Academic Exercises by K.J. Parker

[[deleted user]]

This is our discussion topic for our February SF/F story collection....


Academic Exercises by K.J. Parker

[[deleted user]]

Academic Exercises collects the following stories by K.J. Parker:


A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong (@Subterranean)
A Rich, Full Week (@Clarkesworld)
Amor Vincit Omnia (@Subterranean)
On Sieges (@Subterranean)
Let Maps to Others (@Subterranean)
A Room with a View
Cutting Edge Technology (@Subterranean)
Illuminated (@Subterranean)
Purple & Black
Rich Men’s Skins (@Subterranean)
The Sun and I (@Subterranean)
One Little Room an Everywhere (@Nightshade)
Blue & Gold

(I've included links to those stories which can be read online for free, for those without the book who want to join in.)

[Ben]

The three non-fiction articles are well worth checking out and they are all available free from the sub press website

Rich Men's Skein's http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine...

On Seiges - https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...

Cutting Edge Technology
https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...

Short of faking it as a US person people in the UK and elsewhere will struggle to get the full book. Copies on Amazon are going at £450 (almost $700) and the ebook isnt available. Wish Sub Press would change their policy on international rights for ebooks it really makes them far less inclusive to international readers.

Though as only 3 stories are not available online for free there is still plenty of opportunity to join in the discussions.

There was an interesting review on Tor http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/08/book... which is worth reading in whole but here is a key quote "Throughout the collection the sense of magic is pervasive, a gross departure from Parker’s novel length work which seems more historical fiction than fantasy. Likewise, nearly every story in Academic Exercises is told in the first person, a perspective unused in Parker’s novels. Both of these identifying markers between the different lengths of Parker’s work speaks to the freedom short fiction affords. Magic and voice allow Parker to cut corners, packing in character, setting, and plot into a tiny space without compromising the depth of the story"

The only story I have read thus far was the magic free The Sun and I which didnt give me the sense of wonder or enchantment that I look for in fantasy (nor was it a rollicking adventure) but it was a smart, witty tale that I still very much enjoyed reading.

[Jim]

Thanks, Ben. I'm going to post these links on a history group. They're very interesting.

[Michele]

I'm just starting this and I'll tell you up front that I am not a short story person, but I have liked KJ Parker's novels so that's why I suggested it.

So, my views might be a bit skewed. Please don't wait for prompts from me to discuss stuff, though I'll try :)

[[deleted user]]

Ben wrote: "The three non-fiction articles are well worth checking out and they are all available free from the sub press website..."

Ditto the thanks, Ben. I added those links to my original table of content. (I was trying to figure out how I missed them, finally realized I looked them up on "Free Speculative Fiction Online". :)

I'm just getting started reading the collection. I've read a couple of these before, in Hugo packets & Clarkesworld I think. (I don't didn't read Subterranean noise much as I should have, I guess.)

[Ben]

I really enjoyed the sword article and I agree with the Tor review in the sense that it (deliberately) reads a little like fiction. I can see that many writers would lack the knowledge, time and idea to produce something as remarkable (compared to most of the Non-ficiton I read in magazines) but there are some that could and anyway if the genre writers wont produce interesting genre interest non-fic then why not outsource further to other communities such as historical/academic. I have ranted a few places about the Non-fiction articles in Uncanny Magazine and the same can be said about some of the NF on other online magazines where there is bland, under-researched, purposeless, uninventive, by the numbers non-fiction rather than have its curation be given the same care that the fiction gets. Strange Horizons is an obvious exception and Sub Press did some interesting experiments in terms of their non-fiction content from which we are three Parker articles the richer.

I missed them at first G33z3r - but it is so unusual to have non-fiction (other than story notes or an introduction) in a fiction collection its easy missed.

Speaking of non-fiction in a story collection what do people think of this? Personally I like it here where the non-fiction is strong enough and relevant enough to stand up on its own. Similarly I have enjoyed some Asimov collections where there has been non-fiction. The short stories have seen like explorations of an idea and the non-fiction articles blended in very well with that. I liked it less in what i have dipped into Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances where there are lots of rather weak poems interspersed with the stories.

Otherwise (odd poems aside) I can only think of Stay by John Clute (not read) that combined fiction and non-fiction in a collection.

