⇒ Libro Gratis The Company K J Parker 9780316038539 Books

The Company K J Parker 9780316038539 Books

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The Company K J Parker 9780316038539 Books

I've read a number of Parker's books and sometimes I find myself wondering: what was all that about? Great story, keeps moving, interesting characters and culture, but sometimes it seems to end too soon or just leaves off hanging. That was pretty much this story; mind you, it was a great ride getting there. To put it into context, the company involved is not a merchant company; it's a small company (maybe a squad, but that's not much of a title) of elite troops. The war has been going on for ... not quite sure, but long enough to affect all members of the company who leave their homes to attend a military academy. We don't know much about the government except it seems to be respected and honest. We know nothing about the enemy. All we know is that the time is roughly medieval/early renaissance and the main battle formation involves pikemen in what seems to be a phalanx. We have irregular horse archers. So nothing is very "period" to a given time frame we can reference. However, that's the background for the company members. The story deals with them and their adventures after leaving the army. Think Sgt Bilko, LT1 Milo Minderbinder,and the Who's on First routine. The action and planning hops all over the place and the conniving never ends until the final Gilligan's Island-like ending.


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The Company K J Parker 9780316038539 Books Reviews

I kept reading this book waiting for something; I was not sure what. Maybe I wanted to understand the characters better. Never happened. Maybe I wanted them to succeed. Never happened. Maybe I wanted to understand how they thought. You guessed it; never happened.

This book could have been good. The ending is sad and breaks away from everything I thought the characters would do. I stop reading books like this but I finished it and do not understand why. This book was better than it was.
This story, while unique in detail, closely follows the same thematic format as 2 other stories (both trilogies) of Parker's that I've read, specifically the Engineer trilogy and the Fencer trilogy. Be that as it may, I gave this story 4 stars simply because of the quality of the writing. If you've never read a Parker story before, you can't go wrong starting here. Parker is an excellent writer, and I enjoy his/her style (I don't know who Parker is, but have heard that name is a nom de plume), but the deja vu gets a bit disconcerting after a while. I've gone back to other stories just to verify that yes, the character so-and-so in story such-and-such was also doing X or saying Y just like this one.

The main character of Parker's stories is always someone whom you want to like, and you are led to sympathize or empathize with that character in each of Parker's stories. And then the character turns on you, sometimes unexpectedly, and always in an unforeseen manner. Also there's always a foil (sometimes more than one) to the main character, and usually we're led to dislike if not actually hate that character at first, then Parker slowly shows us that character's humanity until we can only develop conflicted feelings about them. I guess that's what gives Parker's stories their power. It's kind of a Parker calling card, in the same way that unexpected twists are M. Night Shyamalan's claim to fame. No matter the story, no matter how different the story is on the face of it, there's always the same kind of thing going to happen in it.

Another Parker specialty is the painstaking detail in which certain physical actions or activities are described. Specifically, the engineering or construction of hand-made tools, devices, and weapons; for example, forging a sword, creating a longbow, building a catapult, etc. etc. etc. Parker's descriptions are amazingly detailed, and from what I can tell are also dead-on accurate. I think I read somewhere that Parker is able to describe this things so well because she has actually done (built, forged, designed) many if not most of these things that is being described.

Everyone else by now has provided a fair amount of detail about the story, so I'll just leave my review at this. Parker's writing is very very good. His prose is elegant, understated, filled with humor and thoughtfulness and passion. I find her writing to be a bit addictive, so I'm off to find another Parker story to read. Cheers!

Addendum Just wanted to update with this caveat ... the story is a tragedy in the Grecian sense, no happy ending here. If you want your stories to always have a happy ending where the princess is carried off by her knight in shining white armor on his brave steed, then Parker's stories aren't for you. Personally, I find a well-told tragedy to be far far more compelling than your typical fantasy fluff. Sorry, no talking dragons or goofy young wizard's apprentices here.
I enjoyed this book. Typical Parker novel in that the characters are fairly well drawn, psychologically at least, but not a lot of details given. I always enjoy how Parker speaks about war, details are included just enough to whet your appetite, but never to the point that you feel as though you are caught up in some historical tome. This book was good in parts but others was just a little to mysterious for me. I could never really tell if all the events were part of some grand scheme by the main character or just events naturally unfolding. The ending seemed a little rushed, but overall a good read.
I've read a number of Parker's books and sometimes I find myself wondering what was all that about? Great story, keeps moving, interesting characters and culture, but sometimes it seems to end too soon or just leaves off hanging. That was pretty much this story; mind you, it was a great ride getting there. To put it into context, the company involved is not a merchant company; it's a small company (maybe a squad, but that's not much of a title) of elite troops. The war has been going on for ... not quite sure, but long enough to affect all members of the company who leave their homes to attend a military academy. We don't know much about the government except it seems to be respected and honest. We know nothing about the enemy. All we know is that the time is roughly medieval/early renaissance and the main battle formation involves pikemen in what seems to be a phalanx. We have irregular horse archers. So nothing is very "period" to a given time frame we can reference. However, that's the background for the company members. The story deals with them and their adventures after leaving the army. Think Sgt Bilko, LT1 Milo Minderbinder,and the Who's on First routine. The action and planning hops all over the place and the conniving never ends until the final Gilligan's Island-like ending.