Prosper's Demon (Prospero's Demon, #1)

by K. J. Parker

"As if Deadpool had slipped into the body of the Witcher Geralt." —The New York Times

In the pitch dark, witty fantasy novella Prosper's Demon, K. J. Parker deftly creates a world with vivid, unbending rules, seething with demons, broken faith, and worse men.

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.

• ISBN10: 1250260515
• ISBN13: 9781250260512
• Publish Date: 28 January 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 112
• Language: English

Reviews

[lyx]

3.7/3.8

a sweet short story, if sweet is the appropriate word to be used here.
k.j. parker does a good job of setting up the lore without restricting the reader to it. he implements a lot of vague rather than detailed set-in-stone descriptions and doesn't waste much time on world-building, which is all quite fitting for the style of the novel and the present narrator. it all works very well together. on that note, i loved the narrator/protagonist, who might not necessarily be meant to be liked, but his dark, dry humor is right up my alley. his interaction with the other people in the story as well as the demons - interesting little creatures - were a lot of fun to read.
i was looking forward to reading this book for a while so my expectations might have been a bit too high, but it was a good quick read, and if you need something /different/ and fresh to clean your palate, especially this time of year, give it a shot.

[leahrosereads]

I was hooked from the opening line. Really liked this alternate history (I guess), dark fantasy/horror, literary fiction-y mashup going on here. The MC is wholly unlikeable, but I appreciated him.

Loved the length of this novella. I really felt likebit worked incredibly well for this story.

[Witty and Sarcastic Bookclub]

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This will be available on January 28th.

This novella is…odd. I mean, really, really odd. I was originally drawn to this book by the amazing cover (okay, okay, I know: don’t judge a book by its cover. But I did, so there). The premise is intriguing: an exorcist who has an encounter with Prosper, a self-proclaimed genius and close friend of the king, who also happens to be possessed by a very tricky demon.

The exorcist, who narrates the story, is morally bankrupt, and extremely unlikable. Of course, he warns the reader of that right away. I liked that he was an unreliable narrator with a cynical streak. It wasn’t enough to endear me to the character or the story, however. There were too many problems.

The first problem is the length. Being that it’s very short, it needed to get going sooner than it did. The first scene was interesting, but afterward things slowed way down. I kept getting distracted from what was happening because it was moving so slowly.

Another issue I had was the fact that we never learn the identity of the narrator. That’s something that either works for you, or it doesn’t. I tend to dislike never knowing a narrator’s identity. I’m totally fine waiting until the epilogue to learn who the storyteller is, but I like to know at some point. It’s never revealed.

In many ways, the story felt incomplete. The idea was cool, and the writing had serious potential but, probably due to the shortness of the novella, it wasn’t fully realized. I would have liked this better if it was longer.

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Prosper’s Demon in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Prosper’s Demon is the latest novella from the mind of K.J. Parker, and it is a beautifully twisted mess of horror and superstition. This is a world in which demons and a select few mortals face off, again and again.
Demons are real. And they can do all of the things whispered about in horror stories. And yet there are few – very few – humans with the ability to see them. Better yet, they have the ability to eject these demons from their unwilling human hosts - at a cost.

“I have an idea you aren’t going to like me very much. That may prove to be the only thing we’ll have in common, so let’s make the most of it.”

Prosper’s Demon was a chilling experience, and well worth the read. This disturbing tale is full of demons and terrors, alongside the best and worst that humanity has to offer. The juxtaposition was alarming at times, but done in the cleverest of ways.
There was a lot to love about this novella. First, there’s the narrator – who is never actually given a name. The lack of name adds to his unreliability, as well as further distancing him from humanity itself. Such a clever and elegant trick. But one that took the writing so far.
The complex relationship between demons and the humans that can see them is fascinating. It’s also disturbing, in ways that send off those internal alarm bells. You know exactly what I mean by that – those people that you just instinctively know never to trust.
Prosper’s Demon was beautifully written, full of lush detail and character development, all the while showing a twisted war played out by a broken mind. It’s chilling and captivating all at once. And I very much wish that I could have kept on reading. But that is the price we pay for reading novellas, isn’t it? If so, then it was well worth the price.

For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks