Inside Man

A snarky, sarcastic novella about the eternal war between demons and angels, demonic possession, and THE PLAN (but does it exist?). There is a lot of philosophy, too, thrown in rather casually. AND Hell has a very impressive bureaucracy - I appreciated this very much :-)
I love K J Parker’s dry humour and skillful world-building, I can’t get enough of his books.

“It’s just a job, that’s all - a job for which we get no pay, no thanks, a volcanic bollocking if things don’t go exactly according to plan. We do it because that’s who we are. You lot got free will; we were assigned our respective functions. We serve; therefore, we are. Furthermore (in theory, at least), every function in the divine service is of equal value, from archangels and cherubim down to night soil operatives and tempters.”



In “Inside Man” by K. J. Parker



Quantum theory is best understood as a form of perspectivism not physicalism. Nietzsche introduced the idea of perspectivism: in the final analysis, all we really have is a manifold of interlocking perspectives. For example, consider the following toy model. If show more humans are small finite, represent each possible human perspective by a small non-empty subset of {1,...,n} where n is a large natural number. Then, there are minimal perspectives, but no maximal human perspective. Still, there is an ideal finite perspective which sees everything! If n=infinity, then there is still an ideal infinite perspective which sees everything! (God's eye-view or Demon’s eye-view if we take “Inside Man” as an example!) If one accepts the standard quantum logic, then one has a manifold of perspectives which cannot - by Gleason's Theorem - be embedded into any single perspective! There are now maximal perspectives, but no universal perspective! Get it? Doesn’t matter. Free will is just an hoax! It’s all being done behind the curtain by Them…

This Parker’s diversion can be read as a monotonous liturgy sustained to the point of hilarious farce. As I read it I remember my metamorphosis: through an initial interest/respect for the above-average-for-a-SF-Novel convolutions of the prose, to a slight 'this is going on a bit' withdrawal, to 'oh my god how fucking long is this going to go on its been over ten pages now', to knocking my head against the wall with boredom wanting it to end, to finally breaking through to the other side into farcical hilarity and fascination at how long Parker was going to manage to keep it up (and this is just a novella…). It's amazing that it manages to go on for so long and all the time keep getting more and more ridiculous and damn right interesting. That’s Parker for you! Always with one up his sleeve to keep us guessing where’s he going to go next… show less

After being designated “fragile”, our hero is content with his lot. That is, until circumstance, and those in charge, force him back to more challenging work.

It felt like the second half to “Prosper’s Demon”, with both novella’s sharing characters, and, uh, certain predicaments. I liked this one more, purely because it appealed more to my personal tastes. I love me a shifty protagonist, and the turtles all the way down aspect was delicious.

Un demonio, traumatizado por el trato recibido por un exorcista, que suena mucho al protagonista de ‘El demonio de Próspero’, es requerido para un misión importante en Antecira. Y es que un duque pone en peligro el Plan Divino.

No me ha gustado tanto como la otra novela corta ambientada en el mismo universo. Eso sí, el autor sigue igual de sarcástico y socarrón.

An even stranger little novella than its predecessor, "Prosper's Demon", I really enjoyed this read. For a demon, the narrator is awfully likeable and engaging!

How the other half live. This time the cleverness didn't come off for me.

Confusing. Lots of "he"s are mentioned and it's not always clear, who that is right then.