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Another strong non-fiction entry in this compendium, "Rich Men's Skins: A Social History of Armour" is a concise but very content-rich exploration of the role of armor in history. Particularly social history. With plenty of citations and footnotes, Parker goes from the ancient world to the modern and highlights how armor functions in practice, and also interacts with the social status of those who wear it. Too short!

I re-read the novella Purple and Black, which is reprinted in this collection. The first time I read, years ago, it my impression was that it was the best novella ever written. After re-reading, I maintain my position is still a valid one until I find evidence to the contrary. This novella deserves its own review at some point, but suffice to say it accomplishes more in 90 pages than most books do in 500.

The Short Story "Illuminated" is a psychologically wild story, and to me K.J. Parker's most horrific. Reminds me of a blend between Inception and Edgar Allen Poe; like if Poe was writing Inception in an abandoned medieval tower on old parchment. Parker give the reader the least (i.e, references to the world or extras) but forces the reader right along with him into the depths of depravity. 5/5 for this short

Think about what you do when you write something down. You take a thought out of your mind, you separate it from yourself, and you fix it in a permanent medium, like a fly in amber. Then you leave it there.
A book can last a very long time. Even if the paper you wrote it on is lost or destroyed, all it takes is for someone else to make a copy. [...]
...Some flies in amber are only sleeping.

She gave me this look, which I confess I found hard to interpret. "What?" I said.
"Oh, nothing."
...There's that bit in the General Collect about how you have broken every law, dishonored every commandment, done every evil, neglected every good. Get a woman to say it and you could compress all that down into 'Oh, nothing' and save twenty minutes.

War is a great generator of ironies. My all-time favorites are the patent infringement lawsuits brought against the US government after WW1 by the German arms industry.... ...The German patent holders won the suit, and the US had to pay royalties on every rifle issued to and and every bullet fired by their armed forces during the war. I'd put that in a book, but nobody would believe it.

Let Maps to Others is a puzzling novella in this collection. Probably my least favorite work in this book, though I'm actually wondering if it is so simply because it went over my head. The message or purpose behind the novella isn't actually clear to me, though I suppose one could argue that isn't a prerequisite of "goodness" in a story. About a long-lost island; hope, fortune, and disappointment abound. 3/5

"he was always a good speaker, and he couldn't resist arguing the toss, even when it was clearly not the smart thing to do. I can imagine (I wasn't there) him arguing with Death, scoring five or six good solid debating points; the last thing he'd have seen before his eyes closed forever was the panoramic view you get from the moral high ground.