Devices and Desires

[Caligula_K]

You read all of book three, what did you think of it, except for just depressing of course ?

I finished it about two weeks ago and i still have no idea what to make of it. I can say it started of slow and repetitive then it got quite interesting in the middle with all the machinations in full swing and it end...ridiculously. So ridiculously infact that i think i went and missed something maybe its the humor that you are talking about because i didn't find it in the slightest bit funny.

I have some of my thoughts in a post above, especially about the development of the themes which ended in pretty disturbing places. I enjoyed most of the book- but I think it ended much too neatly, especially the fact that

SPOILER: The Escapement

the Mezentines, Vadani and Eremians, all of whom have been severely weakened, can just chase about 800,000 people back into a desert without any resistance- if they can just do that, then clearly the Aram Charat are militarily retarded, and therefore posed next to no threat at all. I also think, now that I can, that the Valens/Veatriz story really didn't end well at all; I mean, we know Parker has an extremely jaded and cynical view of love, but seriously, she doesn't like him anymore because he acted like a Duke lost in a duel to Daruenja when he was severely injured?

I also agree with you that this one in particular was not funny at all- I maybe silently laughed about once or twice, but the rest of the time, I was far too depressed to. I understand what Sparky is saying, about how the humour is generally dry and quite subtle, but in book three in particular, the irony just didn't hit me in the right way. What did you find so ridiculous and do you think that you missed, Sheep? Also take a look at my post with the big spoilers blanked out above and tell me what you think of how the themes concluded.

[Muttering Bill]

I can say it started of slow and repetitive then it got quite interesting in the middle with all the machinations in full swing and it end...ridiculously. So ridiculously infact that i think i went and missed something maybe its the humor that you are talking about because i didn't find it in the slightest bit funny.

Ridiculous? Is there anyway to explain that without spoilers? I'd hate to think I'm putting in all this work to be disappointed by the ending. Is it as big a let down as PoN's ending?

If it's just that things get wrapped up too neatly, then that's not so bad. It is the last book afterall. DaD kind of blew it at the end with the explanations, but it didn't ruin the book.

[Caligula_K]

Ridiculous? Is there anyway to explain that without spoilers? I'd hate to think I'm putting in all this work to be disappointed by the ending. Is it as big a let down as PoN's ending?

If it's just that things get wrapped up too neatly, then that's not so bad. It is the last book afterall. DaD kind of blew it at the end with the explanations, but it didn't ruin the book.

I'd say its definitely worth reading to the end, and when I first finished it at one in the morning a couple of days ago, I was impressed with the majority of the ending, and I think I still am. But in retrospect, some things are seeming weirder and weirder. Anyway, decide for yourself.

[Sheep the Evicted]

I have some of my thoughts in a post above, especially about the development of the themes which ended in pretty disturbing places. I enjoyed most of the book- but I think it ended much too neatly, especially the fact that

SPOILER: The Escapement

the Mezentines, Vadani and Eremians, all of whom have been severely weakened, can just chase about 800,000 people back into a desert without any resistance- if they can just do that, then clearly the Aram Charat are militarily retarded, and therefore posed next to no threat at all. I also think, now that I can, that the Valens/Veatriz story really didn't end well at all; I mean, we know Parker has an extremely jaded and cynical view of love, but seriously, she doesn't like him anymore because he acted like a Duke lost in a duel to Daruenja when he was severely injured?

SPOILER: The Escapement

I know thats its Parker so we were never going to get a happy ending but things actually ended worse than they began. Can you believe so many hundreds of thousands of people died for a great love that wasn't actually there? Or that a man who is terrifyingly intelligent enough to bring an empire to its knees is so pathetic as Vaatzes? After i finished the book i felt cheated, as if Parker was taking the piss. Now though i realise that it fit in perfectly with her whole ideology, to the point where i can almost see the humor that Sparky is talking about, but it was just too much, this is easily the most depressing book i have ever read. It attacks two of the main reasons people actually get up in the morning; love and personal growth, which just goes beyond jaded and into something approaching nihilistic IMO. The strange thing is that i completely hate these book (for the reasons already mentioned) but i was completely and utterly absorbed by it. Just can't imagine myself reading them again.

