Devices & Desires (K. J. Parker)

Very uninspiring, another by-the-numbers fantasy novel with poor characterisation and a 2-dimensional world.

I did not like the way this was written. There are some bits in it that remind me of Terry Pratchet but the book is supposed to be serious. I couldn't really get into any of the characters. The ending was very unsatisfying. I will not be buying anything else by this author.

A spoiler follows... Quick summary: An engineer who's committed a terrible crime escapes to a wee country in the mounatins. Part of his plan includes betraying this wee country's impregnable capital to his own country by revealing their one terrible vulnerability which apparently only he can see. What is it we wonder... it must be something terribly clever though because the author's not revealing it and it's being referenced an awful lot. Gee the suspense is killing me... OK... here it comes... it's a secret passage! A flipping secret passage! That's the amazing, incredible secret we've been waiting for. How crap is that? I suppose at least it's surprising though as it was so god-damned obvious I never guessed it could be that so I'll punt it up from one star to two on that basis :-)