Devices and Desires

Authored by: K.J. Parker

This is book one of The Engineer Trilogy. I had jury duty and correctly figured that I wasn't going to be put on a case, but instead be left to sit and read so I grabbed some books from the library. I hadn't been there in forever and the selection sucked but I found this large book and a few others. This one, I correctly identified as the most interesting. It begins with a teen boy, son of the Duke in one, i guess I'll call it a kingdom. There are three Kingdoms (or three that matter) Two are rival related enemies that had just recently signed a peace treaty and the third is this extremely technologically advanced place. And by technologically advances I mean they produce the best armor, have the best weapons, they make plates and basically whatever you can thing to do with metal they make it perfectly. So then the story goes on that Orsea's kingdom attacks the advanced ones and lose but it's all good timing for this one guy who made an advancement on one of the technologies, which is not allowed. He escaped from prison and followed Orsea home. Then naturally, stuff happens.

I really thought this book was amazingly well thought out. So planned. You see things happening and wish the lines of communication were more open so they wouldn't easily succumb to defeat but you know who the characters are, and what they're going to do. I really don't like Vaates, the prison escapee. He's apparently the protagonist though. I really like Valens and hope that he can work things out... Anyway, great book. There's a ton of war and hunting and planning things I don't too much care about but Parker makes it a page turner. I was not bored at all in jury duty. Sometimes I'd look up from the book and feel like I was being sucked out of another world. It's that good.