“Orhan.” Nobody called me that. “You’re a clever man and you use your brain, which makes you unique in this man’s town, but you’ve got to do something about your attitude.” “Attitude? Me?” pg 16
Through a series of unfortunate events, Orhan, the leader of a group of military engineers, finds himself in charge of the defense of “the City”, the capital of the Robur empire. The Robur empire seems to have been loosely based on the Roman empire, which, in its conquering of the world, took diverse sets of people and organized them into useful groups under its overarching control.
Orhan is one of these conquered peoples. But he has a unique set of skills, all of which will be put into use during the siege that is to come.
“My meteoric rise, from illiterate barbarian serf to commander of an Imperial regiment, is due to the Hus, the Sherden, the Echmen and, last but not least, the Robur, who are proud of the fact that over the last hundred years they’ve slaughtered in excess of a million of my people.” pg 5
The story is told entirely from Orhan’s point of view in first-person narrative. This invites the reader to step into Orhan’s shoes and makes the tale quite exciting and immediate.
On the other hand, Orhan is emotionally bereft and runs his life through merciless logic, which doesn’t always serve him, or the people around him, very well.
“That’s one thing about human beings I don’t see the point in: love. It does nobody any good. You love someone, and either they let you down or they die. Either way, you end up crucified.” pg 55
He is an impatient and, occasionally, violent character, who literally punches people when they don’t conform to his view of the world fast enough.
In other words, wearing Orhan’s shoes for the length of the story is an uncomfortable ride for anyone who uses a modicum of emotional intelligence in their lives.
That being said, K.J. Parker (pen name for Tom Holt) has done a brilliant job of creating an unforgettable, if unpleasant, narrator. By the end of the book, even though I didn’t like him, I found myself rooting for Orhan anyway because that’s the kind of reader I am.
But if you have trouble connecting with stories where you don’t like the characters, this might not be the book for you.
The one moment where I did connect with the narrator was when he discovers his importance in the siege that is to come.
“If, as I was horribly afraid, I was the senior military officer in the City, I needed confirmation or a warrant or something. If there was someone higher up than me, I desperately wanted to hear about him and ask him for orders.” pg 78
I used to have similar feelings when I first started working as a reference librarian at the library. Prior to that, as a circulation assistant, if I had any question about anything having to do with the library or technology or research, I’d call up whoever was sitting at the reference desk and they’d supply me with the answer.
It was my own version of chain-of-command. There was an unspoken faith that I carried- if I didn’t know the answer, the reference librarian would so there was never any reason to worry.
The day that my training was done, my supervisor went home, and I was left alone at the reference desk, that was my Orhan moment. If I didn’t know or couldn’t find the answer, there was no one else for me to turn to.
It is humbling to realize that it all rests on your shoulders, but it is also a character making moment. How you respond to the pressure says so much about you. And that is the strength of this story, the slow revelation of Orhan’s character under pressure.
Recommended for readers who enjoy historical fiction. Though this is classified as a fantasy too, I feel like it veers more into a parallel universe than a true fantasy world where magic is real and otherworldly creatures are running around. I’d be curious to know what other readers think about its genre.
Thanks for reading!
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