Review: The Long Game, by K. J. Parker

Review: The Long Game, by K. J. Parker

by Rich Horton

I'm planning to post occasional reviews of short fiction here, given that I'm not writing for Locus any more. (Mostly -- I do plan to contribute the occasional piece there.) Here's my first in that series.

I'm a big fan of "K. J. Parker"'s stories and novels, mostly set in his somewhat vaguely described quasi-Romanish, Byzantinish, fantasy milieu. ("Parker", of course, is a pseudonym for Tom Holt.) In his shorter works Parker tends to use this setting to explore fairly philosophical questions, often turning on the nature of magic (though with the magical system constructed, seems to me, to allow him to explore more broadly applicable questions.) By contrast, Parker's novels, though not without philosophical conundrums to ponder, often spend more time explicating questions of logistics, engineering, politics, or the relationships between men and women. The Long Game, a 2022 novella, available in a very nice (if expensive!) edition from Subterranean Press, is a great example of his shorter works.

The narrator is a magical adept, trained at the Studium. However, his abilities in the field mean that instead of the cushy desk job, with prospects for advancement, that he coveted, he is doomed to a life as a field agent, traveling constantly, mainly sort of "exorcising" demons from people. Demons, we learn, are entities devoted to what the narrator is convinced is "Evil", and his job is to oppose them, for the sake of "Good". This being a K. J. Parker novel, it's clear that "Good", at last, however good it may be at some level, is represented largely by incompetent schemers, who, if they are trying to improve the world, are making rather a hash of it.

He's in the remote town of Sabades Amar when he notices a woman reading a book upside down. And, somehow, she seems to be an adept of some sort -- but everyone knows women can't be adepts! He challenges her, and learns that she is from Idalia, a nearly legendary distant place. He also learns that her powers are at least his equal, and possibly superior to his. But what is she after?

Then a local prior turns up murdered, and the woman is the obvious suspect. But things don't add up. And the narrator reflects on  a long-running adversary of his -- a demon -- who by know he considers almost a friend. This demon keeps showing up -- and we learn more and more about the demon ... and more and more about the narrator's entanglement with it (or him, as the narrator insists on perceiving it.) Of course, it's soon clear that the demon is involved with the murder of the prior -- and also that the Idalian woman has an assignment of her own, which might have pretty terrible implications.

Parker is really, in the end, concerned, as I hinted, with philosophical issues, and with the "long game" implied by the title. The story is appropriately twisty; and, because Parker is Parker, able to make, as they say, a shopping list intriguing reading, the book is compulsively fun and readable. All that said, I ended up thinking that the philosophical speculations -- which are pretty worthwhile -- really could have been handled in a quarter the space. But I didn't mind -- the novella is fun reading throughout. It doesn't rank at the top of Parker's ouevre at all -- not even close -- but I was glad to read it.