As for the whole Aram Chanat thing then yeah i can see that. If they fought then they probably could have won but then they would starve to death and the Mezentines could easily clear them out, and for the Eremians and Valen's people that was a priice worth paying because they would have been wiped out anyway.

Actually i take it back, i can remember really liking the humor in the first book, it was the main reason i kept reading on. THis humor pretty much dies out by book thre to the point that you forget that there was ever any humor in the first place.

[ThRiNiDiR]

K.J. Parker - THE ESCAPEMENT (Link)

Perpetual republic is under siege. The army of nearly a million savage Aram Chantat is getting ready to dig in around the city of Mezentia under the unsure leadership of Duke Valens. The abominator Ziani Vaatzes together with the genius sociopath Daurenja is building siege engines of all kinds. From those specified, to something perhaps unseen, the secret weapon – a blackpowder canon. But for all their weapons nobody knows if they'll manage to defeat the mighty fortifications of the city before they run out of food themselves. Meanwhile secretary Psellus turns for salvation to another secret weapon - a woman. The flicker wife of Zianis who together with her blindly ambitious lover Boioannes was the cause of the bloodshed…

Just finished it and as expected, the book is a decent ending to a decent trilogy. Parker is a good storyteller. Even without rereading first two books you soon fall back into the rhythm of characters and events. Especially the characters since they are the most important part in his The Engineer trilogy. Second important part of the book is, not surprisingly, engineering. Not engineering of machines, though that is an important part of the story too, but engineering reality so that it may give the wanted result.

Unfortunately as important and well written as both parts are, none of them is perfect. His characters are as a rule too extreme - too smart, too ingenious, too much duty-bound, too romantic, perhaps even too psychotic to be realistic. For the second part what disturbed me most were the leaps with which he usually ends his books. You read through the series of events and thoughts, but the end makes most of them unimportant. It reminded me of all those detective stories in which you are never given all the clues that the detective found and all of the discoveries he made – just the ending. The butler did it…

Oh, and as an afterthought. What REALLY bothered me was his use of star fort when describing fortifications. Such forts developed in the response to the use of gunpowder, the world of this series is still the world of classical siege engine designs, so such fortification would be unlikely. O.K. I'm a historian, so sue me. Such things tend to bother me a bit, but don't let it spoil your reading pleasure.

All in all a decent read. Book and series both. So from me: 3,5/5

My first publication on the blog… Damn I'm nervous and awaiting your praise (you don't have to bother with criticism, right?). So, please, do leave a comment.

- BlindMan -

[Sheep the Evicted]

Your thoughts pretty much mirrored mine, which is good, even though i didn't pick up on the whole too extreme which is interesting, and now that i think of it, very correct. But then the more i think of it i think Parker ( who is a she by the way) wrote these books as a sort of joke.

[Jaxom 1974]

Just wanted to report (and I do so skipping a lot of the posts about The Escapment in this thread) that I'm half way through Evil for Evil and it's still keeping my interest. Some interesting bits have emerged. I still can't decide if I'm to like Ziani, though Psellus and Valens I think I like well enough. Miel I want better for than where he's at currently in the story, so I'm rooting for him. Orsea, well, there Parker has created a character that it's so hard to even pity that I think I simply loathe him, which is sad because I'm not sure he deserves the contempt. Which is probably a facet of the character himself...

