The Devil You Know

By: K. J. Parker

Narrated by: Will Damron

The greatest philosopher of all time is offering to sell his soul to the devil. All he wants is 20 more years to complete his life's work. After that he really doesn't care. But the assistant demon assigned to the case has his suspicions, because the philosopher is Saloninus, the greatest philosopher, yes, but also the greatest liar, trickster, and cheat the world has yet known - the sort of man even the Father of Lies can't trust. He's almost certainly up to something...but what?

©2016 K. J. Parker (P)2016 Macmillan Audio

Our Mortality How Will You React

This is a great story that's just as good as the Last Witness. Although they have nothing in common expect for being really good can't wait for another. There is 1 word that can discribe what the book is about but that 1 word would spoil the story so I leave to you to make it out what that 1 word is. This is a minor thing but an FYI sometimes the author wrote from different view points of view so paying attention if all of a sudden it becomes confusing a bit. Definitely replay value here.

Slight Spoiler Question Kind Of Thing To Think About After You Are Done.

1. One thing though I don't know if you can answer is why this man chose this representative.
2. How did he know his name to ask for him, also on the cover it says father of lies , we all know that Satan has that honor but from the memories of himself we can see he more like a minion of Hell that Satan himself.

Narration fail

Narrator’s voice does not clearly portray the two first person POV characters. WTF?! Gave up halfway through. Will read it instead.
Should have used two different voice actors!

Interesting premise

For me an ideal short story as I enjoy this author.
Is the lack of distinction between characters somewhat confusing at the beginning and occasionally in the body of the story , yes. .But carefully listening and context usually makes it clear who is speaking. Not a deal breaker for me but I can understand the frustration of other listeners.

Good story limited by voice actor

K.J Parker’s “The Devil You Know”, is a novella that asking how could one twist a contract to sell their soul for their own benefit. The story offers an intriguing twist, although based on medieval pseudoscience. The problem with this edition of the audiobook is the reader, Will Damon, performs with a single voice. Since the story has no obvious transitions, such as “joe said” or the “devil stated”, there’s no way to tell when the story is transitioning between two characters, so whenever there was a transition it was several sentences before it became obvious which character was speaking. Otherwise a decent story.

Just one problem

Clever story. And the narration was smooth. My only problem was that the two main characters sounded identical and it made it difficult at times to track correctly who was speaking.