Evil for Evil

I am still not sure whether it was an enjoyable read or not. I like K. J. Parker's writing, the world he has created, the cynicism and dark humour. The latter is absent from the second volume of this trilogy, unfortunately, just like from the first. And I do want a bit of sarcasm, I do want at least a little bit of dark humour in my dark fantasy... Here it's just grimdark, grimdark, grimdark, all the way to the last page (and there is a lot of pages here).
What I enjoyed though:
- Plots within plots within plots within plots and some unexpected developments. (You do need to suspend disbelief when Z is being so very clever all the time.)
- Geekery: more engineering, metallurgy, mining, porcelain-making (of all things ;-)), and falconry.
- show more The characters are great, even the very minor ones.
One more thing about the characters:
Z was scary in the first book, in this one he keeps getting scarier and scarier and scarier... AND THIS GOES FOR ALL THE OTHER IMPORTANT CHARACTERS FROM THE FIRST BOOK. This was rather difficult for me to stomach. Not that K. J. Parker's other books are full of lovely, kind, sympathetic people - they most definitely aren't, and this is not why I keep reading his work. It's just that there was too much darkness here - imho.
Obviously, I'll be reading the third book. I want to see the resolution. show less

Parker, K. J. Evil for Evil. Engineer Trilogy No. 2. Orbit, 2007.
In the first volume in this series, an engineer with more creativity than his straitlaced bosses can tolerate escapes his execution and defects to a rival city-state, where he improves their feudal technology. In this second volume he is on the run again and hanging out with a nomadic group and improving their technology. If that were all, then we would have a tight little 300-page novel that I probably would have liked better. As it is, this one adds plots and characters like barnacles and bloats to almost 700 pages. There are duels, love triangles that don’t much involve the engineer, spy plots and battles—the whole game of thrones panoply. Sorry. I only care about show more the engineer. show less

If you're a character in a K. J. Parker novel, and you realise it, cut your throat.

The continuing adventures of Vaaztes as he tries to get back to his wife.

The events are almost ancillary to this book, in which we see a sociable and an unsociable schizophrenic get together, viewing the world as a machine and manipulating the machine as they choose.

That said, the events carry on in their normal style, with both huge political impact and tiny personal minutiae all handled with equal aplomb and keeping things moving along happily. Despite that, it feels a bit weaker than normal for this author, not sure quite why it misses the mark, but it does.

I liked this volume of the series better than the first; I think it's because the various threads are starting to come together here. In a lot of ways, the first one was mostly set-up. It's certainly an excellently twisty plot! I'm very much looking forward to reading the last volume.

I gave up. I really didn't want to read another book where a truly unlikable character was the main focus. It's too bad because I found several other characters interesting enough to want to follow.

Excellent book, which was slow going through the middle but picked up amazingly at the end. The war is now out of Vaatzes control....