Prosper's Demon

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.