[[deleted user]]

Ben wrote: "I have ranted a few places about the Non-fiction articles in Uncanny Magazine and the same can be said about some of the NF on other online magazines where there is bland, under-researched, purposeless, uninventive, by the numbers non-fiction rather than have its curation be given the same care that the fiction gets...."

I often enjoy the "science fact" section of Analog Magazine. I guess the writing is straightforward (you would probably term it bland and uninventive :), but I do think they are generally adequately researched. Sometimes they're simply "explainers". (Last month's was just some physics of orbits, relatively basic stuff, yet Jason Hough somehow managed to write The Darwin Elevator trilogy without understanding it. :)

But especially in the area of science, there are lots of non-fiction magazines such as Science, Scientific American, Astronomy, etc. Those are edited by people well versed in the sciences who can best select well-researched as well as well-written articles.

I haven't read Parker's nonfiction yet, but fantasy and non-fiction seem almost contradictions:) I can see related non-fiction articles interesting, though the subject matter is more ancillary than with science fiction. In science fiction, everybody uses the same science (at least until they get to the fiction part); but in fantasy everyone's entitled to their own magic/supernatural interpretation. You can write an article about the history of elves in European folklore, but you can't actually insist any particular fantasy writer sticks to any of it. While you can write about medieval European armor or weapons, because so many authors use the faux-European medieval setting, even there fantasy authors don't have to accurately reflect actual history.


Ben wrote: "Speaking of non-fiction in a story collection what do people think of this? Personally I like it here where the non-fiction is strong enough and relevant enough to stand up on its own...."

The last time I read Robot Visions / Robot Dreams, I just skimmed all the science articles, because they're old. The interest there was mostly historical, as in "this is the science they were talking about back in 1952".


I think I'll get back to you on this entire subject after I've finished Academic Exercises .

[Ben]

Just to clarify I wasnt talking about either Analog or Asimovs - I dont subscribe to either of them. I really like the content in Asimovs but I find the interface that the magazine comes in on my kindle confusing (authors identified when looking at issue on kindle until I click on story).

Its more the "filler" articles on online mags I was talking about. I have enjoyed fact articles in very old issues of Analog in the past.

Although it is a bit of a tangent I think when I read Asimov to and extent I am reading the history of the field - reading it with todays eyes it can often feel (as much old SF can) as a little quait as so much has changed since then. I like reading his non-fiction voice and I think it gives us something of an insight into his fiction and him as a person (and I have just found myself enjoying reading it).

[[deleted user]]

A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong ★★★★

Well, I'm off to a good start with this collection. I thought this was a splendid story! It drew me in from the start, all the while wondering why I found it so compelling.

It's not really a work of fantasy as I usually think of it. It's set in an apparently fictional country, but it could quite easily have been dropped into a Renaissance Italian city state without much effort. Two composers, a little like Salieri and Mozart in Amadeus, one, the professor, wanting desperately to succeed and the other, Subtilius, gentleman scoundrel, producing genius effortlessly.

Subtilius taunts his former teacher thus: "all that knowledge, all that skill and technique, and no wings. You couldn’t soar, so you spent your life trying to invent a flying machine. I learned to fly by jumping off cliffs.”

The story narration is provided by the professor (who I don't think is ever given a name?) He hates himself for his own inability to rise to that of his former pupil, and he also hates himself because he recognizes how he can be self-serving, so easy to tempt. He has quite natural flaws, the way he wrestles with his conscience... and sometimes wins. His recognition of those flaws makes him a quite sympathetic narrator.

I loved the writing, moving forward effortlessly with some really lovely turns of phrase. ("Segibert could best be described as a series of brief intervals between drinks.") And I liked the way the characters were so scrupulously polite to each other.

I greatly enjoyed the story. If only it had a wizard or elf or something to add that certain je ne sais quoi.... :)

[Ben]

I understand that some of the other stories in this volume have this quoi though I have only read the "realistic" A Small Price... and The Sun and I

- My feelings on it are very similar G33z3r - great, fun reading experience although without either world-building, the weird, the strange, the magical, the other it doesnt really provide a lot of the sense of wonder/ fantastical that I look for in a fantasy.

However taken on its own terms I think the story works well on its own terms, I am glad I read it and I will very happily go on to read more short work by Parker.

