Author: K.J. Parker

Review: Inside Man by K.J. Parker

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Inside Man by K.J. ParkerInside Man by K.J. Parker
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: fantasy, horror
Series: Prosper's Demon #2
Pages: 128
Published by Tordotcom on June 15, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

K.J. Parker returns to the amoral world of
Prosper's Demon
 with a wry, sardonic novella that flips the eternal, rule-governed battle between men and demons on its head.
An anonymous representative of the Devil, once a high-ranking Duke of Hell and now a committed underachiever, has spent the last forever of an eternity leading a perfectly tedious existence distracting monks from their liturgical devotions. It’s interminable, but he prefers it that way, now that he’s been officially designated by Downstairs as “fragile.” No, he won’t elaborate.
All that changes when he finds himself ensnared, along with a sadistic exorcist, in a labyrinthine plot to subvert the very nature of Good and Evil. In such a circumstance, sympathy for the Devil is practically inevitable.

My Review:

I picked up Inside Man because I was tempted by Prosper’s Demon.

No seriously. I wanted to read this book because I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the first book in what I really didn’t expect to be a series that seems to have begun anyway with Prosper’s Demon.

This series is set in an alternate universe to our own, in an era that is more-or-less like our Renaissance but isn’t exactly – because it isn’t exactly our world.

It is, however, a world where the angels and demons that people believed in during the Renaissance in our own world – and that many still believe in to this day – are quite, quite real. And are competing for the souls of, well, pretty much everyone.

The story in Prosper’s Demon turned out to be a kind of “greater good” story, where the definition of “good” and “evil” really did depend on where you happened to be sitting. Particularly on whether you happened to be the demon living inside Prosper giving him the genius to be his world’s da Vinci, or whether you happened to be the demon-extractor who was supposed to remove the demon if it killed Prosper. And especially even if removing the demon removed Prosper’s genius, which it certainly would, making him normal and depriving his world of everything their da Vinci equivalent would produce in his lifetime.

The story in Inside Man is quite a bit different, and it didn’t work quite as well, at least not for this reader. Even though its combination of Good Omens with The Screwtape Letters was kind of inspired.

There were points where I had to double check to be sure that I hadn’t accidentally downloaded The Screwtape Letters instead. If you’re not familiar, Screwtape is a senior demon straight out of the mind of C.S. Lewis – and dedicated to his good friend J.R.R. Tolkien, which I how I first made Screwtape’s acquaintance.

The book consists of a series of letters from Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, a Junior Tempter. Screwtape is giving Wormwood pointers on the best methods for tempting humans to sell their souls to the devil. While the whole thing addresses the Christian theological issues that Lewis wrestled with for a significant chunk of his life, the letters themselves are wry, frequently humorous, and have a lot of very true things to say about human nature.

The story in Inside Man does invoke the same kind of “sympathy for the devil” that Screwtape did, but the story feels like it owes a lot more to Good Omens than even it’s predecessor did. Or at least to that part of Good Omens that illustrated the concept that angels and demons have more in common with each other than either of them do with their respective “head offices” back home – whether home is above or below.

Inside Man also plays, and plays hard, with another bit from Good Omens – the bit where both Crowley and Aziraphale find themselves questioning whether either Heaven or Hell really has that ineffable plan that they keep proclaiming they do. And just like in Good Omens, the demon protagonist of Inside Man figures out that they don’t. Have a plan, that is.

But he does.

Escape Rating B-: I loved Prosper’s Demon so I expected to love Inside Man and I was disappointed that I didn’t. Although Prosper borrowed bits from Good Omens, it really did take them in its own direction. It also worked well that the human whose soul is being contested, while he isn’t exactly Leonardo da Vinci, was close enough to da Vinci to ground the story in a sense of the real.

We could appreciate the consequences of the demon vs. demon-extractor debate because we had a pretty clear picture of what those consequences would be. Leonardo da Vinci, any version of da Vinci, would be sorely missed in any world where he existed.

Inside Man made the not-our-world setting more obvious and a bit harder to get past – or perhaps into – by not giving us as clear a frame of reference. Meanwhile, the whole concept of “The Plan” and the lack thereof felt like it borrowed too heavily from Good Omens without giving us Crowley and Aziraphale to root for.

