Fun and witty, researched and clever, Bookis the novelty so dont expect this one to exceed, but still, I truly appreciated Notker, Hodda and the finer humor of this installment.
Briefly Hum Maybe this is something of a "marmite" book, Comedy fantasy is not an easy genre and this one didn't really do it for me,
In full
The city has been under siege for years, Along comes Notker, sometime playwright, sometime actor, frequent liar and part time criminal, The Empire appears to need him for a new role whether he likes it or not, This then is Notker's story,
Maybe unsurprisingly Notker, a thespian, frequently addresses his audience us the reader while he is telling his tale, Initially I found this light hearted and easy to read though maybe less easy to understand what is going in the city/story, However aroundin things became much clearer and I found myself more engaged with the story, The story is partly addressed to the reader and partly narrative of events etc, I enjoyed Notker as a character but the rest felt rather shallow,
In the end I found this mildly entertaining and easy enough to read, However there was nothing here to get my teeth into, The story was ok I guess however I was never held by it I've not read anything by this author previously, I don't recall reading anything by Tom Holt the real author either, Comedy writing indeed "comedy" generally is a tough area I think, I don't actually regret reading this however I never really felt all that engaged in the machinations of the war and the siege, I imagine fans of the author may well be pleased with this book even if it wasn't particularly for me,
Note I received an advance digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review
sitelink org. uk/fantasy/howto
This is the direct sequel and most likely ending of the series that started with Sixteen Ways to Defend a walled City, taking place someyears later.
It follows the pattern on the first book with a personal narration of the antihero of the book, a city boy from a Theme family who didn't like the casual violence his father, a minor Green boss, dealt to various violators of Theme rules, violence he witnessed from an early age as his father decided that training his son to be a Green boss cannot start too early
So Notker decided to get away from the Themes and since career opportunities in the City were limited for nonTheme citizens of the lower classes, he became a mediocre to bad actor, moderately good if we take him to his word playwriter and superb impersonator of the rich and famous.
Now he has to play quite reluctantly but sadly unavoidably the ultimate role of a dead city leader however things do not stop there as there is an ongoing siege, the ruling classes stunned by it and allowing the army to rule for the pastyears may try to reassert their power, while the Themes now legalized may need to start contributing more to the war effort not to speak of his onetime lady love from his teen years, currently manager/actress of a successful theater and official as the dead man is rumored to play both sides as they say mistress in chief of the dead man Notker has to impersonate.
And if that is not enough, Ogus still wants the city razed and all Robur dead and has a millionman army outside the walls and still rules the former Robur empire, so has all the manpower and riches to keep going on for a long time.
And as Notker puts it, it's like the duck and the hunter, the duck can hide successfullytimes out of ten, but it takes only one good shot and the duck is dinner.
. .
So Notker has also to balance his dubious loyalty to the city to his private survival needs, . .
It took me a while to get into this one as its funny, irreverent tone doesn't quite match the times, but when I started it seriously, I really couldn't put it down lots of funny stuff, drama, reversals of fortune, twists though some are more telegraphed than others and a great definite ending.
Highly, highly recommended and even better than Sixteen ways to Defend a Walled City
Just like pretty much all of Parker's book, this is excellent.
Really can't recommend his work highly enough the imagination and wit of the stories is really top class, coupled with a reliably unreliable narrative voice, always makes for an excellent read.
Sixteen Ways to Defend a City was one of my favorite books of, It was hilarious, clever and the main character had a completely unique voice, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It is a brilliant sequel settoyears later where our original protagonist has already been forgotten about and replaced in the peoples minds by his burly and heroic body guard Lysimachus, a far more suited and palatable savior for the commoners to worship and for the politicians to control than a simple engineer.
Notker is a struggling performer, a man of many talents and few scruples, whose life and personal relationships all revolve around the performing arts.
As in The Man in the Iron Mask and many classic tales of old, Notker, a rather average man, is called upon to perform the old switcheroo when Lysimachus is squashed by a trebuchetflung boulder.