[Sheep the Evicted]

Just wanted to report (and I do so skipping a lot of the posts about The Escapment in this thread) that I'm half way through Evil for Evil and it's still keeping my interest. Some interesting bits have emerged. I still can't decide if I'm to like Ziani, though Psellus and Valens I think I like well enough. Miel I want better for than where he's at currently in the story, so I'm rooting for him. Orsea, well, there Parker has created a character that it's so hard to even pity that I think I simply loathe him, which is sad because I'm not sure he deserves the contempt. Which is probably a facet of the character himself...

That brought a nostalgic smile to my face. I remember how frustrated i was with the Ducas and what had happened to him; the little boy in me kept going "there WILL be a happy ending!". Like you i hated Orsea, there is nothing i hate worse than an incompetent's character, but i always felt sorry for him too. Its funny how my biggest peeve is the incompetent yet by the end of the books I hated Zaini the most. Valens is still my favourite character; he supplies just the right balance of humour and intelligence. I always found myself rooting for Darunja, mainly because Ziani hated him so much.

Makes me realise just how good a writer Parker is; you just can't stay partial with any of the characters. At least not by the end of the series.

[Caligula_K]

I personally felt that Orsea was overdone. I get that he's the incompetent ruler, but by the middle of book two he's incapable of buttoning his shirt- its complete overkill. I also think that after book I, the Ducas' plotline is by far the weakest- it meanders in and about in book 2, then doesn't get enough attention in book 3 for it to have been interesting.

[Isis]

Finished Evil for Evil yesterday. There are so many things I like about this series and I'm desperate to find out what happens in the end.

[TakLoufer]

This thread has inspired me to order Colours in the Steel. I prefer to start with her first trilogy, if only to watch her writing develop. Do all three of the trilogies take place in a shared world, or are they completely independent?

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Bumping this because I know a few of us have finished the trilogy lately.

What an absolutely bleak place Vaatzes' world is. Both the one he lived in originally and the one he constructed. He talks about Daurenja's blindness and unhealthy reliance on his love/perception of reality, and then ...

SPOILER: end of The Escapement

he knows his wife doesn't love him, but he manoeuvres her into lying and -- again, despite knowing it's a lie -- decides it's a good enough basis upon which to build the rest of their lives.

Can he not admit he was wrong? Has the whole plot (of his, not just Parker's) been to abolish the Abomination that had become of the world/his life, into which he was drawn as the Abominator himself? Does that reflect his own role with regards to the Specification of his personal universe and perspective?

With regards to the other characters:

SPOILER: Valens and his wife

That actually seemed correct, to me. They were each in love with the ideal other they'd created - I had a harder time believing that they didn't have problems with reality before that point.

[Sheep the Evicted]

So has anyone else read a more depressing series; and by that i mean you can only say if you have read all the way to the end of the Escapement.

[Sir Thursday]

This thread has inspired me to order Colours in the Steel. I prefer to start with her first trilogy, if only to watch her writing develop. Do all three of the trilogies take place in a shared world, or are they completely independent?

Her trilogies all take place in different universes.

I'm thinking I'll get round to Devices and Desires at some point in the near future - I really enjoyed The Fencer Trilogy (particularly The Proof House) although I couldn't get into The Scavenger Trilogy. I find Parker an odd author really because at times she blows me away with her ironic brand of humour, and at other times I find it hard to sustain my interest, although I can never quite pinpoint the reason why. I've got plenty of unread books to go first though.

Sir Thursday

[Caligula_K]

So has anyone else read a more depressing series; and by that i mean you can only say if you have read all the way to the end of the Escapement.

Nope. Still thinking about the ending and I don't think you can get more depressing than that. I don't think there's a single character who's happy at the end, except maybe

SPOILER: The Escapement

Miel, who becomes a dick.

Seefster Mary, I wonder, did you find the ideas in the book to be just as depressing as the plot? I don't know if I'm misreading it, but according to just about all characters in the series (and therefore, I think, Parker) it was okay for Vaatzes to do all that he did because evil had been done to him; even Psellus admires him for it, saying he wouldn't have had the strength. I found this idea to be somewhat crazy, since then killing hundreds of thousands of people would be justified because Vaatzes' wife betrayed him and he was framed by the state. Am I just mis-reading anything here, or is this not batshit insane?

