I have been a fan of K.J. Parker ever since I happened upon his short story collection "Academic Exercises". (I got it in a Humble Bundle ;-)) Nowadays I am always on a lookout for new K.J. Parker books. I love his dry humour and a rather cynical (yet not misanthropic) view of human nature. His universe is meticulously and finely crafted - there is a bit of Byzantium, there is a bit of Venetian republic, sometimes there is magic, and sometimes there is no magic at all.
I had enjoyed the previous novella featuring Saloninus ("The Devil You Know") more than this one, but it was a lot of fun to meet the Renaissance con man again. Also, this time K.J. Parker has a field day with the question of authorship of certain plays (in our world, they are by Shakespeare :-D) - what's not to love? ( )

This is the to be expected Salonius plot, hilarious, witty, frivolous - until the musings on libraries, when it becomes thoughtful and deep. Wonderful. ( )

“Welcome to the world of Saloninus, the most unlikely Renaissance Man you will ever encounter. 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.”

From the book’s blurb.



“So; being Saloninus, as far as I’m concerned, is about reacting desperately to desperate situations.”

In “The Big Score” by K. J. Parker



“Books make you happy, angry, peaceful, discontented, reassured, justified. A book can make me [Saloninus] forget who and what I am, for a little while. A book is somewhere I can go and not have to take myself with me. Books say: come to us, all who labour and are heavy laden, and we will give you rest. Books are the islands in the West where good people go when they die. Books are a words apart, yer firmly here and now, written in the moment but eternal; in the beginning was the word, and ever shall be, world without end.”

In “The Big Score” by K. J. Parker



If you feel an dreadful intractability about the text you’re reading – no matter that writer eschews the simple past and dives into the dangerous waters of the continuous present; no matter that he strikes out from the safe shores of the third-personal to embrace the slippery evanescence of the stream of consciousness, you may as a reader still feel the corset cutting into you, because you’re as a reader still mired in SF convention of the lowest calibre…

I couldn’t wait to read Parker’s new novel since it came out in April. I don't know why I enjoy Parker’s stuff so much; I'm a pretty stupid person and not very academic.

I always find something I can relate to in Parker’s novels and in this 3rd Saloninus novel it reminds me of the time I spent the Christmas and New Year period lying on my makeshift bed in a damp, cold house in my granny’s home in Lisbon with terrible flu. After reading Orwell's “Homage to Catalonia” I fell into a kind of hallucinatory psychosis bought about by the illness and the experiences of trench warfare that I had just been reading about, I was hiding under the blanket believing that fireworks outside were bombs and gunfire. In the case of Parker’s novel I believe I’m living in an alternative-SFional-Renaissance. I love the way Saloninus is blissfully oblivious to the utter fatuousness of his own hackneyed remarks (the irony would sting him so painfully if only he could get it sometimes…). In this day and age of so much crap SF-wise, I choose to read Parker because I love his wordplay, his ideas and his ability to make me question what I assume to be reality. And for those who find his novels 'difficult', get a fucking dictionary, use it and expand your own vocabularies. English is a wonderful language; an absolute Bugatti of a language in fact. I just wish SF writers wouldn’t limit themselves to treating it like a bloody Ka and poodling down to the shops in second gear - open it up, make it roar and let it transport you to somewhere new in exhilarating style. Meta-modernist SF? Who cares? With Parker at the wheel, it does just that. Amongst the flood of rubbish that passes these days for SF, his ideas and observations, his efforts to write something worth reading are interesting and credible, whatever criticisms might be offered.

Reading stuff like this is like watching a top-class sportsman - they can do things that you can't. Sit back and enjoy the ride; it's scintillating stuff. And, if you’re a Shakespeare aficionado and a lover of Hamlet in particular like myself you’ll also find inter-textual stuff there as well…



SF = Speculative Fiction. ( )

Saloninus has faked his death to escape his fame/infamy and finds out the hard way that while he still possess all of his genius, nobody is willing to pay for it without the name to go with it. What follows is a terrifically twisty money-making scheme that takes a swipe at the authorship question.

I don't know that I'd ever want to read a full-length Saloninus novel, but I treasure each novella and hope Parker continues to delight us with tales of the rascally genius.

Received via NetGalley. ( )

There are very few authors that I can trust to give me a fun reading experience. Of the the few that can I try to stick to a series or two of their writing. With K.J. Parker a.k.a. Tom Holt I find myself becoming a fan of his work the more I read from him. This book was a very smooth read, meaning that once you start reading it the book flows by very quickly. I found myself reading half the book in a few hours. For me that's a sign that the author wrote something that I enjoy. The story is a heist book where the protagonist/antagonist of the previous books has to come up with one more scheme to make money. That is after he's faked his death and ran away from his fame but without any money. You don't need to know more then that. Just dive in for a few hours and you'll be just fine.

I read this book via NetGalley. I thank them for this book. ( )