His skills as an impressionist and reasonable likeness make him the only choice and his ability to improvise, his expertise in the craft of theatre and his willingness to do anything to keep his head attached to his neck make him the perfect one.
Hes both a realist and a magician,
“Me, I dont care about the bad guys, so long as they keep the hell away from me, When they get too close, in my face, I tell them lies and run away, That means Ill never be a hero, but I dont mind that, I do character parts and impersonations”,
I loved the writing style of the entire book, Its quite Shakespearean in terms of there being a play within a play sometimes within another play, the swapping and assumption of multiple identities and an everyday person rising to a place of power.
Its also a very different sounding voice to any other fantasy books Ive read, The humor is so unbelievably dry and its hard not to chuckle constantly, I have no idea how Parker manages to manifest these characters that, at first, seem very average in life but turn out to be almost genius in the chosen field.
He also breaks down the world of politics wonderfully, throwing back the curtain to reveal the incompetence of those in charge, the lies that they live and die for and the sudden swings in power between those who have worked their whole life for it and those that stumble upon it.
Its easy to see the parallels between the utter shiteness of what we see everyday in the real world and whats put in front of us in the pages of this book.
As you can probably tell I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish, Parker has created a world full of wit, ingenuity, unlikely tactics and reluctant heroes and there is nothing else quite like it, If this series is a play this is absolutely the second act with very little going the way I imagined, a protagonist who is constantly on the verge of being stabbed in the back and an overall feeling of impending doom.
If youre after something totally different from the rest of your TBR pile I highly recommend How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It.
A huge thanks to Angela Man and Orbit Books for providing me a physical copy of the ARC, I dont enjoy using an ereader and the pandemic has me buying a lot of books but there is nothing quite like surprise book mail.
I immediately set my sights on getting this read as soon as possible in an effort to get my review done in time for release date and it proved to be no problem at all because I couldnt put it down.
This review was originally posted at The Fantasy Hive sitelink co. uk/ho If you ask me how disappointment looks like, I would throw this book in your face,
You're probably asking yourself, what could have caused such an outburst of violence in such a
timid creature as me Well, let me tell you.
I loved the first book of this series, It went straight to my favourite shelf, Orhan was authentic, his actions made sense, he was an engineer, He won, because he used all his skills and failed, because of the skills he never could aquire in his life, Like showing emotions, or understanding the Themes in the poor quarters,
So usually if I like a book that much, I rarely give the sequel less than three, But guess what, I couldn't do it, I just couldn't. Because everything that made the first book interesting and enjoyable, this one couldn't serve,
So let's start with the main issue, Notker, That dude is nothing more than an actor, who was brought up as a gangster, He never went out of the city, He never had a business to manage or a family to take responsibility for, And yet, the sheer strengh of acting as the emperor suddenly gives him the skill to be far more intelligent than most politicans, military man and clerks together.
You really want me to believe that no one ever thought about the solutions Notker magically came up with Come on!
The best thing is, he gets all his genius plans from reading ONE book about a siege that happend a few hundred years ago.
. . sure. He also suddenly knows how to rule over a crowd and make them do what he wants, An actor learns the skill to manipulate a crowd to have certain feelings, that yes, But not to manipulate them to take certain actions, Except if I throw a tomato at you, because you sucked at stage, And you, Notker, would have deserved that,
And don't let me start on Hodda, his best friend/love interest/somehow enemy/completely useless character, I know Parker can write good female characters, The two in the first book were no kick ass women, but they were there for a reason, Had a part in the story, One knew the Theme world and the other was such a good carpenter, that without her the city would have fallen and Orhan, too.
But Hodda The only thing she did was complain, why Notker is not as selfish and shitty as her, Was this supposed to bring the story further Exept from moping around and initiating one political meeting that ended in a disaster, because of her stupidity, she didn't do much.
