I’m an engineer, I told myself. People bring me problems, and I fix them. ... I fix broken people with things, with stuff; with tricks, lies, devices. I’m resourceful and ingenious. I don’t confront, I avoid; and one of the things I do my best to avoid is justice, and another one is death. [loc. 3967]
According to the manuals, there are fifteen ways to defend a walled city. 'You can try one of them and if that doesn't work ...' Colonel Orhan of the Engineers finds himself in the unenviable position of defending a city that's besieged by an enormous army of mysterious origin -- a city in which, despite his rank, he's a second-class citizen by reason of his skin colour. Orhan has no resources, no authority, and no particular loyalty. He can fake or finagle two out of the three.
Orhan's life has been a series of abrupt changes: orphaned by war, sold into slavery, captured by the other side, freed, promoted. He's appreciative of his luck, and wryly amused that his various enemies have done him more good than any of his friends. (Of which more later.) He's ingenious, corrupt and untrustworthy -- both as a character and as a narrator: an amiable sort, thoroughly competent, though with a bit of an attitude problem -- he does like to be right, even when it's not politic -- and a chip on his shoulder.
I did not warm to him.
I've read and enjoyed many novels by K J Parker (see some of my reviews) and I know the kinds of things to expect. There's nothing as nasty here as in, for instance, The Belly of the Bow; nothing as apocalyptic as the Scavenger trilogy; and nothing as poignant as in the Engineer books. But I disliked Orhan more than most of Parker's characters: I detected an underlying bitterness and a streak of sheer nastiness, and felt that if I met this man in real life I'd be constantly on my guard.
Orhan regards love as a 'major pest', like hope. He's been in love once in his life, and is determined not to do it again. His love affair was not a wholly satisfactory experience, as it led to him plotting to murder his best friend. Orhan has reason to reflect upon this, for a similar situation arises in Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. This time around, though, his loyalty to his friend (a different friend, obviously) wins out. But in both cases the women seem like ciphers, tokens to be won or stolen.
(Delightful statement in a positive and thoughtful Amazon review: "Some suggest it denigrates women (I disagree, there are three female characters and two of them are amongst the smartest people in the book)". Three female characters! Well, that's all right then ... I should not mock: the novel is told from the viewpoint of a character who really isn't that interested in women, embedded in a society where women seldom have any kind of power or agency. It is not surprising that there are few female characters, but it's worth observing that those who do appear are mostly not treated well by the narrative.)
An early title of this novel was Worms and Lions, contrasting the mundane and the heroic: the lions will fight gloriously, but the worms will eventually triumph. This would be a very different novel if told from the viewpoint of one of the stereotypically heroic characters -- the leader of the besieging army, for instance, or the military leaders of the city. Or perhaps one of the women ... But what we get instead is a gritty, hyperrealistic novel that doesn't gild slavery, genocide, treachery, military technology or matters of the heart. It's a good novel, but not a cheering one. Sometimes a little gilding helps the horror go down.
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