K.J. Parker

Stand-alone novels:

The Company — (2008) Publisher: Hoping for a better life, five war veterans colonize an abandoned island. They take with them everything they could possibly need — food, clothes, tools, weapons, even wives. But an unanticipated discovery shatters their dream and replaces it with a very different one. The colonists feel sure that their friendship will keep them together. Only then do they begin to realize that they've brought with them rather more than they bargained for. For one of them, it seems, has been hiding a terrible secret from the rest of the company. And when the truth begins to emerge, it soon becomes clear that the war is far from over. With masterful storytelling, irresistible wit, and extraordinary insight into human nature, K.J. Parker is widely acknowledged as one of the most original and exciting fantasy writers of modern times. THE COMPANY, K.J. Parker's first stand-alone novel, is a tour de force from an author who is changing the face of the fantasy genre.

The Company

The Company has been called "military fantasy," but I question both terms of that characterization. First, while The Company is absolutely not set in this world, there is nothing magical or fantastical about it. But if we define fantasy to include “an historical novel not set on this world,” then we’ve got a fantasy here, and I guess we must be satisfied with that. I also don’t see this as a military novel. Certainly, all the characters served together in a very long war, and their relationships with one another were formed in military college and through their careers as soldiers. Parker also frequently recounts incidents from the war in episodes interleaved with the present day. But war is not the core of this book. Rather, this is a sort of buddy novel, a novel about how men work together and about the dynamics of male friendship. It is rare to find a novel that discusses how mature men relate to one another. It can be done in comedy: buddy movies are a dime a dozen, and Neil Simon comedies explored the notion in both “The Odd Couple” and “The Sunshine Boys.” But an art work focused on the relationships between older men is otherwise a rare creature.

The Company is about five war veterans who band together to form a farming colony on an uninhabited island at the urging of the senior officer of their group. This man, General Teuche Kunessin, has always wanted to be a farmer, and he wants to do it with his closest friends, who shared the dream with him during down times between battles. When they first discuss the idea after Kunessin’s return from a longer military career than the other four followed — an idea that seems flat-out crazy to the four junior members, who nonetheless follow their leader — all but one of them is unmarried, which is obviously not a viable plan for a colony that is to have a future. In short order, the four unmarried men are paired up with spouses by the local matchmaker, making it clear that this is the type of society in which women are more commodities than people.

Kunessin finances the entire plan single-handedly, though the question of where the money comes from (other than a long military career) is a secret he guards carefully. Kunessin believes he has planned everything, down to the last barrel of nails, but too many years of military thinking has dulled his instincts for farming. The voyage to the island is bad enough, but the fire that devours most of the supplies shortly after the ship has left them behind casts the entire enterprise in a different light. 

Almost every moment from that point forward is about surviving in a hand-to-mouth existence. Each of the men handles the situation in his own way, both individually and as a member of the group (and sometimes how a man relates to the group is contradictory to what he does as an individual). The men always mean more to each other than they do to their wives; while at least one of the men comes to like, if not cherish, his wife, they are really seen by the men as having little more status than the indentured men who have been brought along to help with the heavy work.

Whatever the men do, problems arise. Interference from the government, an unlucky bit of good luck (that makes sense in context), and never-ending hunger dog the group as it attempts to make a go of farming in the face of all the odds. But secrets carefully hoarded by each of the men slowly creep to the surface, and the survival of any of those on the island is far from assured. The Hobbesian notion that life is nasty, brutish and short is inherent in the project.

Parker’s style is straightforward and workmanlike, however complex the story might be. Parker continues to build suspense even when it appears all the juice has been wrung from the plot. When a particular outcome seems certain, watch out: Parker has a trick up a sleeve. There are some problems with Parker’s characterization, though; Kunessin was the only one of the men who was fully drawn and it was difficult to tell the other four apart — and much more trouble keeping the women matched up with the right men, as they are sketched in with only a detail or two. And the cascading series of disasters starts to feel old after a while. The reader wonders, can’t this group catch a single break?  

