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This novelette was anthologized in Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery edited by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan (2010) and The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry edited by Sean Wallace (2014), reprinted in Clarkesworld Magazine #97, October 2014, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read this story for free at Clarkesworld Magazine.

World Fantasy Award-winning Novella

This story originally appeared in Subterranean, Winter 2011. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six (2012), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2012 (2012), edited by Rich Horton, and The Best of Subterranean (2017), edited by William Schafer, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

Academic Exercises is the first collection of shorter work by master novelist K.J Parker, and it is a stunner. Weighing in at over 500 pages, this generous volume gathers together thirteen highly distinctive stories, essays, and novellas, including the recent World Fantasy Award-Winner, "Let Maps to Others". The result is a significant publishing event, a book that belongs on the shelf of every serious reader of imaginative fiction.

The collection opens with the World Fantasy Award-winning "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong," a story of music and murder set against a complex mentor/pupil relationship, and closes with the superb novella "Blue & Gold," which features what may be the most beguiling opening lines in recent memory. In between, Parker has assembled a treasure house of narrative pleasures. In "A Rich, Full Week," an itinerant "wizard" undergoes a transformative encounter with a member of the "restless dead." "Purple & Black," the longest story in the book, is an epistolary tale about a man who inherits the most hazardous position imaginable: Emperor. "Amor Vincit Omnia" recounts a confrontation with a mass murderer who may have mastered an impossible form of magic.

Rounding out the volume--and enriching it enormously--are three fascinating and illuminating essays that bear direct relevance to Parker's unique brand of fiction: "On Sieges," "Cutting Edge Technology," and "Rich Men's Skins."

Taken singly, each of these thirteen pieces is a lovingly crafted gem. Together, they constitute a major and enduring achievement. Rich, varied, and constantly absorbing, Academic Exercises is, without a doubt, the fantasy collection of the year.

Table of Contents:

• A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong (2011) - novella
• A Rich, Full Week (2010) - novelette
• Amor Vincit Omnia (2010) - novelette
• On Sieges (2009) - essay
• Let Maps to Others (2012) - novella
• A Room with a View (2011) - novelette
• Cutting Edge Technology (2011) - essay
• Illuminated (2012) - novelette
• Purple & Black (2009) - novella
• Rich Men's Skins: A Social History of Armour (2010) - essay
• The Sun and I (2013) - novelette
• One Little Room an Everywhere (2012) - short story
• Blue & Gold (2010) - novella

This novelette originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #45, May 2010, and was reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2010. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Five (2011), edited by Jonathan Strahan and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011, edited by Rich Horton and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This short story originally appeared in Subterranean Magazine, Winter 2014. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine edited by Jonathan Strahan (2015) and collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novelette was originally published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #55, December 2012, and reprinted in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2013. It was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read this story for free at Subterranean Online.

World Fantasy Award-winning Novella

This story originally appeared in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2012. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013) edited by Jonathan Strahan, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novelette was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #313, September 24, 2020.

Read this story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

An Imperial legate is called into see his aunt, who just happens to be the empress running the civilized world while her husband's in his sick bed. After some chastisement, she dispatches her nephew to take care of the dreaded Land and Sea Raiders, pirates who've been attacking the realm's monasteries.

So begins a possibly doomed tour of banished relatives and pompous royals put in charge of monasteries like Cort Doce and Cort Malestan, to name a few. While attempting to discover the truth of what the pirates might be after, the legate visits great libraries and halls in each varied locale and conducts a romance of which he knows but doesn't care his aunt will not approve.

As the story begins, the nameless, dying narrator takes us back to his childhood home in a remote corner of the ubiquitous Empire. The second of three sons, he lives there with his mother in a state of unrelieved poverty. Life eventually becomes so dire that the mother -- who can only find work as a prostitute -- is forced to sell one of her children. The oldest son, Nico, volunteers to be sold in order to protect his family, and that decision sets in motion everything that follows. Nico's journey takes him, in time, to the heart of the Empire and the very center of power. Over time, he acquires considerable power of his own and uses it to bring his younger brothers into the circle of his influence, changing their lives forever. Under Nico's guidance, the middle brother -- our nameless narrator -- achieves a destiny that will alter not only his own life, but the life of the Empire itself.

This short story was originally published in Eclipse Online, October 22, 2012. It was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read this story for free at Eclipse Online.

This novelette was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #287, April 26, 2019.

Read this story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

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.

This novella was originally published as a chapbook, and was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

This novelette oriignally appeared in the anthology Fearsome Journeys (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld #125, February 2017. It was anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014 edited by Rich Horton, and collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld Magazine.