On my third hand, Inside Man is really, really short. I didn’t have any problems finishing it. I just kept wishing it was as good as its predecessor.

Review: Prosper’s Demon by K.J. Parker

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: Prosper’s Demon by K.J. ParkerProsper's Demon by K.J. Parker
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: fantasy, historical fantasy, horror
Series: Prosper's Demon #1
Pages: 104
Published by Tordotcom on January 28, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In a botched demonic extraction, they say the demon feels it ten times worse than the man. But they don’t die, and we do. Equilibrium.

The unnamed and morally questionable narrator is an exorcist with great follow-through and few doubts. His methods aren’t delicate but they’re undeniably effective: he’ll get the demon out—he just doesn’t particularly care what happens to the person.

Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world’s first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles. Too bad he’s demonically possessed.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

My Review:

Prosper’s Demon is a compact little novella that exists in an appropriately small space bounded on four sides by Leonardo da Vinci, Good Omens, and the competing definitions of the word “collaboration”, which can either refer to working with someone else to produce something, or working with an enemy to destroy something one is supposed to hold dear.

Prosper of Schanz is very definitely this world’s avatar for Leonardo da Vinci, the genius, inventor and artist of the Renaissance. The ultimate Renaissance man who seemed to excel in every field he touched.

While Prosper of Schanz seems to be equally gifted, as our narrator discovers in the course of this gem, Prosper has a bit of help. Prosper’s genius is, maybe, possibly, as much as 40% Prosper. And 60% the demon that is currently taking him for a ride.

How do we know this? Our narrator, who never is named in the story, has a lifetime of experience with demons. That is, after all, his job. He’s a demon extractor. His duty is to remove demons that are infesting humans. The extraction will certainly cause the demon an excruciating amount of pain. It’s been estimated that the demon will experience 10 times the pain that the human will during the extraction. But demons are immortal, they can survive that pain. They can survive anything. Their human hosts, on the other hand, are not and will not.

It’s one of those “greater good” situations, or the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or of the one. Because while the demons are host-less they can’t do any damage. But it’s also a Kobayashi Maru, a no-win scenario, because the human will be seriously damaged by the extraction – if they manage to survive at all.

And it seems like many, possibly even most, don’t. While the demon will eventually find another host and start all over again.

So our demon extractor makes a bargain with the demon he’s supposed to extract. And this is where the reference to Good Omens comes in. Both because the seemingly ultimate implacable enemies are colluding and because the demons have a long-term, an exceedingly long term “Plan”. They are all immortal, they can afford to play a very long game.

Extracting the demon will remove 60% of Prosper’s genius, rendering him pretty much below average. If he survives losing 60% – or so – of his mental capacity. All of the things that he, or rather his demon, have hinted at him producing will never happen. No more art, no more engineering, no more inventions. In the short term, life will be much poorer for many people because Prosper is no more.

The deal is struck. The demon hunter will leave Prosper’s demon in place while Prosper creates a marvel of art and engineering. It will be beautiful and awe-inspiring. The Great Plan that the demons have for mankind would not truly be impacted by the removal of Prosper, but mankind definitely would.

But about that deal. And about that narrow space between collaborating to create a work of artistic genius and collaborating with the enemy. The demon believes that the demon extractor has been convinced to the creation side of that equation, while the demon extractor ruefully opines that he has given into the other.

Or has he?

Escape Rating A: This story is absolutely perfect at its length. Nothing more needs to be said. And at the same time, I wish I knew more about this world and how it works, and just exactly who our unnamed demon-extracting narrator really is. We know more than enough to be absolutely sucker-punched at the end, but I just got sucked into this world and this character and wasn’t ready to be spit out, at least not yet.

Part of that “not ready yet” is that even from inside the protagonist’s head we STILL don’t know what he’s thinking. We’re fooled right along with the demon.

At the same time, this whole thing is a thoughtful exposition (in a marvelously snarky voice) on whether the ends justify the means – and who gets to decide those things. Our narrator seems to enjoy the fear he engenders and the destruction he causes – to the point where it makes his an extremely uncomfortable head to be in. He tells us at the very beginning that we’re not going to like him – and he’s right.