Even so, I was fascinated by this story. These characters are so true to each other and to their past unity as a fearsome military unit, and so incomplete as individuals, seeming to lack purpose or even any joy in life — that my attention never wavered. Friendship and betrayal played out against a background of a struggle for survival make for a dark story that lingers in the imagination. —Terry Weyna

The Company

K.J. Parker takes a very interesting subject, post-combat veterans, and builds a medieval story upon it. The Company is not a fantasy novel, and it’s not historical fiction, but lives somewhere in between. After a major war a group of veterans from the same geographical area join forces once again, this time to settle an island.

The Company depicts the complex interactions of men who have spent a long period of time at war together. The commitment that they have to each other and the trust they place in their leader dramatically shapes how they approach things. Making the decision to uproot their lives and follow Teuche Kunnesin, the now retired General, is a prime example. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but out of loyalty and perhaps habit, they decide to do it.

Kunnesin is a planner, a visionary and a crook. Some of the best writing in The Company is Parker’s depiction of Kunnesin’s careful and thorough manipulation of the bureaucratic disaster that is the military administration. It would be funnier if it didn’t feel so real.

Aidi, Muri, Kudei, Nuctos and Fly are all good soldiers — heroes, to tell the truth — but each has his secrets and problems. Those hidden secrets and long standing disagreements combine to create a carefully balanced structure that works while in combat, but may not survive the demands of peace. The men who saved each others' lives over and over now have to see if they can work together, using their different skills, to live in a future and place that they never planned for.

The Company was interesting, but kind of dry. There were times when I felt like I was waiting for the story to get going. It felt like a L.E. Modesitt novel where the main character is a master craftsman in training and you have to wait for a great deal of development before the story really kicks in. Parker is a solid world builder, though, and paints a believable picture of the challenges that the former soldiers face.  Between the logistics of packing to settle an island and the challenges of managing a group of people all thrown together in very rough circumstances, there is plenty of grit and detail to make the story feel real.

In the end, The Company became less of an adventure and more of a study of human motivations and frailties. The characters, even the minor ones, all have issues, problems and ulterior motives that create a toxic brew. For me, it was a difficult story to get into because there wasn’t a special character that I could really identify with. That left me unsympathetic and finally almost uncaring about how the story ended. For world building and detail, I give Parker high marks; but for a story that I would recommend to others, The Company is pretty low on my list. —John Hulet

Purple and Black — (2009) Novella. Publisher: Subterranean Press is proud to announce a new novella by the enigmatic author of The Company and The Engineer Trilogy. When his father, brothers and uncles wiped each other out in a murderous civil war, Nicephorus was forced to leave the University and become emperor. Seventy-seven emperors had met violent deaths over the past hundred years, most of them murdered by their own soldiers. Hardly surprising, then, that Nico should want to fill the major offices of state with the only people he knew he could trust, his oldest and closest friends. But there's danger on the northern frontier, and Nico daren't send a regular general up there with an army, for fear of a military coup. He turns to his best friend Phormio, who reluctantly takes the job. Military dispatches, written in the purple ink reserved exclusively for official business, are a miserable way for friends to keep in touch, at a time when they need each other most. But there's space in the document-tube for another sheet of paper. Purple and Black will be printed in two colors throughout.

Purple and Black

You have to love a story that starts out with the line, “You are, of course, an unmitigated bastard.”

Purple and Black is a collection of the military dispatches sent back and forth between the new Roman Emperor Nicephorus and his best friend Phormio, who has reluctantly taken charge of the military at Nico’s insistence. Nico is appointing his friends to the important government positions because the empire has gone through seventy-seven emperors in the last one hundred years — all but a handful of them dying painful deaths. Official business of the Empire is written in purple ink, but there is enough room in the dispatch tubes for one extra sheet of paper, and here, written in pedestrian black, we learn the true story behind the official business. The novella is actually printed in purple and black ink.

One of the delights of being a reviewer is being given a book by an author I have never read before and finding a gem. I giggled and snickered through many of the letters, and I laughed until I had tears rolling down my cheeks at one point. K.J. Parker unerringly captures the relationship between two college buddies who are thrust into situations for which they were not prepared. Nico becomes emperor because his father, uncles, and older brothers all killed each other in a civil war. Phormio is a political philosopher and a college instructor, so he leads the military from a text book. Many of the letters cover the darker territory of wartime tragedies, but Purple and Black's tone swings back and forth between lighthearted teasing and weighty affairs of state, and Parker manages the transitions seamlessly.

