Michael Barnes
Alt-ancient setting, detailed introspection on technology, a dictator Gyges in fact the narrator describes the process of choosing between different adjectives for Gyges, cunning, clever finally settling on smart a scheming amoral academic (our narrator, who considered suicide rather than the nefarious scheme for like 20 seconds, before deciding nah) and a my favourite character a woman sex-worker called Nine White Hairs. (usurpingly she is one of the minorities within the empire)
I loved the premise of this novella: a group of varied scholars (our narrator helpful brackets their disciple with their names Polyclimnus (early Aelian literature), Lenseric (Geography), Maggo (Architecture), Celeutho (military history)..The eminent scholars at the university the top of their fields are 'asked' by the Dictator to create an ancient civilization from scratch so that it can be 'discovered' by the ruler and used to justify another war.
“Men like Gyges are like that. They can't afford to let things settle down and get quiet, because then the people might start to notice how bad things have been ever since they took over. So, men like Gyges are forever starting wars; or, better still, nudging and tripping their neighbours into starting wars against them, because nothing brings a nation together behind its strong leader like a threat of invasion.”
Our MC is a linguist and I found the details on language (as well as the other disciplines) fascinating, as this is what Parker chooses to go in-depth into in this story. How a language is born and evolves, how the culture of a society changes over time, what kind of artifacts one would find during this supposed time period, etc. I was glued to the pages.
Someone on Goodreads described it as "This is the most KJ Parkerish novella ever to have KJ Parkered", and that is certainly true.
Alt-ancient setting, detailed introspection on technology, a dictator Gyges in fact the narrator describes the process of choosing between different adjectives for Gyges, cunning, clever finally settling on smart a scheming amoral academic (our narrator, who considered suicide rather than the nefarious scheme for like 20 seconds, before deciding nah) and a my favourite character a woman sex-worker called Nine White Hairs. (usurpingly she is one of the minorities within the empire)
I loved the premise of this novella: a group of varied scholars (our narrator helpful brackets their disciple with their names Polyclimnus (early Aelian literature), Lenseric (Geography), Maggo (Architecture), Celeutho (military history)..The eminent scholars at the university the top of their fields are 'asked' by the Dictator to create an ancient civilization from scratch so that it can be 'discovered' by the ruler and used to justify another war.
“Men like Gyges are like that. They can't afford to let things settle down and get quiet, because then the people might start to notice how bad things have been ever since they took over. So, men like Gyges are forever starting wars; or, better still, nudging and tripping their neighbours into starting wars against them, because nothing brings a nation together behind its strong leader like a threat of invasion.”
Our MC is a linguist and I found the details on language (as well as the other disciplines) fascinating, as this is what Parker chooses to go in-depth into in this story. How a language is born and evolves, how the culture of a society changes over time, what kind of artifacts one would find during this supposed time period, etc. I was glued to the pages.
Someone on Goodreads described it as "This is the most KJ Parkerish novella ever to have KJ Parkered", and that is certainly true.