Having never read anything by K.J. Parker and knowing Subterranean Press's excellent track record with producing quality novellas, I thought this would be a good introduction. And I was not wrong. It was a quick read full of intrigue, political strategy and not surprisingly humor and tragedy. Highly recommended.

In this quick read a nameless narrator recounts his childhood, and the circumstances that led to his present "beautiful" life. Parker is excellent at these sorts of stories, and this is no different. We're told the ending at the beginning and then the rest of the story moves us toward that end. It's a tricky thing to keep things compelling when we know what's coming, and Parker manages it well.

Another stand-out novella from Parker. It contains all of the cynicism and dark humor that's made his works must buys for me.

4.8 out of 5 facepalms.

They say fact is stranger than fiction. What happens when an author takes fact, adds some super-juicy twists, and repackages it as fiction? Then it’s called My Beautiful Life.

My Beautiful Life is based on real-life events (I’ll let you figure out which ones for yourself. Hints in the book ought to point you in the right direction). Although readers hoping for fantastic elements may be disappointed, the dry humor (and occasional touching moments) make My Beautiful Life a fantastic quick read. If you’ve been waiting for an amoral idiot (a term I use somewhat affectionately, of course) to narrate his bumbling into cutthroat politics, you’ve come to the right place.

Not for young readers. The book has a moderate amount of vulgarity (oh, and murder, violence, adultery and the like…but did you really expect anything else from a political world almost wilder than Game of Thrones - our own world, that is?).

I’m going to give the book’s attitude toward religion the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the scathing portrayal of religious hypocrisy could have been softened by a decent religious role model. But despite his wickedness, our narrator’s simple faith is one of the more touching elements of the book.

I’ve already put a couple more K. J. Parker books on my library wish list. That’s how good this is.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

My Beautiful Life plays with structure and characters in a way that seems to be slightly divorced from its intended audience. When taken as a writing study, it’s actually quite interesting - how might an author bring about a story wherein the end is revealed at the beginning? Unfortunately, writing studies typically aren’t being published en masse. They’re just studies, meant to hone writing skills. Although this novella nails the tone and characters it seeks to portray, it was very difficult to connect with the story as a reader.

The writing has a rambling, conversational style, which initially appealed to me greatly. As the book continued, however, it began to wear out its welcome. This was compounded by how quickly Parker moved from event to event, as it created a sense of distance between the narrator and the reader. Although I do feel that this was wholly intentional and quite well executed from a narrative perspective, it’s not an effect that appealed to me personally as a reader.

The nameless main character is introduced as a monarch dictating his life story to his scribe. Immediately, he’s characterized as arrogant, brutal, and a bit vain. He frequently breaks the fourth wall with side commentary to the scribe, who dutifully records it all. He tells the reader that he’s an awful human being, that he’s done horrible things to secure his position - which is undeniably true. His roots, however, are quite humble. He tells us the story of growing up with his two brothers, Nico and Edax, along with his mother. His mother was a sex worker, and the brothers’ precise parentage is unclear.

As their mother ages, prostitution becomes a much less viable method of putting food on the table. Thus, it’s decided that one of the boys must be sold as a slave. Their mother fobs off the responsibility of deciding just who is sold onto the boys themselves; Nico, being the oldest, steps up to the place and agrees to be the one sold at market to protect his two younger brothers. If this wasn’t sufficiently depressing, however, Nico had heard that eunuchs sell for higher prices at market. Therefore, he heads off away from home… and slices off his penis, due to a rather unfortunate misunderstanding as to which part of the anatomy is meant to be snipped in order to accomplish a castration. This more or less works out for him, ironically; two slavers take pity on his and purchase him to work in the castle.

"Years later, I asked a famous doctor and he said that Nico should’ve died, it was a miracle he survived - and then he paused because miracle usually means the Invincible Sun intervening to some good purpose, and this was Nico we were talking about. It was extraordinary, the doctor went on, that Nico had survived at all, after losing a ridiculous amount of blood, not to mention the risk of infection, and lockjaw from the rusty knife. And then walking twelve miles up the mountain to kalenda, it was - and then words failed him. Monstrous, I suggested. And he thought about it for a moment, and nodded. Monstrous, he said, quite. "

For much of the book, Nico is the brains of the operation. Our nameless narrator largely comes off as something of an idiot; he tends to just go along with the decisions of others. Nico’s success is what catapults the narrator into power as well. It’s a little frustrating to watch - it’s much less interesting to follow someone who is merely reactive to those around him vs someone who is an active agent in his future, particularly in a book like there wherein the central conceit lies in seeing how the main character rises from rags to riches.

"When I told Nico I'd do it, he laughed. Of course you will, he told me, you're a good boy, and it's the only way we can be absolutely safe. I'm not doing it for you, I told him. Don't talk stupid, he said, of course you are. He didn't believe me. I don't know why."

The setting is fairly standard low fantasy, with a religion based around the Invincible Sun as a deity. Magic is minimal and possibly nonexistent, depending on how many coincidences you're willing to swallow. Largely, the world serves as a backdrop to the characters and narration, which are the highlights of the novella. In order to avoid overwhelming the reader or veering off course, it was necessary that at least part of the book would end up being slightly sidelined. However, there was one aspect of the castle which caught my fancy: The Stables.

The Stables are a wing of the castle with a horrifically convoluted layout. I loved the bits describing how both Nico and the main character are forced to navigate them, counting steps and attempting to memorize the twists and turns of the passageways. Nico, naturally, manages a full map of the place and uses it to has advantage as he manipulates all those around him. The narrator, of course, doesn’t manage anything nearly so elegant.

