Making History
by K J Parker (Tor, 2025)
What is history? What is truth? Parker crafts a twisty novella in which university scholars are pressganged into fabricating an ancient culture… only to uncover bona fide exemplars of all their meticulously falsified evidence in long-buried situ at the chosen dig location.
Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead
by K J Parker (Orbit, 2023)
Parker’s insistence on crafting non-romanticised secondary-world historical settings with intertwined military, economic, religious and political interests, results once again in a downbeat, fate-pummelled tale. The humour is black at best, wrung from its jaded—and in this instance openly unreliable—first-person narrator.
Pulling the Wings off Angels
by K J Parker (Tor, 2022)
A suitably twisty novella that takes grim delight in picking apart the logic of divine punishment. Saloninus, for once, appears not as the viewpoint character (and therefore can be afforded a rare victory). The actual protagonist suffers the usual, ill-fated Parker spelunking.
The Belly of the Bow
by K J Parker (Orbit, 1999)
The Fencer Trilogy’s second instalment proves even bleaker and more cynical than the first. Estranged brothers Bardas and Gorgas Loredan struggle towards victories most decidedly Pyrrhic, the narrative sustained by Parker’s commitment to portraying human foibles and stark, unglorified realism within fantasy.
Under My Skin
by K J Parker (Subterranean, 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.
No Choice
by K J Parker (Subterranean, 2023)
A wryly amusing piece at the crossroads where short story meets novelette. Though the narrator is as cynical as all other Parker protagonists, the plots is less twisty and the nihilism allows for some genuine reflection on motivation, expectation and familial love.
A Practical Guide to Conquering the World
by K J Parker (Orbit, 2022); audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (Isis, 2022)
Deeply cynical and posing very real questions about the nature of recorded history (although the title in this instance comes a little too close to the truth; the narrative is less of a story, more a thought experiment in psychology and logistics).
Inside Man
by K. J. Parker (Tor, 2021)
Within a few pages, this sequel to Prosper’s Demon establishes its devilish scenario. What follows thereafter is an increasingly labyrinthine exploration of underlying premise—the feasibility of heavenly resistance within a divine plan that incorporates that very resistance. Ingenious though narratively self-absorbed.
Prosper’s Demon
by K. J. Parker (Tor, 2020)
A twisty fantasy novella of particularly dark conception, told in a conversational style. Parker establishes the premise, turns it on its head and then springs a fitting denouement… but does so through uncharacteristically skittish bits of prose, ideas scattering like loose beads.
How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It
by K J Parker (Orbit, 2020); audiobook read by Ray Sawyer (Isis, 2020)
The besieged stalemate that Parker envisages evokes Hannibal’s 15-year occupation of Italy, only with sardonic observational humour and a cynical, world-weary thespian placed in charge of the defence. Sawyer’s audiobook reading matches the protagonist’s pessimism a little too closely, to enervating effect.