Review: How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, by K. J. Parker

Review: How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, by K. J. Parker

by Rich Horton

K. J. Parker's stories are known for their romantic cynicism, their fascination with how things work (mechanically and politically), for depictions of war, for an abiding almost hopeless view of relations between men and women, and for their dark humor. Most of his stories are set in a vaguely Byzantine world, with no pretensions to consistency between stories, sometimes with magic and sometimes without. K. J. Parker, of course, is a pseudonym for Tom Holt, who also write rather lighter comic fantasies under that name, and brilliant historical fiction as by Thomas Holt. I will especially recommend, as I always try to, Thomas Holt's novel The Walled Orchard, first published under the Tom Holt name in two volumes as Goat Song (1989) and The Walled Orchard (1990) -- this is about the Sicilian Expedition, a drastically failed military campaign by Athens in the fifth century BCE. It is, I think, one of the very best historical novels of the past half century, blackly funny, ultimately tragic, and really moving -- about a Greek playwright, his horrible marriage to a woman he loves and hates, and his terrible experiences in Sicily.

A few years ago I read Parker's novel Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (2019), in which the capitol city of an Empire is besieged by an army of what they think of as barbarians. The novel was in many ways one of Parker's stories about How Things Work, and it brilliantly depicted an engineer leading the effort to foil every effort of the besiegers to breach the walls of the city. All those details were fascinating. And the character story was effective is well, and nicely mordant.

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, from 2020, is the sequel. The siege has settled into a stalemate. Notker, our narrator, is an actor, impressionist, and playwright. He's also the son of a gang enforcer -- the City has two primary gangs, or Themes, the Blue and the Green, bitter rivals. And the city's leader, Lysimachus, a man regarded as a hero for saving the city (though we all know the real hero was the engineer in Sixteen Ways) has been killed. Mention is made of some popular plays, with names like The Prisoner of Beloisia and The Man in the Bronze Mask. Not to mention that one of Notker's most popular impressions was of Lysimachus. Any reader can see where this is going. 

So, yes, Notker is maneuvered into assuming Lysimachus' position, and impersonating him. In the process he must get himself a mistress, to keep up appearances, especially as Lysimachus' sexuality was in doubt ... and he chooses Hodda, an actress and impresario with whom he is in love, though she is basically indifferent to him, despite them having a previous relationship. (There's an echo here of The Walled Orchard, with a playwright involved in an unsuccessful relationship.)

This sets up the situation for the rest of the novel -- Notker/Lysimachus takes control, and eventually truly takes the reins, leading several efforts to keep the invaders at bay, and in the process unifying the Blue and Green gangs, and making other improvements in the City's organization, as well as harrying the enemy. Plague threatens as well. Meanwhile Hodda desperately wants them to escape to safety, and Notker assures her that that's the plan, but only when it's feasible. There is some of Parker's beloved engineering, mostly involving attempts to stop the besiegers from breaking through a seam of granite and getting to the city walls to undermine them. It's clear Notker -- now crowned Emperor Lysimachus II -- is tempted by power, but he realizes that power leads to abuse of power and atrocities. And he comes up with a plan to sort of have his cake and eat it too ...

It's enjoyable enough, but nowhere near Parker at his best. The engineering bits are OK but not as absorbing as he can be. The relationship between Notker and Hodda just doesn't have the emotional heft some of the other doomed quasi-romances in Parker's novels attain. The darkly comic tone is well maintained, but it's not as funny as he can be. The ending falls just a tad flat, though as this is a middle novel of a trilogy that's not entirely unusual. (The third novel, A Practical Guide to Conquering the World, appeared in 2022.)