#k. j. parker

[nzbookwyrm]

Subterranean Press will be offering a free ebook every month or so. The first is No Choice by K J Parker.

This is available globally - I had no trouble downloading from New Zealand.

#k j parker #k. j. parker #subterranean press

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Long Game - K. J. Parker

K.J. Parker is a master of the novella format. He always delivers excellent twists and a great reading experience. In The Long Game, we follow an unnamed narrator as he grapples with supernatural and political challenges.

The narrator, an adept of the Craft, is able to enter the minds of others to expel interdimensional demons that compel them to do evil deeds. The thing is, throughout the years he's befriended one of the demons and they have a cordial, mutually beneficial relationship.

Things get complicated when he meets Amalasomtha, a young woman with impossible abilities who hails from remote (and believed mythical ) Idalia. Her superiors have tasked her with capturing a demon. As you'd expect from Parker, the truth is nuanced and political in nature. Expect murder, magic, deception, hidden agendas, and glimpses of a larger story, the titular Long Game.

As a massive fan of Parker's writing, I loved the condensed story full of vignettes and jumps in time (used to introduce characters or give us the context of the situation). Like many of Parker's narrators, this one is comically self-absorbed and morally flexible. He's not happy with his current circumstances (doing fieldwork) and would prefer to work as a researcher and a teacher. 

His demonic friend is also weary of his superiors. The idiotic bureaucracy annoys them both, so they help each other and exchange false information to feed their superiors. Except, one of them is playing a longer game.

Parker packs The Long Game with action, twists, and betrayals. He also weaves in playful humor and a healthy dose of cynicism with a light, sure hand. I love the novella format, and The Long Game kept me riveted every second of the wild ride.

#K.J. Parker #The Long Game #mahreviews #long post #K. J. Parker

[itsagrummel]

books i read in march:

16 ways to defend a walled city by K.J. Parker

9/10, great style, great ideas, great ending. this fanatsy books is about a man finding himself in charge of.. well, you guessed it, defending a walled city. very funny yet surprisingly thoughtful at times. subtraction for talking about racism and xenophobia without knowing much about it. i am absolutely fine with writers not just writing about things they don't experience (obviously). but those shorts parts about the alienating experiences of foreignness felt odd and shallowly researched. apart from those short moments a recommended book.

Oni no Hanayome wa Taberaretai 1-5 by Keiko Sakano

8/10 Yes it's a manga series but let's not be snobbish about it. it looks like a book. it's getting read like a book. it's a book. this series is absolutely soft and simple entertainment. it's about a bride being married to a demon. the series delivers what it promises but nothing else. solid romance escapism. i did not regret buying those books.

Nordic Gods by Johan Egerkrans

10/10 I remember reading this books a couple of years ago and picked it up again for research reasons. Great book as an introduction to nordic, Scandinavian folk and mythology. Nordic Gods does not downplay the pragmatic brutality of skandi folk and myths so i am not sure why that was in the little kids section. Also, normally I don't buy books just for their looks but this time I got the german hardcover edition and it looks great.

My lesbian experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata

10/10 this book was recommended to me and I definitely can see why. This manga talks about mental health and experiences of isolation, anxiety and growing up. A very sweet but raw and honest piece of media not just lonely and/or lesbians can relate to.

#grimmreads #grimmwriting #book recommendations #book review #books #books and literature #manga #anime and manga #nordic gods #kabi nagata #my lesbian experience with loneliness #john egerkrans #keiko sakano #oni no hanayome wa taberaetai #16 ways to defend a walled city #k. j. parker

[parsleysagerosemarytimemachine]

I've really enjoyed Parker's other historical-inspired fiction, with sarcastic and capable characters thrust into the historical limelight in ways beyond how they would ever expect, so when I saw this at work I immediately picked up the entire trilogy. This first book has already rewarded me for that decision; the leader of a band of battlefield scavengers, on the run from his ignoble past, is pulled into what could be the beginning of a world-defining war, and all he wants to do is not be seen. Really highly recommend this, or any of Parker's other books, especially if you like a look at the sausage of history being made.

