[YFQ]⋙ [PDF] Devices and Desires Book One The Engineer Trilogy KJ Parker 9781841492766 Books

Devices and Desires Book One The Engineer Trilogy KJ Parker 9781841492766 Books

Download As PDF : Devices and Desires Book One The Engineer Trilogy KJ Parker 9781841492766 Books

Devices and Desires Book One The Engineer Trilogy KJ Parker 9781841492766 Books

This is not a great book. It's ok, but not great. My biggest gripe is that it's just poorly written. I struggled early on with identifying the voices of the characters as they all largely sounded the same (except Orsea because he's always whining). The premise is good, I like the idea of the engineer being the lead, but honestly the other characters didn't add enough to the story to merit them being there. I'd honestly have preferred the entire book be from the engineer's point of view.

What I'd change: Cut out all of the gratuitous listing. It's excessive and annoying. This book could have been half as long and twice as interesting without all of the extras. Next, get rid of the parenthesis sections. I found after a while that I could completely skip them and not miss a beat. Finally, if the paragraph takes up a whole page, it's too long. Break it up.

What I like: The engineer is smart, and applies everything he learns to everything else. He is always expanding his knowledge and thinking ahead. He also struggles with some things, which is much better than the "I'm immediately good at everything" hero. If the book were condensed better this would be a 4 to 5 star book.


Tags : Devices and Desires: Book One (The Engineer Trilogy) [K.J. Parker] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A work from the author of The Fencer Trilogy and The Scavenger Trilogy .,K.J. Parker,Devices and Desires: Book One (The Engineer Trilogy),Little, Brown Book Group,1841492760,Fantasy - Epic,Fantasy fiction.,ENGLISH SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,FICTION Fantasy Epic,Fantasy,Fantasy - General,Fantasy fiction,Fiction,Fiction - Fantasy,Fiction Fantasy General,Fiction-Fantasy,GENERAL,General Adult,Great BritainBritish Isles,Modern fiction,Monograph Series, 1st,SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY

Devices and Desires Book One The Engineer Trilogy KJ Parker 9781841492766 Books Reviews

Imagine there were a really high end mail order catalog for Renaissance Festival or Society for Creative Anachronism gear (use your imagination, I know all those people drive to their events in rusting Civics). Parker would be just the candidate to write exquisite blurbs for the products. If you are interested in detailed, vocabulary-building descriptions of fencing, metal-working, and pre-modern military equipment, this is the book for you!

If you are interested in a gripping plot, characters you care about, move on. Because this ain't it. She took an amazing premise and ground it into powder (albeit a powder that could be used to polish steel to a #4 finish).

Here are the main problems she lays out detailed internal monologues for multiple characters (4 or 5), but this quickly reveals that there no character distinctions - they are all the same person, namely the author! Dialog is distressingly contemporary, and author makes almost no attempt at constructing ideolects. Once again - everyone sounds like everyone else, and all sound like the author. Premise is not developed in an interesting way (backstory development focused on boring economics and politics). Plot is diverted by a boring love quadrilateral. Epistolary elements should advance the plot, but don't and provide even more tedium. Motivation of central character is opaque (I actually wanted him dead by the end).

This author can write - there are flashes of great writing, but seldom last more than a page. And the premise - I loved it, but it was wasted. I will be skipping the sequels.
“The quickest way to a man’s heart,” said the instructor, “is proverbially through his stomach. But if you want to get into his brain, I recommend the eye-socket.”

So begins Devices and Desires, the first novel in K.J. Parker’s masterful Engineer Trilogy. (It also happens to be the opening lines of Evil for Evil, and The Escapement—books two and three respectively.) From the very beginning of this trilogy, Parker’s wit and grit are on full display. I highly recommend K.J. Parker to readers of all types. Though shelved under fantasy, I am confidant Parker’s work is accessible to a wider audience. Readers of historical fiction, literary fiction, dark humor, fantasy, and history will not be disappointed. I even recommended Parker to my dear, 74 year-old Grannie the other day, because Parker’s work is not only among the most entertaining fiction being written today, but (in this reader’s opinion) among the most important as well.