But hey, for Notker she is the "most intelligent woman he ever met", Jesus, what kind of other women did you meet, Notker, . . I understand that she was supposed to be unlikable, but if a character is useless for the storyline, then please throw her into the bin, rather than into the book.
I also would like to mention Parkers not very superb dealing with homosexuality, Mild spoiler here The man that Notker needs to play, is known to be gay, The reaction of Notker to the fact is: "yea, he has a problem with that, " No further explanation. But they tell him, it's okay, because they are going to pretend gay people do not exist and he can meet and parade with the supposed female lover of that man.
So this isn't just problematic, It's not AUTHENTIC as well, Why, you ask Well, let's see, The whole world is clearly inspired by the roman empire and partly Byzantine, I guess, Ancient rome also had this very similar theater culture that Parker describes in his book, And guess what Ancient Romans also had a special vocabulary for the male actors, who also worked as lovers and prostitutes for the wealthy man.
Actors and actresses and theaters in general were in many cultures the equivalent of luxurius brothels for a long time, And Parker even mentions in this very book, that many actresses earn extra money by being mistresses to their customers, You really think boys and men wouldn't do that, too It was common in so many ancient societies! And furthermore, you want to tell me Notker can play the fucking emperor perfectly, but not a simple gay man His acting skills must suck so hard.
. .
But hey, why the fuss It's fantasy so Parker clearly does not need to write and include a correct representation of gay people, just because they were common in good old rome, right Maybe.
But as I mentioned, I like authenticity, I like when characters and societies make sense in books, That was the reason, why I loved the first one,
So I'm out of here, . . Razorfuckingsharp! A class act.
Brilliant. Im in the KJ Parker fan club so I usually expect top class writing, and a story which has an offbeat journey on its way to the destination.
Not disappointed here. This is one of my favourites by this author,
Its the follow up to sitelinkSixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, and starts just a few years after that story concludes.
While the previous story featured the first person narration of Orhan, the commander of an engineering regiment reluctantly defending the Empires capital against siege, this story is narrated by Notker, a jobbing actor and occasional playwright.
Theres a vague similarity between these lead characters both intelligent, resourceful, brave in a non sword wielding way and struggling with unexpected responsibility, In this story Notker certainly finds his acting skills useful, I especially enjoyed Notkers reflections on life, on his adventure and difficulties, viewed through an actors eyes, It is the conversation that the narrator has with himself and with you, the reader, thats a compelling and enjoyable feature of this book.
The dialogue too is peerless,
I wont spoil the clever and twisting plot by outlining any of it, But its a pacy story, with characteristic Parker wry humour embedded in the horror of bitter warfare, Its not a story about heroes wielding swords in battle although the background is one of a ruthless siege and counter attack, Surprisingly few detailed Parkeresque excursions onto a technical subject hes researched as background, a common feature of other Parker books, except here theres a little on some specifics of siege tactics.
A typical Parker fantasy world, perhaps better named as imaginative historical fiction, As in many, but not all, of his books its a nonmagical, nonsupernatural world, loosely modelled on the Byzantium Empire of the early Middle Ages.
If you read a range of his books using this world youll see similar historical characters mentioned, philosophers and artists, a religion based on The Invincible Sun often shown with a Single Tear below his eye no idea why.
They are casually dropped in by the author to show a developed fantasy world but you really dont need to know any of these details to read any single book.
The Byzantium link is clearest here with the street gangs named Blues and Greens, and modelled on real historical gangs of those names, In history their allegiances were based on links to chariot race teams but here its linked to gladiatorial contests, As inWays . , these gangs are a major plot factor,
If youre a Parker fan then its a must read afterWays, . If youve not read him thenWays, . . is also one of his more accessible books and a fantastic start before reading this one, I guess you could read this without the preceding book but youd miss some background,
As strong aas Ive given this year,
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Fetch Your Copy How To Rule An Empire And Get Away With It (The Siege, #2) Put Together By K.J. Parker Available As Pamphlet
K.J. Parker