K. J. Parker
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,...
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...
The city of Perimadeia has fallen. Bardas Loredan, the man who was supposed to save it, is now living on the Island — a recluce, living apart from his family in the mountains, with only a young apprentice for company....
Perimadeia is the famed Triple City and the mercantile capital of the known world. Behind its allegedly impregnable walls, everything is available-including information that will allow its enemies to plan one of the most devastating sieges of all time.
The man called upon to defend Perimadeia is Bardas Loredan, a fencer-at-law, weary of his work and the world. For Loredan is one of...
"Why are we fighting this war? Because evil must be resisted, and sooner or later there comes a time when men of principle have to make a stand. Because war is good for business and it's better to die on our feet than live on our knees. Because they started it. But at this stage in the proceedings," he added, with a slightly lop-sided...
After years spent in the saps under the defenses of the apparently impregnable city of Ap'Iscatoy, Bardas Loredan, sometimes fencer-at-law and betrayed defender of the famed Triple City, is suddenly hero of the Empire. His reward is a boring administrative job in a backwater, watching armor tested to destruction in the Proof House. But the fall of Ap'Iscatoy has...
In a compelling tale of intrigue and injustice, K. J. Parker's embittered hero takes...
"Full of invention and ingenuity . . . Great fun."...
12) Inside Man
K. J. Parker returns to the amoral world of Prosper's Demon with a wry, sardonic novella that flips the eternal, rule-governed battle between men and demons on its head.
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
"Why are we fighting this war? Because evil must be resisted, and sooner or later there comes a time when men of principle have to make a stand. Because war is good for business and it's better to die on our feet than live on our knees. Because they started it. But at this stage in the proceedings," he added, with a slightly...
A soldier with a gift for archery. A woman who kills without care. Two brothers, both unbeatable generals, now fighting for opposing armies. No one in the vast and once glorious United Empire remains...
'They didn't see the house until they were practically on top of it. A single building emerging fromthe dark. It didn't look welcoming. But the front door was open. The door was wide open.'
Irongrove Lodge – a building with history; the very bricks and grounds imbued with the stories of those who have walked these corridors, lived in these rooms. These are the tales of an extraordinary house, a place that straddles our world
...17) Fearsome Magics
A cabinet of magic! A cavalcade of wonder! A collection of stories both strange and wondrous, of tales filled with wild adventure and strange imaginings. Fearsome Magics, the second New Solaris Book of Fantasy, is all these things and more.
Award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has invited some of the best and most exciting writers working in fantasy today to let their imaginations run wild and to deliver stories that will thrill
...An enthralling collection of new and classic tales of the fearsome Djinn, from bestselling, award-winning and breakthrough international writers.
Imagine a world filled with fierce, fiery beings, hiding in our shadows, in our dreams, under our skins. Eavesdropping and exploring; tormenting us, saving our souls. They are monsters, saviours, victims, childhood friends.
And they are everywhere. On street corners, behind
...