Devices and Desires is about a man willing to do anything to be reunited with his family. The man is Ziani Vaatzes, a respected engineer and citizen of the Mezentine Perpetual Republic. Ziani is sentenced to death when it is discovered that he improved upon guild design specifications for a doll made for his daughter. (Improvement, aka abomination, cannot be tolerated within the Mezentine guilds, because one does not perfect perfection.) Forced to leave his daughter and wife behind, Ziani escapes execution with some quick thinking and a disturbing willingness to commit extreme violence against his countrymen, and ends up as a defector to the neighboring (and old-fashioned) Duchy of Eremia. Ziani knows how his countrymen think. He knows that they will come for him, and that they will likely slaughter every Eremian for good measure… just in case the rogue engineer happened to pass along any state secrets while in exile. And so Ziani contracts with the Eremian Duke to build an arsenal of scorpions to defend against the certain oncoming tide of destruction.

Ziani is the main character of Devices and Desires. His choices and motives certainly drive the plot forward. However, Parker fills the pages with many different POV’s, each with their quirks and fears and shortcomings. The “side” characters of Devices and Desires were one of the novel’s highlights, in particular, Jarnac Ducas, a junior member of an important Eremian noble house. Readers are sure to love his arc through the end of the novel (no spoilers here).

It was stated above that K.J. Parker’s work is among the most important being written today. Parker has an extraordinary grasp on the human mind. More specifically, an understanding of what causes a person to do what they do. There are no villains in Devices and Desires… at least not in the traditional sense of “good guys” vs “bad guys.” The characters’ differing motives make perfect sense when seen from their own perspectives. Parker brings such varied palette shades to the term gray as to put the rest of the popular grimdark movement to shame. The characters in Devices and Desires are archetypal to be sure, but in a way that exaggerates expectations. The love-sick knight is going to rescue his damsel is distress. Even if he has to trample a thousand innocents under his warhorse to get to her. The loving husband and father sets two nations on a path of total destruction in order to be reunited with his family. The respected nobleman stands by his duke, despite knowing said duke is an idiot, and the worst disaster in their country's recent history—all because of duty. Parker is a writer who fully understands the power of hyperbole, as well as tragedy in fiction, and uses the forms to great effect.

Yeah, I kind of liked Devices and Desires. I think you will too. To those of you new to K.J. Parker, I also recommend that you read The Folding Knife, or Sharps, two standalones of Parker’s that I read before Devices and Desires. All are excellent starting points for Parker’s work. As for me, I’m fifty pages into The Hammer, and I pre-ordered Parker’s limited edition short story collection from Subterranean Press, to be released at the end of July. It’s hard to pull away from Parker’s fiction once you’re sucked into it, though why one would want to escapes me.

(Originally posted at adventuresinscifipublishing.com)
This is not a great book. It's ok, but not great. My biggest gripe is that it's just poorly written. I struggled early on with identifying the voices of the characters as they all largely sounded the same (except Orsea because he's always whining). The premise is good, I like the idea of the engineer being the lead, but honestly the other characters didn't add enough to the story to merit them being there. I'd honestly have preferred the entire book be from the engineer's point of view.

What I'd change Cut out all of the gratuitous listing. It's excessive and annoying. This book could have been half as long and twice as interesting without all of the extras. Next, get rid of the parenthesis sections. I found after a while that I could completely skip them and not miss a beat. Finally, if the paragraph takes up a whole page, it's too long. Break it up.

What I like The engineer is smart, and applies everything he learns to everything else. He is always expanding his knowledge and thinking ahead. He also struggles with some things, which is much better than the "I'm immediately good at everything" hero. If the book were condensed better this would be a 4 to 5 star book.