But we also kind of sneakily do. Like him in spite of ourselves, I mean. It feels a bit like he cheated the system, and reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru. But then, that’s been done before, too. Sometimes the hero cheats. Sometimes the cheater is a hero. Sometimes the hero is a villain. And sometimes the villain is a hero.

It all depends on who sits in judgment. I’m still judging – and shaking my head in amazement at it all.

Review: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. Parker

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. ParkerSixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. Parker
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: fantasy, military fantasy
Pages: 350
Published by Orbit on April 9, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

This is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all.

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

My Review:

Usually it’s the plucky band of rapscallions who stage a breakout, and the plucky band of heroes who hold the defense. This time it’s the plucky rapscallions doing the defending! That’s the first, but far from the last, twist on pretty much everything you expect from this genre – and every other genre that it sends up, down or sideways during the course of the story.

At first, this reminded me in a very peculiar way of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers books. Like I said, it’s peculiar. But that series is quasi-military SF told from the perspective of the people who keep things running – and not the people who usually take those things into harm’s way.

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City is more-or-less military fantasy told from that same perspective. Orhan is the Colonel of Engineers for the military of an empire that has subjugated not just his people, but pretty much every people around that is not themselves – and then keeps them down while looking for more people to conquer and subjugate.

The Robur Empire sounds a lot like the Roman Empire. I don’t just mean the two words are similar, I mean that the two empires are very similar. And use similar sounding names and offices and officers and procedures and well, it actually drove me a bit batty. It all sounds so much like Rome that I half expected something to explain the similarity – which otherwise makes no sense.

I don’t mean that the similarities of systems make no sense – Rome makes a great antecedence for how to and not to run an empire, I mean that the constant congruence of names for things and people and places made no sense. Although on my other hand, Orhan is the most unreliable of narrators it has ever been my media consuming pleasure to run across. And I’m including Varric Tethras in that tally of unreliability. Varric is more lovable, but he’s a shade more reliable. Or a shade less shady. Or both.

The story in Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City can be taken in multiple ways. Looking at it from one angle, it’s the story of an extremely unlikely hero who rises up and defends the besieged capital of an empire that treats him as a fourth-class citizen at best.

The problem for Orhan is that as an engineer, he can’t resist trying to solve this biggest of all problems. And that his friends are on the inside of the city. He’s not so much defending it as defending them – whether they appreciate it or not.

Another way of looking at the whole thing is from the perspective that the siege of the capital, and the dismantling of the empire that precedes it, is just all of the empire’s chickens, its nasty and terrible treatment of all of the many, many people it has subjugated, all coming home to roost in one giant pile of chickenshit.

With a bit of accelerant, manure burns really, really well. The empire has been providing plenty of impetus and accelerant for centuries – now it’s time to watch the explosion. Unless Orhan can manage to stop it from happening – one underhanded way or another.

Escape Rating B: This is a very mixed feelings kind of review. I loved the opening scenes of the story. The over-the-top snarkitude of the narrator was terrific and terrifically funny as well. It’s the sort of thing that makes a reader snerk and chortle every page.

Orhan has spent his career finagling the system in order to get the job done – but his internal dialog about exactly what he has to do, why he has to do it, and how easy it is to get it done because the system is so stupid, are good for a seemingly endless supply of wry chuckles.

But once the siege begins, Orhan, in spite of himself, becomes the authority – not because he wants to be but because he just can’t see that there’s any other way to survive. He’s dead certain – and more than occasionally nearly just plain dead, that anyone else would just get it wrong. Wrong-er. More wrong.

And while his many and varied attempts at getting all the city’s warring factions to work together make an interesting exercise in social engineering, they just aren’t as interesting as when Orhan and his crew were on their own. By himself, things going wrong until the last minute were funny. As the person in charge, it’s not funny at all.

The ending of the story, or rather Orhan’s end to the story, completely blew me away. But for this reader the middle went on too long. Your reading mileage may vary – no matter what units you use to measure it.