Boy, do I have a tasty box of treats for you today. Under My Skin, by K.J. Parker, is a collection of novellas and novelettes all taking place in the same collective universe and focusing on the subject of people who are not what they seem. Parker is a master of short stories and even wrote one of the site’s favorites, Prosper’s Demon, which is included in this collection if you haven’t read it. This ever-delivering collection is 700 pages of hard-hitting short fiction that gives you the goods on every single page. And best yet, there isn’t a single bad story in here.

Under My Skin sells a very special brand of magical snake oil that I have come to think of as Parker’s specialty. These stories are populated by con men who believe their own cons, good kings of dubious intent, magicians who don’t do magic, and messiahs who don’t offer redemption. In each of these stories, nothing is what it seems and everything will surprise you. 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.

On top of each of these stories being funny, witty, and surprising – their interconnectedness makes the collection feel like a quilt that slowly weaves into a larger story. As you cavort with each charlatan you begin to see a beautiful and grotesque picture of the world that forges these false men and why they are so common. Everything comes together under the umbrella theme of falsehoods and the many different ways lies can be used and interpreted. Some are your traditional con men, but others don’t even realize that they aren’t who they say they are. Some are simply unreliable narrators and others tell the truth completely for all that it helps anyone. But what is the truth when there are so many ways to interpret it and bend it to your beckoning? It is an incredible piece of fiction on every ground.

I could spend pages talking about each and every short in the collection. As mentioned, we already wrote a full review of Prosper’s Demon. Each novella has a clear guiding star, a point that the story is always headed toward. There is a brilliant efficiency to Parker’s tales that feel like a master engineer fitting together cogs to build a complicated machine. Parker also plays a lot with narrative methodology which is some of my favorite things to see in novels and shorts. One story is told entirely through letters back and forth between people. Another is told via historical analysis of texts around the figure at the time. Each method feels perfectly matched to the story’s subject matter and delivers its punch with precision.

The best part is the characters, each more memorable than the last. They each live such interesting, and often terrible, lives that it forgets them into individuals with truly unique worldviews. Reading Under My Skin felt like trying on the lives of people I could never imagine and opening my mind to entirely new ways to think about the world. Parker’s ability to play in the margins of morality is fascinating. He is a master of crafting the discussion to manipulate your affections for his cast like putty, making you feel whatever he thinks will make the story stick. Love, hate, wonder, terror, lust, envy, horror, disbelief, anger, there isn’t an emotion I can think of that Parker didn’t cycle me through for his devious ends.

When I usually review collections of short stories I pick my favorites and use them as examples of what the collection has to offer. Yet, when I went to pick the best of this incredible lot I found myself unable to do so, they are all amazing. Under My Skin is one of the first anthologies where I loved every single story inside it, and I ecstatically recommend you check it out for yourself.

Rating: Under My Skin – 10/10
-Andrew

I love KJ Parker and I probably would have loved this book, but the format in the copy I got was so screwed up I couldn't read two pages in a row. Extremely frustrating. I wanted to write a review of this book, but I just couldn't physically read it.

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

This wonderful collection from KJ Parker is fantastic. Sometimes collections can be hit or miss, but I really enjoyed every story in here. As a book nerd I found my favorite was the novella "Mightier than the Sword" which is simply phenomenal. I highly recommend this collection and look forward to more work by Parker.

This was another fantastic short story collection! There were several stories that had been previously published but also some new ones. I didn't really find any new favorites in here, but still a very solid collection as always. This one included more of the metaphysical side of Parker's works.

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.

I never regret reading anything by KJ Parker, and this short story/novella collection is worth the price of admission, even just for BEAUTIFUL LIFE, MIGHTER THAN THE SWORD, AND BIG SCORE. SWORD is my second favorite novella of Parker's behind only PURPLE AND BLACK and maaaaaybe BLUE AND GOLD. I love its themes and play on that famous phrase. LIFE is tragic and heartbreaking and also super gross at one part, and SCORE is a wondeful coda on the Saloninus trilogy. Parker continues to be one of my favorite authors.

