Colours in the Steel / K.J. Parker

An enjoyable book but largely pointless.

There are characters that you can like. Not many that you can dislike. Some are vaguely sympathetic; most, you simply don't care.

The idea of legal cases being settled by sword fights is... interesting... but not a key element of the plot. The hero could as easily have been a fencing instructor, with someone determined to call him out for a duel.

The magic is interesting. Well,certainly the magic practitioners are interesting... If, in fact, any of them are really practising magic! It is still a bit uncertain.

So I read the blurbs for books two and three of the trilogy. And found no evidence of a conclusion! Book one raises some questions, some mysteries, that seem -- to me -- to be essential to the series. The blurbs give no indications that the mysteries are solved. Or even, not, solved.

We reach the end of book one and our hero goes on to... another adventure.

There may be a more coherent plot across the three books... I enjoyed book one enough to want to find out.

I enjoyed the book -- even though a lot of it is a how-to manual for middle-ages war and civilisation! (War and civilisation? Would it be enough to just write, civilisation? It is very hard to separate the two.) A manual with plenty of entertaining social commentary. Anyway...

Parker knows his/her stuff but a lot of the technical detail is too much. The idea of the Fencer occupation is great but largely pointless. The book is a detailed tale of the sack of one great city. I'm worried that the next books will be separate stories rather than a trilogy.

That said... read the book :-)

Despite its faults, it's a good book. I enjoyed it. I look forward to getting hold of the rest of the trilogy.

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Problems ? Solved

Evil for Evil / K.J. Parker

Evil for Evil

category: fantasy ?, author:

K.J. Parker

book 2 of Engineer Trilogy
original copyright 2006

read in July 2012

Agamedes' opinion: 4 out of 10, bad but could be read

This book is second of a trilogy. Perhaps there is something positive to say about the third book; perhaps some of the gloom and misery is dispelled in a somewhat happy conclusion.

Happy conclusion ? Who am I kidding ! If anyone is still alive -- anyone vaguely likable, that is -- if any likable character is still alive at the end, I would be surprised.

Let's consider the "category" of this book. The library identify it as science fiction. I've settled on fantasy. What is it really ?

There are the various city-states which are destroyed. Standard medieval places, with princes, cavalry, archers, foot soldiers with swords and pikes. Other than being not from our own history, there is no "fantasy" element to these places. No science fiction, either. Boringly standard, really.

There's a city-state where everyone operates to rules. Very strict rules, where trying to improve is punishable by death. Okay, could be fantasy or science fiction. They produce some machines which are apparently quite sophisticated. btw: This place is due to be destroyed in book three.

It's not just cities and states which are destroyed. Characters are also destroyed. Either physically or mentally or morally.

What if you asked Cormac McCarthy to write a "fantasy" novel -- but with less of the cheerful positivism that failed to grace The Road... You could end up with Evil for Evil.

What if you asked Woody Allen to define characters for a "fantasy" novel -- self-pitying, whining, ineffectual -- but with less reason to like them and with no chance of self-improvement... You could end up with Evil for Evil.

Characters do something, go somewhere, look as though they may just make a fair go of their lives. Then they are dragged back to an even worse situation. Or they just hang around, doing nothing. And are dragged down. Or killed.

Sometimes, the characters talk to themselves, for pages at a time (or so it seems; it drags). They explain to themselves how absolutely useless they are. How everything they do is wrong. Then they carry on being useless and doing the wrong things.

There is one central character (the eponymous engineer?) who is central to everything. He is willing to kill hundreds of thousands of strangers, to kill people who trust him, to kill people who are almost friends. He is also happy to destroy cities and countries. This is the central character of the series... Really, he sets the miserable tone for this story.

Forget it.

..o0o..

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PissWeakly: the Index