There are a few ways in which I could nitpick the story - not sure I entirely buy what the story seems to be saying about the creative process (the less you care the better you do) and the narrator seems to have a very modern voice (as I found in The Sun and I) but as I enjoyed the voice I can happliy forgive this although it did contribute to me not feeling transported to another world.

[[deleted user]]

Re: A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong (continued)

I also want to mention that I got a smile from the occasional side references to "the old duke", where "old" is used in the context of "former" rather than simply aged. I highlighted several on my Kindle:

"...like a duke scattering coins to the crowd from a balcony. Of course, the old duke used to have the coins heated in a brazier first."

"In the old duke’s time, they used to punish traitors by shutting them up in a cage with a lion. As an exquisite refinement of malice, they used to feed the lion to bursting point first. That way, it wasn’t hungry again for the best part of a day."

"The old duke used to punish debtors by giving them a head start and then turning his wolfhounds loose."

[Ben]

Not having the collection I have even less reason to read the stories in order (not that I often do but they do all seem to be set in the same world thus far)-

Amor Vincit Omnia - wizards dueling - always a fun, if quite familiar premise. As ever Parker gives it plenty of humor and irony and we do get to see characters in someways at their worst. Unlike the other two the narrator was not the protagonist. Enjoyable but somehow, despite the extra magic, I didnt connect with this one as much as the other two. Possibly this is because the more magical it was the less the modernistic language and dialogue worked for me. Its a tricky balance because write in cod-Renaissance style and it would be irksome and hard to read, write in a more modern way and it creates a disconnect. Still was a quick, entertaining read that though treading on familiar ground didnt feel too over familiar.

[[deleted user]]

As an aside: Last year, Tor.com announced they were creating a new publishing imprint for novella and short stories (beyond the weekly they publish online for free.)

Today they announced their inaugural lineup, which will start in September with a new KJ Parker novella, "Last Witness". (See, that did eventually become semi-relevant to this topic! :)

[Ben]

I was just about to post that G33z3r although I was also going to mention Neil Clarke's new magazine Forever which will be a reprint magazine with 1 novella and 2 short stories an issue.

The Tor list already looks impressive - I hope the ebooks are either cheap or that you can get a group rate because I could happily read most of the ones listed. With Sub Press stopping their online magazine last year this goes some way to making up for that.

Back to Parker - I do think he/she starts the stories I have read really well. Gets you straight into the world, and the narrative in a very compelling, clear and digestible way.

[[deleted user]]

Amor Vincit Omnia ★★★

A battle between wizards, one a practitioner from the prestigious Studium, and the other a natural, wild talent gone rogue.

The narration is spot on, though Parker uses 3rd person for the first time in this collection. (Some of us do read things in order.) Parker leavens the story with a good deal of humor early on, then switches to a slightly grimmer mood by the end.

And as with the previous stories, everyone seems quite polite and talkative, even when they're trying to kill each other.


Ben wrote (re: Birdsong): "not sure I entirely buy what the story seems to be saying about the creative process (the less you care the better you do) ..."

There is a similar thought in this story, be the assertion that raw, natural talent is better: "An untrained might well succeed where an adept would fail, because the untrained often possess a degree of intuitive power that tends to atrophy during the course of formal education."

[Ben]

With birdsong it more the "the less your try the less you care the better" that didnt feel 100% true - though true enough I was ok with it just didnt raise the story to a wow level for me. Still i take on board your point that they are similar.

I was wondering about dueling wizards and wondered what other examples there are of short fiction involving battling wizards that people would recommend to me.

[[deleted user]]

Ben wrote: "I was wondering about dueling wizards and wondered what other examples there are of short fiction involving battling wizards that people would recommend to me."

I'm surprised I can't think of a bunch of titles for Wizard versus Wizard short fiction. For novels, there is lots of stuff such as Harry Potter and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I can think of a couple of bad short stories.

But the only one I can think of as being worth reading at the moment is Bone and Jewel Creatures by Elizabeth Bear.

[[deleted user]]

A Rich, Full Week ★★★

This is a good enough fantasy story that's close to being relatively conventional short fantasy fiction. Unlike its predecessor, it has magic, or rather mental powers of natural philosophy: "there’s no such thing as magic; just science where we haven’t quite figured out how it works yet." A traveling psychic healer deals with two cases in two different villages. (At first these almost seem like unrelated short stories featuring the same character, but eventually it ties the two together.)