I thoroughly enjoyed Purple and Black. Though the big reveal was obvious a mile away, the way it was handled by the characters added a level of heartbreaking reality to the story. In this short volume, Parker wrestles with the issues of idealism, pragmatism, friendship, loyalty and power in such an interesting, entertaining, and complex manner that I’m considering assigning Purple and Black in my next political theory class. (Yes, like Phormio I teach political theory in college, which may have been why I found him so incredibly funny; I could see myself doing the same things he did if I had suddenly been put in charge of the Roman army!)

The true identity of K.J. Parker may be a mystery, but the high quality of her (his?) writing is no secret. I highly recommend Purple and Black for a fast enjoyable read. After this introduction to Parker’s work, I will be definitely seeking out more books by her (him?) in the future. —Ruth Arnell

The Folding Knife — (2010) Publisher: Basso the Magnificent. Basso the Great. Basso the Wise. The First Citizen of the Vesani Republic is an extraordinary man. He is ruthless, cunning, and above all, lucky. He brings wealth, power and prestige to his people. But with power comes unwanted attention, and Basso must defend his nation and himself from threats foreign and domestic. In a lifetime of crucial decisions, he's only ever made one mistake. One mistake, though, can be enough.

The Folding Knife

The back cover blurb describes K.J. Parker’s The Folding Knife like this:

Basso the Magnificent. Basso the Great. Basso the Wise. The First Citizen of the Vesani public is an extraordinary man. He is ruthless, cunning, and above all, lucky. He brings wealth, power, and prestige to his people. But with power comes unwanted attention, and Basso must defend his nation and himself from threats foreign and domestic. In a lifetime of crucial decisions, he’s only ever made one mistake. One mistake, though, can be enough.

I would describe The Folding Knife as the perfect hybrid of Greek tragedy and Shakespearean history. Or like watching Icarus taking off on his doomed flight, knowing that every wingstroke upwards is just additional distance he has to fall. In an alternative world that evokes the Mediterranean region during the first century BC, Basso possesses every imaginable political skill. Brilliant and determined, he revolutionizes the Vesani Empire, and in so doing, puts into motion the wheels of his own destruction.

K.J. Parker is a brilliant writer. Not only does (s)he manage to create a world that, while completely imagined, reads with the attention to detail of forensic anthropology or a historical reconstruction, (s)he does it without ever sacrificing the narrative. The story moves inevitably forward towards the doomed conclusion, but does so without telegraphing what the disaster will be. Basso manages to wrest a lucky resolution from so many seeming disasters that when the final tragedy does occur, it hits like a body blow to the reader as much as to Basso.

Along with an absorbing story, Parker manages to discuss economic policy, the ideology of warfare and empire, and the politics of international relations in a way that is intellectually rigorous while still being based in the narrative. Unlike many authors who write thinly-veiled attacks on current policies, Parker provides a theoretical critique of many ideologies that are relevant to the current financial crisis and American military policy without ever crossing that line into polemic or lecture. Rather (s)he proves the relevance of fantasy, not just as escapism, but as explication for the human condition.

The only criticism I have for The Folding Knife is a small one: a character is trying to explain adapting to foreign cultures and says it is like setting your watch when you get off the boat in a new port, which struck me as anachronistic.

K.J. Parker is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Both this novel and Purple and Black are intellectually satisfying without being pedantic or dogmatic. The prose is crystalline in purity. Each word is important, though the full relevance may not be obvious for several chapters. This is fantasy of the highest order, without actually containing a single fantastical element. There are no elves, dragons, or magic — just an author creating an entirely new world out of thin air, and polishing it to such a mirror sheen that it can be held up to reflect who the reader is at their core. If I could give this book more than five stars, I would. As it is, I highly recommend The Folding Knife to anyone who can read. Ruth Arnell

Blue and Gold — (2010) Publisher: "Well, let me see," I said, as the innkeeper poured me a beer. "In the morning I discovered the secret of changing base metal into gold. In the afternoon,I murdered my wife." For a man as remarkable as the philosopher Saloninus, it's just another day. Of course, we only have his word for it, and Saloninus has been known to be creative with the truth. Little white lies are inevitable expedients when you're one jump ahead of the secret police and on thebrink of one of the greatest discoveries in the history of alchemy. Buy why would a scientist with the world's most generous, forgiving patron be so desperate to run away? And what, if anything, has blue got to do with gold?

