which are all very good, with only a couple of stories that didn't really tell me that much
This is probably the strongest KJ Parker story collection I've read and I highly recommend it
June 25, 2023
A really good collection. Relics was my favorite.
He does what he does so well, but it also feels like some of the novelty has worn off if that makes sense.
It is still well-written and enjoyable, but it is also more of what he has done before.
But this is just quibbling. His existing fans will enjoy it, but new folks I think should read his other work first.
He does what he does so well, but it also feels like some of the novelty has worn off if that makes sense.
It is still well-written and enjoyable, but it is also more of what he has done before.
But this is just quibbling. His existing fans will enjoy it, but new folks I think should read his other work first.
Read
October 18, 2023Going to rate these as I read them, so for now I'll leave the overall rating blank.
The Thought That Counts: 5 stars. Fantastic fun. I actually read this free on the Beneath Ceaseless Skies website, and it's what convinced me to buy this book. I'd never read anything by Parker before, and I'm officially into his writing. He's very clever (like the main character in this story) and funny. (NOTE: If you want to enjoy this one, please don't read the summary for this book on goodreads. I just read it when I was looking for the book, and I can't believe the way they described this story. Infuriating. Defeats the purpose of reading it yourself and discovering everything on your own, and it isn't at all how I would've described it).
Stronger: High 4 stars. It would be higher, because I wholly enjoyed this, but I'm comparing it to my experience with the first story, and it didn't hit quite the same. Still fantastic.
The Return of the Pig: 3 stars. My least favorite story so far, but still a good read. Just not going to be one I think about.
The Thought That Counts: 5 stars. Fantastic fun. I actually read this free on the Beneath Ceaseless Skies website, and it's what convinced me to buy this book. I'd never read anything by Parker before, and I'm officially into his writing. He's very clever (like the main character in this story) and funny. (NOTE: If you want to enjoy this one, please don't read the summary for this book on goodreads. I just read it when I was looking for the book, and I can't believe the way they described this story. Infuriating. Defeats the purpose of reading it yourself and discovering everything on your own, and it isn't at all how I would've described it).
Stronger: High 4 stars. It would be higher, because I wholly enjoyed this, but I'm comparing it to my experience with the first story, and it didn't hit quite the same. Still fantastic.
The Return of the Pig: 3 stars. My least favorite story so far, but still a good read. Just not going to be one I think about.
September 12, 2024
A collection of KJ Parker's fantasy stories, novellas, and one novel thrown in for good measure. Every story is told as though written by the protagonists after the fact. Tons of very sarcastic or cynical bastards. While very well written, it is a little more wearisome after the first 400 or so pages.
November 26, 2023
650+ pages of Parker novelettes and novellas. The tone of these stories, particularly when taken cumulatively, tends ever so slightly more towards the grim than in Academic Exercises or The Father of Lies. The humour is more cynical. Nonetheless another outstanding collection.
May 3, 2025
Can't give a proper, weighted, nuanced &c. review of this one, because it reverted me to a K. J. fanboi, and I'm happy with it. Just read "Relics", if you will, and if it gets you, you're done in, just like I am. Happily done in.
February 20, 2024
Well written, and I'm sure it would be enjoyable to someone that enjoys this particular genre of lit. Wasn't for me.
October 21, 2024
This is a book of short(ish) stories. I’m a big Parker fan but a couple are not up to his usual standard but overall, good nonetheless.
August 25, 2025
Great collection of KJ Parker's short stories and novellas to this point, some of which I've already read, but still a great anthology regardless. Parker does a great job balancing British humor with his narrators and the fantasy and horror elements he also frequently adds in. Great read.
October 16, 2023
- The Return of The Pig (2018) ****
- The Thought That Counts (2018) *****
- Mightier than the Sword (2017) -- letto
- All Love Excelling (2023) ****
- Many Mansions (2020) ****
- My Beautiful Life (2019) -- letto
- Stronger (2021) ***
- Portrait of the Artist (2019) ****
- Prosper’s Demon (2020) -- letto
- The Best Man Wins (2017) ****
- Habitat (2020) ****
- The Big Score (2021) -- letto
- Relics (2023) ****
- The Thought That Counts (2018) *****
- Mightier than the Sword (2017) -- letto
- All Love Excelling (2023) ****
- Many Mansions (2020) ****
- My Beautiful Life (2019) -- letto
- Stronger (2021) ***
- Portrait of the Artist (2019) ****
- Prosper’s Demon (2020) -- letto
- The Best Man Wins (2017) ****
- Habitat (2020) ****
- The Big Score (2021) -- letto
- Relics (2023) ****
June 1, 2023
Many of the included works have been available already. Just Relics, the final epistolary novel, alone makes this collection worth reading. A tour de force about entropy, friendship, religion, trust, personal development, and much more...
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