The protagonist and narrator is a marginal member of his organization, 207th from a class of 220, and is appropriately humble and makes a sympathetic character. I found his self-effacing mental narration entertaining.

At one point I thought this might be the earliest of Parker's Studium stories, because it has little more flavor of defining the Studiums purpose. But according to ISFDB it's the most recent story, first published in this collection. So, that's the endof my theory of the virtues of reading the stories in a collection in order. :)

[[deleted user]]

On Sieges

This is the first of the non-fiction articles in this collection. A brief outline of the siege through history and siege techniques through World War I. It's interesting enough, though as I mentioned before, sword and sorcery isn't necessarily historical fiction; Fantasy elements can overwhelm historical reality. Still, as I recall there was a fairly lengthy siege in The Dragonbone Chair, a fairly low-magic sword and sorcery novel, as well as a couple in The Lord of the Rings.

I thought this was an interesting passage:

"I explained how such guns were made to one of the best blacksmiths in Europe and he didn’t believe me; not possible, he said, you couldn’t get that much metal up to an even welding heat, and even if you could, you wouldn’t have enough time to form sound welds. As for heating up the bands and then shrinking them onto the barrel, forget it. Too much heat, not enough time. Couldn’t be done. But it was, and the welded-and-hooped cannon made rubble out of walls that had defied assault for centuries."

That's a pretty bold assertion/contradition by Parker without citations. Parker's identity is a bit of a mystery. This suggests he's at least a pretty dedicated amateur historian.I don't think I'd contradict a blacksmith based on reading Wikipedia.

[Ben]

In terms of a Rich Full Week - this was first published in 2010 in a Strahan and Anders Collection Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery. However the story was revised (how much or how little I dont know) for this Parker collection and it was the revised version that clarkesworld published

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...

So it is one of the first...

the database is a bit confusing though on this point so I can see how you ended up in the wrong part of the database (2nd version of the story).

[Bryn]

Seen The Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) in a couple of the stories now. Is this a thing with her?

[Bryn]

read The Sun and I. ****

Wry. Impoverished intellectuals in a Late Antiquey world invent a religion, which gets away on them. Motto: motive is irrelevant. The effects are better than what they intend, and by behaving holily the 1st person helps the unfortunate. Did they invent the god, or did the god use them to invent himself? Nicely ironic, while being almost unusually non-cynical about the beginings of religions. In a funny way.

[Bryn]

Gliding through her non-fiction, which turns out to be military history: sieges, swords, armour. In Rich Man's Skins,

Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur is a glorious evocation of what might have been. About three-quarters of the book is blow-by-blow accounts of imaginary tournaments... and (provided they’ve got their armour on) nobody gets killed or maimed or seriously inconvenienced; the most debilitating injury Lancelot suffers is when he’s accidentally shot in the arse by a lady archer.

Beg to differ. Lancelot suffers grievous injury quite often, as do the tournamenters. For a heartbreaking example, Balin and Balan hew each other to bloody near-death, and only when they take their helmets off recognise each other as brothers. I can't talk military history but I love my Malory.

[Michele]

I made it through the first story (I have a definite mental block when it comes to short stories!), Birdsong, and I really liked it overall. Since the book is titled "Academic Exercises" I'm wondering if every story has some element of teacher/student to it.

I've heard artists say that 1. Trying too hard leads to focusing on the wrong things, which leads to failure or less than stellar work

and 2. That misery can fuel talent, if it's channeled properly.

I guess the Professor here is not miserable enough and trying too hard, until he finally stops caring.

I wonder about the ending, I guess because despite the Professor being the protagonist, all the sympathy seems to lie with Subtiltius (for me anyway) even though he was kind of a jerk.

If you have great talent, are you morally obligated to devote your life to it?

Also, I couldn't not escape comparing/contrasting this to the movie Amadeus.

[Ben]

Of the stories I have read (3) none of the characters are massively likeable and it is hard to completely root for any of them - In some ways this can make it more interesting as they are quite realistic but I would possibly struggle if the stories were longer with this.

[[deleted user]]

Michele wrote: "I have a definite mental block when it comes to short stories!..."