#books #reading #reviews #Saevus Corax Deals With the Dead #K. J. Parker

[filipmagnuswrites]

A Practical Guide to Conquering the World by K. J. Parker - Book Review

Series: The SiegePages: 350Genre: Quirky, dark fantasy The first two novels in K. J. Parker’s Siege trilogy did much to create a kaleidoscopic world from the singular position of the City, the capital of a great Empire that has been Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City told the story of an engineer not of the Robur race who struggled to hold out in the face of overwhelming odds, protecting this…

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#A practical guide #a practical guide to conquering the world #book blog #book review #Fantasy #how to #K. J. Parker #Siege series #Siege Trilogy #Writing

[estavian]

4T8

Greenings Thirders The cycles come and the cycles go.  This is inevitable.  And yet it does not mean that there is not a randomness to it.  Or a non-cycle to the cycles.  It is much like your species.  You have made errors in the past and you are making errors now and you will, but only if you do not project too far into the distance, make errors to come.  But they will not be the same errors. …

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#aliens #commentary #criticism #fantasy #fiction #humor #K. J. Parker #reviews #sci fi #science fiction #terry Brooks #writing

[pedropcl]

The damage, the destruction, you saw it with your own eyes. When will people wake up and realize that everywhere Spider-Man goes, chaos and calamity ensue. Everything Spider-Man touches comes to ruin. And we, the innocents, are left to pick up the pieces. J. Jonah Jameson reporting. Good night... and God help us all.

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (2021) | dir. Jon Watts

#j jonah jameson #j k simmons #tom holland #peter parker #spider man #spider man no way home #marveledit #dailyspiderman #filmgifs #moviegifs #thespidersource #spidermanedit #fyeahmovies #themarvelmultiverse #chewieblog #dailyavengers #marveladdicts #spideycentral #userstream #fyspiderverse #marvellegends #mcufam #usersource #*my gifs

[catiecriesalot]

So when I heard Ketheric Thorm speak the first time I had the intense and insatiable urge to create…

I’m gonna dip into bard for viscous mockery to complete him

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #spiderman #spider-man #peter parker #bg3 build #the way the got j k simmons to voice thorm and I was able to tell it was him within 2 seconds of dialogue #in this univers Spider-Man punches J Johnna Jameson in the face #jk simmons

[aqueerpolysocialist]

"... death isn't like the last ship east in autumn; if you miss it, you're stuck where you are for at least three months until the weather improves. Death is prepared to wait. It's always there for you, like your mother."

K J Parker, A Practical Guide To Conquering The World

#k j parker #the siege #a practical guide to conquering the world #ya literature

[theeloquentpage]

Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead by K J Parker

New Review: Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead by K J Parker #review #fantasy

From one of the most original voices in fantasy comes a twisted tale of murder, betrayal, and battlefield salvage. There’s no formal training for battlefield salvage. You just have to pick things up as you go along. Swords, armour, arrows – and the bodies, of course. Over the years, Saevus Corax has picked up a lot of things. Some of them have made him decent money, others have brought nothing…

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#Fantasy #K J Parker #Orbit #Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead

[ancient-rome-au]

REVIEW: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City [no spoilers]

Here is the blurb on the back of the book:

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

My rating: ★★★✰✰

TL;DR: Overall, I had fun with this book. I loved the genre elements: the Roman-inspired world and the plot centered on a siege. However, the literary elements were underwhelming. I think it can still be worth your time if those genre elements sound appealing to you; if not, skip it.

This is a rather difficult book to categorize into a genre. While the world in which it is set is heavily influenced by the Roman Empire, it is assuredly not historical fiction. Our protagonist is saving an unnamed capital city on the coast that is directly inspired by Constantinople, but is never named. The city is the capital of Robur Empire, whose culture and attitudes and government form are quite similar to our Romans, but whose skin is blue! (Note: the protagonist is not a blue-skinned Robur, but a "milk faced" outsider, and this sets him on a lower rung of the Robur's racial hierarchy.)

At the same time, it's not a work of fantasy. There is no magic, no prophecies, no divine intervention, no fantastical beasts, and no superhuman heroes. Indeed, the blue skin of the Robur people is the only arguably fantastical element of the world-building.