K. J. Parker’s short fiction is made for reflection for the reader as well as, it seems, an exercise on reflection for the writer. The stories and novellas that make up Under My Skin range from the political and social to the supernatural and fantastical, all of which were joys to read.

"The Return of the Pig"
The catalyst of this story is that the unnamed narrator has to go deal with a revenant, who turns into a pig. Much like many, if not all, of Parker's stories, there is a twist, and this one involves the quest for immortality.

"The Thought That Counts"
The title of this story doesn't really give you an idea of what the story is about: it's about an(other) unnamed narrator meeting a self-proclaimed artist, Sinneva, on a carriage ride only to later find her on trial for murder because she painted the victims' portraits. I found this one so compelling and intriguing! It was akin to a courtroom drama, but in bit size form.

"Mightier than the Sword"
This novella uses the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword" as its jumping off point, exploring this world where an empire's power is based on its libraries and its books, and following the emperor who is trying to protect them.

"All Love Excelling"
"All Love Excelling" is probably my favorite work out of the collection! This is the story of a (surprise, surprise!) unnamed narrator telling the story of his father, who is this Messiah-like figure with miraculous abilities to heal the sick and bring back the dead. It's the story of the family behind the figure. But, with almost all of Parker's stories, there is a twist: it was incredible to read.

"Many Mansions"
"Many Mansions" was a close second favorite in this collection. The unnamed narrator goes to investigate reports of a supposed witch in a small town, only to find that the reports are accurate and that she is much more powerful than he is. This story builds on the Room "magic" that Parker has explored in other works, which I never not enjoy!

"My Beautiful Life"
This novella is follows a--say it with me!--unnamed narrator as he recounts his life from nothing to the highest political heights.

"Stronger"
"Stronger" is the story of a man who lives in a world where humans are oppressed by the superior "bulls". In a dystopian-like settings where every year twelve men and women are rounded up by lottery among the humans to be sent to the Black Island where, they are told, they are sacrificed to this god-like creature so that the bulls can appease it. The story follows the unnamed narrator as he works his way to the island to get the love of his life back. Really, really great! I would read more of this if Parker wrote it!

"Portrait of the Artist"
Using elements of "The Thought That Counts", this story follows an unnamed artist (a woman!) as she paints portraits of rich people in order to try and make money to pay off her family's debts. Simple story but incredibly moving in a weird way to me.

"Prosper's Demon"
This novella is amazing! I loved more metaphysical and fantastic side of Parker's storytelling, than the more sociopolitical, so this novella following an exorcist was right up my alley!

"The Best Man Wins"
A really simple story about a sword smith commissioned to make the best sword for a young man who is on a quest for vengeance of his own father's accidental death. Perfectly executed.

"Habitat"
A story about--genuine shocker--dragons! This follows a man as he is tasked with capturing a live dragon for a prince. The narrative bounces back and forth to tell relevant backstory, and it was, admittedly, a bit confusing for me but, by the end, I adored this story!

:"The Big Score"
This novella follows Saloninus as he tries to cash in on his own name when he's actually supposed to be dead. Truly a masterpiece.

"Relics"
The last work in this collection is another novella. "Relics" is an epistolary novel between Genseric, a Duke, and his childhood friend, Pollio, who goes around finding, authenticating, and purchasing the titular relics, which are literal body parts of dead religious figures in the world (bones, hair, toes, etc.). There is a political maneuvering aspect to the story, but also there is an exploration of faith on so many levels. It was a great work to end the collection.

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.

A nice collection of KJ Parker short stories, new and old.

Need I say more more? I liked some and others I didn't.
But KJ Parker overall never fails to impress with his fantasy and I will continue to devour anything he releases.

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.

DNF due to technical difficulties. I find pdfs awkward to read, and there was no epub version. The Kindle version would not remember the location where I stopped reading, and I got tired of fighting the app to find my place in the book.

However, the first few stories I was able to read were up to K.J. Parker's usual standard. I wouldn't trust any of his characters farther than I could throw them, but they are a clever and snarky delight to read about. I would love to invite them to a dinner party -- the conversation would be excellent, even if there would be some possibility that not all of the guests would survive the evening.