I always figure why read one long 800 page tome when in the same time you can read a dozen stories, visit a dozen different places, and meet dozens of different characters! :)


Michele wrote: "Since the book is titled "Academic Exercises" I'm wondering if every story has some element of teacher/student to it...."

All of the fiction I've sampled so far has been said in the same alternate world as Birdsong and involves people at the "Studium", an academic center of study (for which one branch of scientific study involves what we would usually call magic but which members of the Studium refer to as "science whose mechanisms we just don't fully understand yet.")

[[deleted user]]

Let Maps to Others ★★★★

This is the 2nd World Fantasy Award-winning novella in the collection, and the only story in the collection that I'd read before picking up Academic Exercises. It was a pleasure to re-read it, though. Like Birdsong, the other WFA-winning novella, it doesn't actually have a magic or supernatural element. Quoiless,

Again, it has two competing scholars from the Studium, each historians who have devoted their career to researching the 300-year-old story of a lost land and the explorer who founded but never publicly disclosed its location. And again, there is a patina of civility between these rivals, one that finally breaks down in academic deceit. There are couple of really delicious moments of one or the other gloating in his (temporary) victory. Especially (view spoiler)[Carchedonius tossing the long-sought after ancient manuscript into the fire rather than have it proved his rival correct. (hide spoiler)]

And yet the victor doesn't escape unscathed.

As Ben commented, all the characters here are flawed in one way or another, and Parker has a couple of nice twists to throw at the protagonist and narrator.

[[deleted user]]

Cutting Edge Technology

More information about swords and I really needed :) And it doesn't say a word about how to enchant them.

Bryn wrote: "Gliding through her non-fiction, which turns out to be military history: sieges, swords, armour. In Rich Man's Skins,..."

Also relevant to the effectiveness of armor versus swords, in Parker's notes appended to "Cutting Edge Technology" he discusses modern theories that medieval armor was impervious to medieval swords, and points out numerous discrepancies, including remains of soldiers on battlefields suggesting most died of cutting wounds.

So Parker seems either uncertain as to armor's efficacy, or Parker's views have evolved between articles.

By the way, Bryn, since you used "her", are you sure that's Parker's gender, Or are you just using it as a gender-neutral pronoun? The Wikipedia article on Parker is quite mysterious, but I wouldn't mind replacing a few "Parkers" with "him" or "her" if I knew which to use. It's like writing about Lock In's protagonist. :)

[Bryn]

G33z3r wrote: "By the way, Bryn, since you used "her", are you sure that's Parker's gender, Or are you just using it as a gender-neutral pronoun? ..."

I haven't a clue. Was led by the author page here that says molecules of evidence suggest a she; but s/he doesn't want us to know and that's groovy by me. I thought, in the interests of that, I'd have her/him called both in the thread.

I'll have to read the swords one more closely. I didn't know there was a debate; I swear they hack each up in the fiction of the time, which can't be too unrealistic??

[[deleted user]]

Ben wrote: "people in the UK and elsewhere will struggle to get the full book. Copies on Amazon are going at £450 (almost $700) and the ebook isnt available. Wish Sub Press would change their policy on international rights for ebooks it really makes them far less inclusive to international readers."

FYI, Academic Exercises is part of the extended Subterranean Press Humble Bundle. Those are offered DRM-free, and I don't see any restriction on US. The $15 to unlock Academic Exercises is twice its US retail, but if you're interested in any of the other books in the bundle....

[David]

I live in the Uk and purchased the subterranean press humble bundle, 17 ebooks, for $16 last evening. Included besides this collection by K. J. Parker were great collections by Jack Vance and Harlan Ellison as well great novellas by a range of authors such as Connie Willis. This was a tremendous bargain - I look at the subterranean offerings via their weekly newsletter and wish I had the money to buy their hardcovers and lament that so few of their titles have been available in the UK as ebooks. The humble bundle site states that more ebooks from Subterranean will added to the bundle next Wednesday

[Bryn]

Also has Caitlín R. Kiernan's The Ape's Wife and Other Stories that we group-read in January.

And as they say down the bottom,
Read them anywhere (even internationally!)... Even more exciting, the majority of these titles are now available for the very first time outside of the US.

