For many years, one of our genre’s worst-kept secrets is the fact that K.J. Parker is the pseudonym of another popular author. Today, Pornokitsch has revealed that Parker is fantasy humourist, Tom Holt.
Additionally, the Hugo-nominated Coode Street Podcast, hosted by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K Wolfe is hosting Parker’s first ever “live” interview.
As Parker, Holt has been nominated for the World Fantasy “Best Novella” Award every year for the last three years, winning it twice.
Holt has written a K J Parker book for Tor.com’s new novella line—The Last Witness will be published the first week of October. Parker’s next novel—Savages—is to be published by Subterranean Press this summer, and his new novel—The Two of Swords—is currently being serialized by Orbit.
Not whom I expected!
My late friend Scott was a big fan of Holt’s novels. Damn, had he lived to know this, he’d start plowing into Parker’s oeuvre, I’m sure.
It was a secret kept from me!
So, some people CAN keep a secret!
Ha, I never would have guessed.
I really should have realised when I described The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice as “wolfishly witty and wonderfully funny” that there was another author out there the description would fit…
Mixed feelings about knowing, though. On the one hand, awesome, because no more playing the pronoun game; on the other, I already kinda miss the mystery.
Haha, this will take some getting used to—I’ve always pictured Parker as a woman for whatever reason, so I’ll have to change the authorial voice in my head. That said, I’ve read and enjoyed a Tom Holt novel or two in the past, so I’m glad to find out that I enjoy him in both his personas! (To be honest I’m a far bigger fan of his Parker material than the material under his own name.)
Any information as to why Holt decided to finally reveal this information?
@6: I had initially assumed K.J. Parker was a woman, because that’s what often happens to women writing F & SF. They’re made to use their initials, so that they don’t “sound” female. But somebody had assured me about a decade ago, when Devices and Desires was hot off the press that K.J. was a guy, so I never played the “pronoun game” (and I guess that somebody knew the secret even then).
I’m always on the lookout for Tom Holt books. Now I can expand my search to include K.J. Parker!