Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (The Siege, #1) in Beyond Reality

Feb 26, 2021 carol. rated it it was ok

Shelves: meh, military-fantasy-sci-fi

A solid meh on my enjoyment scale.

Historical military fiction with a snarky first person narrator. Engineers will likely love this ode to their profession and ingenuity, and fans of military strategy should enjoy the details as well. The story centers on a former slave, Orhan, who is now the leader of a large group of engineers in the army of his oppressor, the Empire of Robur. When bad things start happening to the Empire, he finds himself working to defend it using all his ingenuity and guile. A solid meh on my enjoyment scale.

Historical military fiction with a snarky first person narrator. Engineers will likely love this ode to their profession and ingenuity, and fans of military strategy should enjoy the details as well. The story centers on a former slave, Orhan, who is now the leader of a large group of engineers in the army of his oppressor, the Empire of Robur. When bad things start happening to the Empire, he finds himself working to defend it using all his ingenuity and guile. Lying, tricking, killing--all will be used in the defense of the Empire. There's a lot of detail about ropes, beams, siege machines ,and strategies against fortified walls, leading to the titular 'sixteenth way,' the way used when there's absolutely no hope at all. For those into historical military fiction, I'm told the Robur Empire is the Byzantine Empire and the capital is its Constantinople.

The mordant humor is what may redeem the book for many. I'm no stranger to twisted humor, but this is not in a Murderbot kind of way, where someone talks a tough game but actually goes around saving people. This is "I legit did a bunch of shitty things and I'm going to keep doing them in a somewhat inept" kind of way. A more flawed narrator I have not seen since Glotka in Abercrombie's series, so take that for what you will.

A further damning note for fantasy readers: there is nothing fantastical about it at all, except Parker makes the oppressing people black blue and the MC 'milky' in skin tone, an authorial move that may or may not be problematic, but certainly seems tone deaf. Since this is essentially lazy historical fiction, I'll further note that slave status based on color and women treated like chattel are the norm.

The theme is pretty rough and depressing as well. Basically, people suck and even as you try to help, they'll misunderstand and undermine you. I'll note that a number of reviewers felt the ending was truncated and disappointing. I'll agree; it was almost like both Orhan and Parker were tired out. Me too.

I'm definitely done with this series. ...more

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Dec 13, 2021 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2021-shelf, fantasy

I admit I was hook-line-and-sinkered with the title. Anything that logical and/or methodical tied to an epic fantasy title just screams niche-cool.

And I wasn't disappointed. Engineer-turned-hero tales, turning a hopeless situation (a dead army, useless leaders, and a bunch of screwed-over normal people) into something resembling hope is, I admit, all kinds of awesome. Don't we like McGuiver for the same reason?

Well, this isn't a small-scale adventure even if the voice of our dour, slightly sarca ...more

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Jan 12, 2020 Paul Perry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, british-author, male-author, english-author, read-in-2020, british, fantasy, war

I’ve been reading Tom Holt since Expecting Someone Taller in the early 90s, and KJ Parker since stumbling across the Shadow trilogy in the 2000s, and wasn’t aware for a long time that the latter was a pseudonym for the former - or, to be more contemporaneous, that many people suspected KJ Parker was a pseudonym for a well-known writer, and there was quite heated discussion within the community as to their identity.

Not that I’d have been that interested - I’ve always been more interested in the w ...more

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Jan 22, 2020 Frank rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own

This was fun.

Problem analysis, solution identification/development/testing and implementation but with catapults. Is this a genre because I want more.

Set in a Roman-like environment. I know little about Roman history and at first I thought we were in ancient Rome but no. This comparison is primarily based on having watched a handful of gladiator movies.

The main character is not a gladiator or a senator but is a Colonel of a Regiment of Engineers. His sense of humor and internal monologue remind ...more

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Aug 02, 2019 Louise rated it liked it

I am so conflicted about this book. It's really fun, funny and original. Then it ends. I found the ending tremendously frustrating. I'm steering clear of spoilers, but it felt as though the author indulged himself in a wonderful bit of metafictional fun - and forgot all about the needs of his reader.

It might really work for some people. It didn't for me, which is a shame because it's 85% of a cracking novel. ...more

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Dec 18, 2019 Adeline rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, 300-400-pages, read-in-2019

Terrible ending. Orhan's story ended up being completely meaningless because it's pretty obvious it's not going to end well for the city. I don't need happy endings, but I definitely don't want nihilistic endings telling me everything is pointless because humans suck. ...more

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