[Jaxom 1974]

I really was left rather flat after the end of the series. I mean, it isn't enough that there really isn't any happiness out there, it's that it all just kinda deflated and went away. A lot of build up to mostly nothing.

The Ducas I really wanted to like after book 1. By the end of the series, I found it very hard to read any of his scenes. A whole lot of sound and fury signifying nothing with that character in the end.

Ziani apparently had a wide ranging plan from the start? Felt like Parker just tied it all together in the end whether it made sense or not.

Psellus ended up being the only character I really liked by the end.

[Caligula_K]

Oh ya, Miel's plotline was completely useless. The worst part is when he went to Vaatzes camp and escaped at the end of book II, killing some folk along the way, and then just decided to go back in Book III. Absolutely no point to his plotline.

[Isis]

Well, the humor is dry and subtle, not characters cracking on each other via snappy dialog. It feels very 'English' to me in a way that even Abercrombie doesn't.

Yes! Completely agree with this.

I finished this last week and I've not been so impressed with a book since I read Dune or Gormenghast. I'll confess that the themes are right up my street: I thoroughly approve of the idea of love as a destructive force. And I don't go much for happy endings either.

SPOILER: The Escapement

When I read Ziani's 'confession' to Psellus at the end, I did wonder for a while if he was taking the piss when he said that he thought up the entire plan while he was laying in the desert, dying of thirst.

I was highly amused by Ziani's 'HA! BEAT YOU!' gloating over Daurenja's demise. That whole sequence was fabulous. Then at the end (but does he mean it or not?) Ziani says that Daurenja is a better engineer than him - he must feel pretty smug that he manages to do a better job at utilising his own skills than Daurenja does, then.

Yeah, bit disappointed with Miel's storyline in the end, but at least he's stopped being a slave to duty by then, so that's a small consolation.

[Muttering Bill]

First off, I didn't find The Escapement to be all that depressing. I actually thought it was the funniest book in the trilogy.

SPOILER: The Escapement

She completely ruined Valens. I liked him up until he took the arrow in the face. Afterward she made him insecure and innefectual. Sure, maybe the whole Valens persona was an act, but it was an act that became reality for having worked so long at it - as he had stated several times before that. He's not just going to crumble because of one injury.

I didn't buy that Veatriz can fall out of love with Valens because he lost the duel to Daurenja. I mean, he didn't lose because Daurenja was better, but because he was barely strong enough to get out of bed. It struck me as ridiculously petty.

I don't think that Ziani was ever expecting a happy ending. He had to have knows from the start that he wouldn't be allowed to return to the city. As for his wife, well, it was about Moritsa. He wouldn't be the first man to stay with a despicable woman for the welfare of his child (despite her not really being his). The best he could have expected was good "enough" and he got that.

Miel's story line seemed to go nowhere during Evil for Evil, but I actually liked the way she villainized him for The Escapement.

Though I saw it coming (and how could I not), Daurenja's end was beautiful. It made me smile.

But yeah, in the end, I also found myself rooting for Psellus. He was the only character that wasn't a complete prick.

[Isis]

When might we be permitted to post without worrying about spoilers btw? I suppose we need a new thread or a warning in the title? Anyway...

SPOILER: The Escapement

Ah, but we know (and so did he) that Valens would have been beaten by Daurenja whether he was fit or not because Daurenja used the circular guard thingy, which the training master in Mezentia was trying to explain to Psellus, which Valens had not even been taught because it was deemed too hard for him. It was that certain knowledge which made Valens give up the fight before his illness would have finished him off. He didn't know where to start with fighting Daurenja.

But that doesn't excuse Veatriz from being an annoying cow though. I mean, she'd been quite sympathetic up until that point. But it was impossible to think anything good of her after that.