Prosper's Demon

This was a little disappointing to me. The summary sounds perfectly in my wheelhouse but something about the writing just didn't grab me. It kind of reminded me of [b:The Monster of Elendhaven 43263515 The Monster of Elendhaven Jennifer Giesbrecht https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1569867908l/43263515.SY75.jpg 65891464] in that it's a first-person narrative with a somewhat unreliable narrator, set in an alternate historic era similar to England, and they have paranormal abilities - but the writing style is completely different and the narrator didn't capture my attention or make me like them. The book is relatively short at only 53 pages but it still felt like a bit of a slog for me.

Thank you to Tor.com for providing me with a copy of Prosper's Demon via Netgalley in exchange for my open and honest review.

Prosper's demon, written by author K.J. Parker is a ride through sarcasm, nihilism, and philosophical morality. Even though the ending made the reading of the rest of the story worth it, this book is not for everyone. It employs time jumps, a stream of conscious writing style, and an unreliable narrator.

All is not what it seems with this story.

The story starts with a person named Prosper of Schanz. He is a scholar, artist, visionary, and thinker - ultimate creator. He is also currently populated by a demon. Demons exist; they live inside of people; they do damage, and have machinations. Because they cannot die and have been alive for possibly billions of years, they play the long game. Their ideas and schemes can be thwarted, but much like a river, they find other avenues to flow down. They find different ways of achieving their goals. Removing the demon can cause damage that can cause irreparable harm to the human. It is very Sisyphean.

Enter our unreliable narrator. He is an anonymous exorcist who can see these demons and pluck them from the souls and bodies of those they inhabit. He is an entirely unlikeable, and unempathetic. He has this gift that he has cultivated over his comparably short lifetime that allows him to interact with a demon. But for him, it is always the end's justify the means. If the human is damaged or die from having a demon removed, that is on the demon, not the exorcist. It is a morally bankrupt position to take, but that lack of care representative of the type of character the exorcist is.

Prosper's demon and the anonymous exorcist have a battle of wits through the course of the novel. Or at least that is what I think the author intended to portray. It is more like a battle of wits on the part of Prosper, and someone who is utterly uninterested on the part of the exorcist. The conversations between the two of them are confusing and banal.

This story is a short one clocking in at 100 pages. At 50%, I could not figure out who was talking, anything much about the characters or their intentions, and anything about the environment. The dialog is written in a stream of conscious style that made it difficult to figure out who is speaking. In the last 50% of this book, it got easier to figure out what was going on, but at this point, I didn't care about any of the characters and frankly just wanted to be done.

I wanted to like this book, and I gave it a higher star rating at three stars because I know that for some readers, this kind of storytelling is fantastic, and Prosper's Demon was done very well if you enjoy these types of narratives. But it wasn't for me.

If you would like to read more of my reviews or various other bookish things, please come by my blog at https://beforewegoblog.com/

Interesting and fresh premise that was wittily written.

The unnamed narrator is a priest in some high-ranking special Order that specialises in exorcisms. He meets Prosper of Schanz, the royal tutor who has apparently mastered almost every field imaginable, and notices something special about him - he has a demon in him too.

The writing in this one was refreshingly witty. Demons aren't your regular screeching and screaming monstrosities, but rather sound more like very disgruntled people just trying to find a place to settle down and grumbling when they get evicted by the authorities. “Oh, for crying out loud, not you again.”

About the ending:

I had expected more plot twists, like maybe the POV we have had from the narrator all along was actually the demon that had been (occasionally) haunting him since birth, and that the thing that he keeps trying to hunt down is the actual priest. No such luck, I'm afraid. The actual plot twist, that in helping to make Great Horse for Prosper, the narrator had somehow engineered the mass deaths of the royal famiyl and the tutor, did catch me off guard though, although the novella ended a little abruptly.

Still though, I had a fun time with this one and the writing was really enjoyable. The dark humour was very much up my alley.

The protagonist makes it very clear right off the bat – he's unlikable...and that's by design. Of course, his self-deprecation, supposed misdeeds, and biting wit make him lovable, nonetheless. This is a short and sharp story that turns in several unexpected directions. For instance, I was not expecting the casting of a giant bronze horse statue to become such a central plot point! Ultimately, I enjoyed this novella for its brevity and its distinct voice.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

This was on a list for spooky reads, and because of this stellar cover, I instantly added it to my list. The back cover marks this a pitch-dark, witty fantasy, and I wonder if it's tagged that because Tor picked it up? It's not that that isn't accurate, just anywhere else would have probably gone with horror, supernatural, paranormal...

The story follows an exorcist, not known for being delicate, but undeniably effective. The novella flies through some background—never genuinely getting to the level of world-building—and we get shown how good the exorcist really is. His main target is Prosper of Schanz, or more specifically, Prosper's Demon. 

This was an enjoyable read. My favorite part is the author's chosen voice, it really leads the story's tone, and I feel like it's purposefully heavy handed. I loved that the story is pretty obviously time-period specific, however the author's exorcist kind of sits and speaks outside of it. 

Overall not really a spooky one though!