The unnamed narrator of The Long Game is an Adept, a member of an Ecclesiastical order charged, among other things, with opposing a race of immaterial demons, creatures capable of possessing and controlling human minds. Complicating the narrator's life is the fact that, over time, he has developed a cordial "relationship" with one of the demons. Complicating matters further is the unexpected arrival of Amalasomtha, a young woman with impossible abilities who claims to have come from the remote -- perhaps mythical -- country of Idalia. She also claims that, for reasons she does not entirely understand, she has been tasked with capturing one such demon and returning with it to Idalia. The truth, it turns out, is considerably more complex.

Amalasomtha's arrival sets in motion a chain of events encompassing murder, magic, deception, and an array of unintended consequences. By the story's end, this consistently witty account of demonic possession, hidden agendas and Ecclesiastical politics has taken us to some unexpected places and given us a glimpse of a larger story still, the "long game" that lies at the heart of all human history.

World Fantasy Award-nominated Novelette

This story originally appeared in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2013. It was anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight (2014) edited by Jonathan Strahan, and collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novella was originally published in Subterranean Magazine, Summer 2014. It was anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015 edited by Paula Guran (2015) and collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Read this story for free at Subterranean Online.

This novelette was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #250, April 26, 2018.

Read this story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

In a botched demonic extraction, they say the demon feels it ten times worse than the man. But they don't die, and we do. Equilibrium.

The unnamed and morally questionable narrator is an exorcist with great follow-through and few doubts. His methods aren't delicate but they're undeniably effective: he'll get the demon out--he just doesn't particularly care what happens to the person.

Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world's first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles. Too bad he's demonically possessed.

An anonymous representative of the Devil, once a high-ranking Duke of Hell and now a committed underachiever, has spent the last forever of an eternity leading a perfectly tedious existence distracting monks from their liturgical devotions. It's interminable, but he prefers it that way, now that he's been officially designated by Downstairs as "fragile." No, he won't elaborate.

All that changes when he finds himself ensnared, along with a sadistic exorcist, in a labyrinthine plot to subvert the very nature of Good and Evil. In such a circumstance, sympathy for the Devil is practically inevitable.

'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, 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 the brink of one of the greatest discoveries in the history of alchemy. But 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?

This novella was originally published as a chapbook, and was collected in Academic Exercises (2014).

The greatest philosopher of all time is offering to sell his soul to the Devil. All he wants is twenty more years to complete his life's work. After that, he really doesn't care.

But the assistant demon assigned to the case has his suspicions, because the philosopher is Saloninus--the greatest philosopher, yes, but also the greatest liar, trickster and cheat the world has yet known; the sort of man even the Father of Lies can't trust.

He's almost certainly up to something; but what?

This novella was originally published as a chapbook. It was collected in The Father of Lies (2018).

Saloninus is a man with two distinct professions. In idle moments, he dashes off immortal masterpieces – philosophical treatises, musical compositions, dramas of Shakespearean range and depth – that never manage to turn a profit. His primary profession – that of thief, grifter and itinerant con man – is equally unprofitable, and he spends his life in constant flight from the encroaching forces of the law.

The story opens in the aftermath of Saloninus's own funeral, an act of self-concealment he has staged many times before. Newly risen from the dead, he encounters an old flame – a sort of archetypal femme fatale – with whom he shares a colorful – and highly illegal – history. She has a plan in mind, one that involves both of Saloninus's skill sets: criminality and literary genius. If successful, that plan will lead to the elusive "big score" that will set them free forever. Against his better judgment, and fully aware that failure and betrayal may await him, Saloninus agrees to participate. The result is this ingenious – and very funny – tale.

Pulling the Wings Off Angels is a madcap adventure brimming with the ethical quandaries and sardonic wit of The Good Place by World Fantasy Award-winning author K. J. Parker

Long ago, a wealthy man stole an angel and hid her in a chapel, where she remains imprisoned to this day.

That's the legend, anyway.

A clerical student who's racked up gambling debts to a local gangster is given an ultimatum--deliver the angel his grandfather kidnapped, or forfeit various body parts in payment.

And so begins a whirlwind theological paradox--with the student at its center--in which the stakes are the necessity of God, the existence of destiny--and the nature of angels.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all.

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.

This is the history of how the City was saved, by Notker the professional liar, written down because eventually the truth always seeps through.

The City may be under siege, but everyone still has to make a living. Take Notker, the acclaimed playwright, actor, and impresario. Nobody works harder, even when he's not working. Thankfully, it turns out that people enjoy the theater just as much when there are big rocks falling out of the sky.

But Notker is a man of many talents, and all the world is, apparently, a stage. It seems that the empire needs him - or someone who looks a lot like him - for a role that will call for the performance of a lifetime. At least it will guarantee fame, fortune, and immortality. If it doesn't kill him first.

This is the true story of Aemilius Felix Boioannes the younger, the intended and unintended consequences of his life, the bad stuff he did on purpose, and the good stuff that happened in spite of him.

It is, in other words, the tale of a war to end all wars, and the man responsible.