A Practical Guide to Conquering the World (The Siege, #3)

by K.J. Parker

if a nation no longer exists, can it have diplomats?

hmm...I'd have to say no

Oh, come on, you’re saying. Sitting in a library all day reading; this is your idea of a life? Really?

my dream life, yeah!

The Sashan express affection the same way cats do, by scratching; snide and inappropriate remarks, finding your weak spot and never letting it alone.

Luck, according to Saloninus, is like a cart full of diamonds perched on the very edge of a cliff. Best if you don’t push it.

Besides, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, plagiarism is practically a declaration of love.

I spent a summer in the City when I was young, just downwind of a slaughterhouse, so the smell of all that blood made me feel homesick.

eww

Four Cure Hardy offer you a bit of meat on a stick. “Thanks,” I said. “I already ate.” That made them laugh. “Try some,” they said. The ‘or else’ was silent, like the P in psalm.

Old Echmen proverb: when falling off a high tower, try to fly. You never know your luck and what’ve you got to lose?

The seventh axiom states that out of every ten battles, two are won by the victors whereas eight are lost by the losers.

Wut? Huh?

For all I know, by the time you read this, that version may well have evolved into the truth; in which case, don’t believe a word of what you’ve just read. It’s all lies. I made it up, just to be annoying.

I love unreliable narrators!

So inconvenient and awkward is the true authentic Sashan language that they don’t actually use it any more. They speak Apiru, which they stole from some people they conquered seven hundred years ago, and they write in Shasu, the language of the glorious and sophisticated people who flourished for thousands of years in the territories that now make up the heartland of the Empire of the Sun before the Sashan came along and exterminated them. But when the Great King writes to a brother monarch, he writes in Sashan; which means he composes his letter in Apiru in his head, dictates it in Shasu, then sends for a scholar who translates it into Sashan so it can be translated into Echmen or Vesani or Robur so that its recipient can understand it.

That is hilarious