"One day, when I got off work, some clerk came up to me and told me my brother wanted to see me in his office. So off we went, up a mountain of stairs and down again, along corridors, down tunnels, up towers, until I had absolutely no idea where I was, though my feet told me I must have walked at least two miles. And then he suddenly stopped, in front of a plain dark oak door looking exactly the same as the thousand-odd plain dark oak doors we’d walked past; no name or number on it, goes without saying. In there, the clerk told me."

The narrator’s downfall was, of course, to be expected - this is KJ Parker, and Parker generally does make sure that his characters get what they deserve in the end. I did find it somewhat ironic that it’s only when the main character decides that he’s had enough of going with the flow and attempts to become an active player on the board that his debt finally comes due. It was a suitable ending to the novella, and felt satisfying as a reader even if the book as a whole wasn’t quite my cup of tea.

A dying emperor dictates his memoirs/confession to a servant, describing his unlikely rise from his impoverished origins to emperor. He credits his meteoric rise to several miraculous escapes and his elder brother Nico’s ambition and cunning, which allowed Nico to rise through the ranks of the imperial bureaucracy and engineer opportunities for the narrator.

This new novella is set within the same pseudo-Byzantine world as many of Parker’s short stories and novellas. While this is a standalone, fans will of course pick up on recurring bits of world building from other stories, such as the Invincible Sun. It’s very much in the same vein as the other stories, to the point that I actually had to check to make sure I hadn’t read it before. (I hadn’t, but I was confused because this isn’t the first Parker story to have a major character named Nico.) This is not to say that it’s unoriginal, just that Parker’s writing has a certain recognizable style and this is a good example of it.

One note on the novella’s unusual storytelling style: the protagonist has very little agency throughout the story, something he emphasizes when discussing divine intervention and destiny. This is doubly surprising when you consider that the entire story is the protagonist’s narration of his life story, which would ordinarily place him at the forefront of all action. I think this style works well in this story due to Parker’s skill as a writer, but it’s possible that some readers may find it a little less compelling.

I’m a fan of Parker’s wry wit and the escapades of his scheming rogues. This didn’t disappoint. If you haven’t read Parker before, this is a good place to start because you don’t need any background before jumping in. If you’ve read Parker before, then you know exactly what you’re getting here.

This is rare for me. I only have a handful of authors I can trust to give me a good story regardless of what they are writing about. It's a small list with names like Asimov, Ellis, Wagner and Herbert amongst it's ranks. I add K.J. Parker aka Tom Holt to the list now. I've read a few of his works now with each one being easier to read. I enjoy his work so much I can't put the book down once I've started it. This is rare for me. Most writers annoy me to a varying degree. Some I fight through, others a just tolerate to finish the book. With this writer i trust him to deliver a story I will enjoy, this book is no different.

The story of someone who came from nothing and eventually did something is nothing new. How we get through that in this story is entertaining. That's why this book is so good. The whole thing is very straightforward from start to finish. Keep that in mind and the story is a breeze that is worth reading.

I've always been interested in reverse stories, where the ending (in this case, the death of the narrator) is known from the start, and then they slowly work its way towards it. Where the question is not what happens as much as how it happens. And I have enjoyed what I read of K.J. Parker so far.

But despite the catchy opening, I was not...quite satisfied with what I got.

If this book had a theme, it would be "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." It's narrated by a dying man, who tells us about his rise from relatively simple beginnings - his mother was a village whore - to great heights, ending with his inevitable downfall. He committed atrocities and caused many deaths and admits as much - yet at the same time, it all has an air of "I didn't quite know what I was doing, I just went along with what I've been told." He comes off as, well, rather simple. Or to put it less charitably, a bumbling idiot. And likely unreliable.

It's also funny that his downfall only happens after he's had enough and stopped blindly following orders. Though even if he didn't, I doubt it would have made much difference. This is K.J. Parker, after all.

The rambling, conversational, first-person style doesn't help. Initially, I loved it, but the further I went, the more annoyed I got. Combined with the speed at which he blazes through the story, it creates a distancing affect from the actual events of the book as well. And I don't like distance. It's a common problem with novellas - they rarely feel like quite enough.

Worldbuilding-wise, it's set in his standard empire, worshippers of the Invincible Sun. Magic is so minimal to be non-existent - the miracles can easily be handwaved away as simple coincidences, if one so wishes. And there were too many of those. It borrows quite a bit from actual history and historical events as well - at one point, blatantly enough to throw me out of the story.

It might be your style. It might be that the things that bothered me are a non-issue to you. But overall, it just felt off to me.

A interestingly short, sweet, and cynical portrait of an emperor who was just trying to do the right thing. It's a short novella, but gets into some deep waters around faith, destiny, morality, family, the power of institutions, and what influence and political power really looks like. This is the first K.J. Parker I've read, and this novella does make me want to read more.

My Beautiful Life by K.J. Parker- A new novella from K.J. Parker is always welcome. This one takes place in his fabricated Medieval/Byzantine world and involves a tale of three brothers. Told in first-person from the un-named sibling, the story details the rise from poverty to extreme wealth and power of the narrator, whose life is a topsy-turvy of pitfalls and miraculous rescues. Parker weaves his tale in a rambling narrative that jumps back and forth with plenty of entertaining asides that we've come to expect. A very enjoyable addition to his canon.