I would categorize it as a work of alternate history in an alternate universe. While the world of Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (16WTDAWC hereafter) is unmistakably Roman, it remixes Roman (including the period we call "Byzantine") culture in a very interesting way. In this world, both gladiator fights and chariot races are held in the hippodrome. The Robur state religion has the aesthetic vibes of the Greek Orthodox Church but it remains polytheistic (As best I can tell. The narrator--the protagonist--never gets into the details. He makes a passing remark about some cult analogous to Christianity never getting off the ground.)

The book absolutely delivers on the premise in the title. Much of the plot centers on defending the walled city, either the organizing of its defense or the engineering of solutions to stave off any assault. If you like military history and/or warfare simulation (video games, tabletop games), you will have fun with this book. I certainly had fun with this book for that reason.

However, other elements of this book left me unsatisfied:

I personally disliked the protagonist-narrator. I am not going to opine on whether he is "likeable"--you can decide whether you like him. But he is very cynical, self-effacing in a way that comes across as insincere, and exhibits patterns of communication with other characters that are just terribly unproductive (e.g. telling them they're stupid instead of explaining WHY they are wrong.)

The narrator has a terrible habit of introducing flashbacks in the middle of dialogue scenes. It makes for a very jarring return to the present once the flashback is over.

The ideological conflict at the heart of 16WTDAWC is the same one identified by the (invented) speech of Calgacus in his criticism of the Romans prior to the battle of Mons Graupius: "To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace." Calling the empire "Robur" is not terribly subtle in this regard, but I don't mind that. My disappointment is that I felt that questions about wars of conquest, slavery, genocide, and imperialism were explored but not satisfactorily.

Regarding this final point, I want to be clear about what I am not trying to say here:

I am not disappointed that 16WTDAWC is not a thorough denouncement of the crimes of imperialism and vindication for human rights. I am disappointed that the protagonist is incapable of articulating:

a coherent explanation about how he reconciles his participation in a imperialist regime that is racist against him personally (even as he has risen fairly high in the ranks of its military!) He has an explanation but it's not a very good one! Basically he just doesn't think about it too hard and tries to get on with life.

a coherent response to the antagonist, who has strong views that the Robur Empire is evil (but I won't say too much more so as to minimize spoilers)

I think a more charitable read of this situation is that 16WTDAWC is happy to live with the ambiguity and let the reader make up their own mind as to whether the protagonist, antagonist, or neither is in the right. That's fine to a point. But I feel that this ideological question was under-explored by the book, in large part due to the personality and limitations of the protagonist. The conflict came across as one-dimensional.

Hat tip to @the-queen-of-bithynia for the recommendation.

#book review #fiction #Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City #K J Parker

[nzbookwyrm]

#saevus corax captures the castle #k j parker #corax

[jannaphia]

The world is full of idiots, and always has been. But sometimes I wonder why such a disproportionate quantity of them end up running other people’s lives.

- K.J. Parker, How To Rule An Empire And Get Away With It

#books #k j parker #how to rule an empire and get away with it #the siege #quote

[ricstarlovebot]

#j jonah jameson #john jonah jameson #j k simmons #jk simmons #sam raimi's spiderman #spiderman 2002 #peter parker #spiderman #mine

[sea-dukes-assistant]

MA’AM FILMED US?

#j/k the other guy's probably big forehead Mike Parker #Prince Philip #working for Sea Duke

[filipmagnuswrites]

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It by K. J. Parker - Book Review

K. J. Parker is a master of voice. His Siege Trilogy accents this mastery, providing the reader with narrators with personalities large enough they threaten to drown out most other voices. How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, the middle book in this trilogy, has to contend with a difficult task: offering a worthy follow-up to the ironic, cynical voice of the first book’s protagonist Orhan.…

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#book blog #book review #character development #Constantinople #cynicism #Fantasy #fiction #How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It #humor #irony #K. J. Parker #leadership #literature #narrative voice #politics #responsibility #siege #Siege Trilogy #theatre #Writing