[Bryn]

(off topic) The fact that The Jack Vance Treasury is 'over 230,000 words' has persuaded me to bite the bullet. Also Harlan Ellison: The Top of the Volcano has 23 stories, 530 pages in hardcover.

[Bryn]

A Rich, Full Week

I enjoyed this one too. I don't know how widely the dead ride on rooves but it brought fond memories for me of The Saga of Grettir the Strong where they do, in just such isolated farmsteads. I guess I like my wizardry psychological-metaphorical so quite liked the approach to that. Another failure in life as a protag. In 'The Sun and I' the group of them were only accidental successes. A couple of funny sentences.

[Bryn]

I also kind of liked that we didn't get an explanation as to why the dead decide to ride on rooves. Bored or what? Lack of an answer added to the realistic-magic take. The sheep theory sounded good, if the houses are sunk enough for them to jump.

[Bryn]

Cutting Edge Tech

I'm on the same page with Parker:

(1) Actually, it’s a moot point whether swords in the hands of ancient swordsmen could cut mail and cleave helmets. Modern researchers say no, but back in the 13th century they were pretty sure they could, to judge from contemporary literature and art.

Historians, huh. They need to read more tales.

[Ben]

For anyone who hasnt bought this either because they live outside US or because well they just haven't this is now part of a pay what you want humble bundle that Sub Press are doing:-

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

Note this also includes The Ape's Wife (Jan pick) for those who were not able to pick it up.

[[deleted user]]

A Room with a View ★★★

This is the first story that isn't available free somewhere online.

This is also the first story that attempts to explain any of the science of the "not magic just science we don't understand yet" powers that are manifested in a couple of other stories. Again there is a student/teacher relationship, with a young woman who doesn't understand "rooms". (In a couple of the previous stories, practitioners have alluded to the "entering the 3rd room" or some other such number.) So naturally, our protagonist needs to explain it, "Rooms for Dummies" style.

The protagonist is again rather flawed, a self-admitted slacker and bad teacher. "I tried to imagine what I'd do in this situation if I were an ordinary decent, compassionate human being." :)

I actually thought the story, which is relatively short compared to the other stories as well, suffered from the extra exposition (even though they were part of the teaching that was inherent in the story.) Interesting plot, though.

[[deleted user]]

The Sun and I ★★★1/2★

Bryn wrote: "Impoverished intellectuals in a Late Antiquey world invent a religion, which gets away on them. Motto: motive is irrelevant. ... Did they invent the god, or did the god use them to invent himself? Nicely ironic, while being almost unusually non-cynical about the beginnings of religions. In a funny way. ..."

Late Antiquity, huh? The previous Studium stories all seem very Renaissance to me, so I guess I reflexively dumped this in the same temporal category, but clearly this predates the Studium stories (which have occasional references to the "Invincible Sun", though not in a particularly reverent sense.)

It does have that wry sense of humor.


Ben wrote: "The only story I have read thus far was the magic free The Sun and I which didn't give me the sense of wonder or enchantment that I look for in fantasy (nor was it a rollicking adventure) but it was a smart, witty tale that I still very much enjoyed reading. "

For some reason it put me in mind of Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King" type of adventure story.

[Ben]

I see where you are going with the Kipling reference. I enjoyed The Sun and I but it didnt leave me rushing out to read more of his work though I always planned and was very happy to return to it. Although they are kind of all set in the same world I think his stories work best when intersected with other writings and a bit of time and space between them. That way they seem fresh and are possibly most satisfying.

With the non-fiction articles I see them as their own sort of narrative/ arguments in which truth is stretched or embellished to make his points. I dont think he intends parts to be taken completely literally - e.g. the Mort de Arthur point Bryn made but rather they show his point in an amusing way. This is not a balanced accurate history but it is not trying to be. For instance with the swords article I am pretty sure if I dug into the deepest recesses of my minimalistic historical knowledge I might be able to find exceptions to some of his generalisations but I think there is still truth and interest there and I think they make a very welcome addition to the volume.

[Bryn]

G33z3r wrote: "Late Antiquity, huh? The previous Studium stories all seem very Renaissance to me, so I guess I reflexively dumped this in the same temporal category, but clearly this predates the Studium stories (which have occasional references to the "Invincible Sun", though not in a particularly reverent sense.)"