Blue and Gold  

Talk about unreliable narrators! If you like that technique, you’re sure to enjoy K.J. Parker’s Blue and Gold. It’s a fast, intense, and dramatic little book that will entertain you for an afternoon.

Saloninus is probably the cleverest alchemist who ever lived (or is he?). After publishing several important (?) papers and losing his tuition money, he drops out of the university and begins a life of crime, then gets commissioned by the prince to figure out how to do two things: 1. Produce the elixir of eternal youth and 2. Turn base metal into gold. During the process, though, he accidentally (?) poisons his beautiful and brilliant wife, so now he’s on the run and he’s pretty stressed-out.

Blue and Gold’s plot is told in a series of scenes that take place in the present and past as Saloninus gradually fills in more and more detail and occasionally corrects his previous misstatements. His scientific, yet unethical (perhaps even sociopathic), voice is fascinating. He doesn’t let us in on some important facts, and every time he adjusts the story we get a fresh — but not necessarily more accurate — perspective. It’s hard to know whether we’re supposed to be for or against Saloninus; all we know is that we can’t trust him. How can you trust someone who knowingly publishes scholarly papers based on faulty logic? And who won’t tell you who he is or what his goals and purposes are? It’s good that this novella is short, because this might not work in a longer story. Fortunately, Saloninus comes clean in the end, so you needn’t worry about an ambiguous conclusion.

I enjoyed the setting of Blue and Gold. It’s that cozy academic scene that I love: writing theses, studying, attending lectures, consulting advisers, gaining life-long friends. I’ve washed plenty of beakers, weighed my share of powdery chemicals, and sat at numerous lab benches. It felt so real here. I don’t know who K.J. Parker is, but (s)he knows what (s)he’s talking about. Throughout Blue and Gold, the science of alchemy is used as a metaphor for the passage of time, spending money, rising and declining social status, personality development, falling in love, and death.

Blue and Gold is a fast-paced, gripping, excellently written story, which will be especially enjoyed by those who appreciate unreliable narrators and who feel nostalgic about academic settings. —Kat Hooper

Blue and Gold

Kat and I both read Blue and Gold, and since she was good and wrote her review first, I won’t recap the plot again since she covered it in her review.

I’ll just join Kat in saying this: K.J. Parker has another gem on her (his?) hands with this little novella. Parker knows how to write an opening line:

“Well, let me see,” I said, as the innkeeper poured me a beer. “In the morning, I discovered the secret of changing base metal into gold. In the afternoon I murdered my wife.”

And from that start, you will plunge headlong into a story that goes through as many transmutations as an alchemist’s potion. Saloninus is an intriguing character that is arrogant, completely unreliable, brilliant, perhaps a little crazy, and fascinating to read about. Every time I thought I finally had the story figured out, Parker would peel away another layer and expose another facet to Saloninus and his treacherous and potentially deadly pursuits. It is not just Saloninus who is an alchemist; Parker is as well. Starting with the fairly base story elements of greed, envy and power, Parker transmutes these into literary gold. And as secretive as an alchemist who discovers the secret to eternal youth, Saloninus is equally secretive in revealing his plans. (Parker’s true identity is also one of the best kept secrets in the publishing industry. Her (his) publishers are contractually required to keep Parker’s true identity and even gender a secret.)

One other unique factor may account for my enjoyment of this book. Saloninus is a professional academic, and much of the story takes place in the hallowed halls of academia and in the science lab, toiling over research. As a college professor who has been known to get lost in the intricacies of data analysis for hours at a time, I could empathize and sympathize with the challenges Saloninus faced. If Parker has not been an academic at some point, she (he) has been closely associated with academics to depict the byzantine politics of academic ego-jousting with the accuracy and precision evident in this story.

