I'm a big fan of K.J.Parker. I can prove it, too. According to Goodreads, this is my 11th book by him. I don't think I would recommend "Devices and Desires" as a starting point for those who have never read anything by K.J. Parker. (I got hooked by his short stories and novellas.) It's dark and cynical, rather than dark, cynical, snarky and sarcastic, like his other books. No chuckles to be had here, so now you've been warned.
- Great characters, as usual.
- I did not really notice that the book was ca 700 pages long. If you like this kind of style (dry, academic, yet engaging), then you won't either.
- This is a geeky book. I've learned everything I ever wanted to know but was afraid to ask about boar hunting and building siege engines and artillery machines.
- Now I also know what kind of person NOT to be if you happen to be a Duke of a smallish country. (HONESTLY!) I'm sure it'll be extremely useful to me at some point.

Yes, yes, yes, I'll be reading the rest of the trilogy :-) ( )

Somewhere there, buried under endless layers of useless boredom, lies an excellent story, with good, all-rounded characters. Unfortunately, as I struggled with the book, the slag grew ever thicker and I gave up at about 80%. Definitely will not read the sequels or anything else from KJ Parker. ( )

This is a really well written and extremely readable book, but ultimately disappointing.

I've really enjoyed Mr Holt's short stories, this novel shows the same cleverness, intricate layering and detailed world building. Sadly, stretched out to 700 pages this all gets a bit bland and repetitive. The whole story rests on the infallible omnipotent genius of Ziani Vaatzes, with some support from a secondary infallible genius Valens Vadani. It's just not really believable, and the characters all remain the same as their initial portraits with no development or changes to character as a result of the events of the book. Whilst this is okay in a short story, it is too simplistic for this length of novel which ends up reading as a list of things happening.

I won't be bothering with the rest of the trilogy. ( )

There's a lot of engineering and complex politics that I found quite believable. Three countries hold a tentative truce but things are getting more complicated when an engineer from a very regimented country commits a minor transgression that means that he is condemned to death he escapes and goes to another country. The other country doesn't realise that this will not be good and will lead to being wiped out.
Theres a fair amount of engineering in here and I liked the different attitudes of all the characters, many of them I wanted to know about and I really want to read the next book in the series. ( )

Like Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, this is a story about an engineer in a military setting. Ziani Vaatzes is an engineer in the Ordnance Factory of the Mezentine Republic. He falls foul of the Guild by improving on Specification - which is an abomination - when making a mechanical doll for his daughter. Escaping, he falls in with the retreating army of the Eremians - who have been massacred by massed scorpion fire by the Mezentines and accompanies them back home. Here he ends up designing scorpions for them - knowing that the Mezentines will be hunting him down and massacring anyone harbouring him. This is the story of the siege of the Duchy of Eremia and what happened.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as the other - it seemed much slower, probably because it's book 1 of a trilogy. I also wasn't rooting for the lead character either - I found him coming across as a bit of a self-righteous prig, trying to justify his actions, and basically deciding nothing was his fault - it was all inevitable. It's also quite a brutal story, so it might not be to everyone's taste.

Recommended with reservations.