That was the 1st I read. I'm now going for a Late Antiquity/Renaissance blend. Unless Sol Invictus, in this world, was the winning religion, instead of Christianity? Let Maps To Others: age of exploration. Enjoyed the semi-familiarity of the world in this one -- heaps of jumbled names to half-recognise, and riffs on our age of exploration. I'm starting to like the world she's put together -- and the fact that we see pieces of it in different stories.

On period, this was funny: (view spoiler)["Who was it said that the only thing sadder than a battle lost is a battle won? Not my period, so I'm not going to bother checking the reference." Well, I thought 'not my period' was funny because that's claimed by the Duke of Wellington. (hide spoiler)]

The narration worked well in this one. More irony on (our) history. Another **** and getting into them more, because they add to each other. Like those interconnections. Again, perhaps, as in 'The Sun and I', Sol Invictus and/or coincidence mucks with his head and proves himself more real than he imagines? The god plays jokes, as he says along the way.

[Bryn]

on message 7 from Ben.
Actually, as a supporter of independent scholarship & its place in the world, I hear what you're saying with this, and appreciate the non-fiction's inclusion. Genre writers can certainly pick up an expertise (I noticed when she mentioned the casting of cannons in the last story) and why not give them an outlet? You say hers are told like a story; that sets me off on the thought that genre writers are going to bring a perspective that non-writer historians won't.

I think I've met non-fic and fic in collections before, now I just have to think of where.

[[deleted user]]

Illuminated ★★★
"I have no problem with women. Bearing in mind the disadvantages they suffer from, many of them do remarkably well."

Parker reprises the teacher/student relationship story. From the structure, it almost seems the narrator might be the same teacher who appeared in "A Room with a View", though he is teaching a different female apprentice in this story. (Of course, it probably isn't intended to be the same character.)

The story is a little reminiscent of those Russian nesting dolls; there's a bit of recursion going on. The moral to the story this time is that teachers aren't always as wise as they think they are.

The story would have worked a little better if the main character had been a little more sympathetic, perhaps?

[[deleted user]]

I liked this book very much, despite the fact I'm not particularly fond of antiheroes (my favourite antihero probably will remain forever Gully Foyle in "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester and he is really far from the strategic analytical minds imagined by Parker) and this book is practically all about them. What impressed me more was the particular style of this author: there's almost a total lack of descriptions of settings and characters, maybe because K.J. Parker uses a set of well-known conventions the typical fantasy reader already knows, but despite this the writing is really vivid. I think this book can be appreciated more by readers who like strategy and analytic thinking and are not scared of cynicism. I also liked the parallelism between "The art of War" (a book exalting deception as first choice weapon instead of using pure brute force) and the strategies the characters in these stories use to overcome their difficulties.

[[deleted user]]

Alexandra wrote: "there's almost a total lack of descriptions of settings and characters, maybe because K.J. Parker uses a set of well-known conventions the typical fantasy reader already knows, but despite this the writing is really vivid...."

I agree the setting is left very vague, even though Parker seems to be reusing it in all his stories of this collection. The main thing we know the setting is there is a Studium which teaches a variety of skills, including music (e.g. Birdsong) and magic ("science we don't understand yet"). As for the rest, it's pretty much up to our imagination to fillet in however we want. Clearly Parker is a story and character person. (And by characterizing personality; as you mentioned, there's not much in the way of physical description of any of the dramatis personae.) Not much for world building outside the bare necessities of each short story.

[[deleted user]]

Bryn wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "By the way, Bryn, since you used "her", are you sure that's Parker's gender, Or are you just using it as a gender-neutral pronoun? ..."

I haven't a clue. Was led by the author page here that says molecules of evidence suggest a she; but s/he doesn't want us to know and that's groovy by me. I thought, in the interests of that, I'd have her/him called both in the thread...."

So, now it's known, KJ Parker is a "he": Tom Holt. (Interview on Pornokitsch)

[Bryn]

Wot?
Joke, right?

[Bryn]

Hmmm. His Alexander at the World's End was witty & brilliant, but oh so different.

[[deleted user]]

Bryn wrote: "Wot? Joke, right?"

I don't think so. <checks calendar> Not April 1.....

I believe Orbit (SF publishing imprint of Hachette) orchestrated the revelation as part of the promotion of Parker's new serialized book, The Two of Swords.