I am deducting half a star because I did manage to figure out the secret of the titular blue very early in the story, and because this story did not have the emotional resonance of Parker’s Purple and Black, which actually left me in tears I laughed so hard. I can still recommend this slight volume for a highly enjoyable afternoon that will leave you breathless with delight. —Ruth Arnell

The Hammer — (2011) Publisher: The colony was founded seventy years ago. The plan was originally to mine silver, but there turned out not to be any. Now an uneasy peace exists on the island, between the colonists and the once-noble met'Oc, a family in exile on a remote stronghold for their role in a vaguely remembered civil war. The met'Oc are tolerated, in spite of occasional cattle stealing raids, since they alone possess the weapons considered necessary protection in the event of the island's savages becoming hostile. Intelligent, resourceful, and determined, Gignomai is the youngest brother in the current generation of met'Oc. He is about to realise exactly what is expected of him; and what it means to defy his family.

The Hammer

Gignomai met’Oc is the youngest son of a once-noble family that, decades ago, fell out of favor and was exiled from the Empire’s capital to a remote and comparably primitive colony established 70 years before the start of the novel. The met’Oc family is really twice isolated, as it lives on a plateau separate from the rest of the colony, with which it lives in an uneasy kind of not-quite-peace. While Gig’s older brothers Luso and Stheno have their own responsibilities around the house, Gig has enough free time to get into trouble, including the occasional illicit trip to the colony, where he learns more about how the colonists perceive his family and meets with his friend Furio.
 
The Hammer has an interesting structure, as it’s divided into 4 sections: “Seven Years Before,” “The Year When,” “Seven Years After,” and “Five Years Later.” The first two sections, while quite important, are really long prologues for “Seven Years After,” which takes up most of the book. The section titles refer to an initially mysterious event that changes Gig’s life completely and sets off the main plot of the novel, but it isn’t until late in the book that we find out what this actually was — although perceptive readers may be able to figure some of it out much earlier. As most of the motivations for Gig’s actions derive from this life-changing event, it takes a while before you really understand what’s going on, but luckily The Hammer is so well written that it’s a pleasure to read, regardless of when you pick up on the central mystery.

K.J. Parker has the same gift for smooth, easy-flowing dialogue as Lois McMaster Bujold. The characters always sound realistic and never resort to lecturing each other in full paragraphs. In fact, the rest of Parker’s prose is just as good: The Hammer is simply a blast to read, expertly paced and full of surprising and occasionally funny twists. There’s an odd contrast between the almost cheerful tone of the story and the eventual, much darker revelation about the event that sets off the main plot. K.J. Parker has also mastered the art of showing characters rather than describing them: you learn everything you need to know just by observing their actions without needing the author to spell things out for you. Sounds simple, but it’s amazing how few authors pull it off.

The setting of The Hammer is intriguing, despite — or maybe because of — its being only vaguely described. The world seems to be on the cusp of an industrial revolution (or more correctly, on the verge of re-discovering pre-industrial techniques and scientific advances that were lost in an unspecified past). While the main political intrigue, which led to the exile of the met’Oc family, happened well before the start of the novel, there are many tantalizing hints of what’s currently happening in the capital (called “Home”) and the rest of the Empire. Complicating matters, there are also some mysterious indigenous people living near the Empire’s colony. The Hammer is one of those novels that suggest there may be many more stories to be told about its world, and I for one would jump at the chance to read them.

Reinforcing this impression is the fact that several of the side characters are so fascinating, and have such an interesting story arc, that they could easily each have been main characters in another novel. The stories of Luso, Furio, Furio’s uncle, and especially Gig’s father are just as captivating as Gig’s, despite the fact that (aside from Furio and to a lesser extent his uncle) they happen mostly off-camera. It would be tremendous if K.J. Parker were to write another novel set in this fantasy universe, but focusing on the life of Gig’s father before the start of the story.

As for the main character, Gig is a great choice: he’s mischievous, driven, and has a fascinating, analytical mind. There are some sections from the points of view of his friend Furio and Furio’s uncle (the involuntary mayor-by-default of the colony), but Gig’s the real star of the story. The final sections of the novel lead to a number of difficult questions about morality and exactly to what extent the end justifies the means. You’ll end up reconsidering much of what you’ve read before (e.g. the way Gig protects some of the family’s chickens) in an entirely different light, making this a novel that very much rewards a second reading.

Put all of this together and you get The Hammer: an entertaining but deceptively deep fantasy novel that should win K.J. Parker many new fans. Highly recommended. —Stefan Raets