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The Company (2008)

de K. J. Parker

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3972863,302 (3.51)17
Hoping for a better life, five war veterans colonize an abandoned island. They take with them everything they could possibly need: food, clothes, tools, weapons, even wives. But an unanticipated discovery shatters their dream and replaces it with a very different one. The colonists feel sure that their friendship will keep them together. Only then do they begin to realize that they've brought with them rather more than they bargained for.… (mais)
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Mostrando 1-5 de 28 (seguinte | mostrar todas)
KJ Parker writes the best books I’ve ever read in which almost nothing happens.

So… context. This is only the second full length Parker novel I’ve read and I’m only just beginning to wrap my head around what (s)he’s* doing. Read Sharps a year ago and loved it, though the ending was a little underwhelming. Worked my way through Parker’s collection, Academic Exercises, which was amazingly good. And now this.

Like Sharps the ending of The Company is a bit underwhelming. The marketing description is misleading in my opinion and yet I can’t really say there’s anything untrue in it. Like Sharps, one can read long stretches of this book, compelling, page-turning stuff in my opinion, and yet if asked to sum up what had happened over that stretch, the answer would be a shrug, or “nothing much”. And yet, they’re thoroughly enjoyable.

Why?

I’m starting to think the answer is that Parker’s books aren’t actually about the things that happen. It’s perhaps unfair to say “nothing happens”. That stuff in the marketing description does technically happen. But because it’s not what the book is actually about, when those things do happen, they come off as a sort of background noise. They are peripheral to the real focus of the book and consequently not handled in a particularly suspenseful or dramatic manner.

Both The Company and Sharps are about character. And that character isn’t handed to you upfront on a platter. The draw, the thing that keeps me turning pages, is the slow reveal. The gradual unravelling of secrets as Parker bounces between the character’s present and past.

Note the word is character, and not relationships. Relationships take a back seat to individual character in The Company, though the five men's shared history and relationships in the war have shaped their character to varying degrees. Not all five get equal focus. Kunessin, the leader, is the most closely examined, but the focus does shift around quite frequently, moreso the further in you get.

The Company feels a little messier than Sharps. Both use loads of flashbacks and shift viewpoint a lot, but The Company’s handling of viewpoint just feels messier to me. I was often a bit disoriented. That aspect of the writing, along with the de-emphasis of the external plot might explain why Parker seems to have more of a cult following than a widespread popularity in the genre. There’s a certain wit in Parker’s writing though, and if it meshes with your sense of humor, I expect you’ll come back for more.

All in all, I’d probably not recommend this as a starting point for readers new to KJ Parker. Pick up one of the others first, come back to this one once you’re hooked.

*[K.J. Parker since revealed to be a pseudonym of Tom Holt.] ( )
  WeaselBox | May 16, 2021 |
Gosh, it’s been far too long since I’ve read a K.J. Parker novel. How I’ve missed him. Reading his books can feel slightly like reading Georgette Heyer; not, I hasten to add, because they’re Regency romances (heaven forfend!), but because his stories are all rather similar. It doesn’t matter, though, because you know you’re getting into something well-crafted and entertaining, in supremely competent hands. In The Company, Parker introduces us to the former members of A Company’s line-breaker division: crack troops, sent ahead of the infantry to punch a route through the enemy’s front line of pikemen. The line-breakers became legendary: a band of men from the minor town of Faralia, who weren’t expected to last past the first battle, but who worked together to become – apparently – indestructible. Once, they were heroes. But now the war is over and most of them have moved on, taking up the threads of their old lives. When their charismatic leader Kunessin comes home with money in his pocket and a crazy dream on his mind, the rest of the company must decide whether to follow him once again. After all, if they can trust anyone in the world, they can trust each other. Right?

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/02/22/the-company-k-j-parker/ ( )
  TheIdleWoman | Feb 24, 2020 |
I grabbed this ARC (advanced reading copy) from work because it looked interesting; the publisher touted it as a fantasy and I thought I would take a crack at it. The plot is relatively straightforward: 5 close-knit former soldiers (and efficient killers) leave their ties behind to go live on a deserted island. This group had been involved in a long war and were having trouble adjusting to peaceful society, especially after their savage experiences in the war, so they set out to make a society for themselves. Early on this book reminded me somewhat of Lord of the Flies: there is a deserted island and it's not going to end well. And it didn't. But that wasn't really the problem with the book; it was well written and fairly interesting throughout. The problem is that none, and I mean none, of the characters are remotely likeable. As the reader, I knew that something bad was going to happen, but I just couldn't care all that much because the bastards largely deserved it. The final chapter was uncharacteristically poorly written and rather trite; if not for that I would have given it 2 stars. Maybe the last bit will be rewritten before its publication in October 2008 -- I certainly hope so. One last note: I am befuddled at the publisher calling this a fantasy. Sure, it has made up places and names (vaguely Greek sounding) but it is mundane as hell. Also, the author's style is unlike any other I have seen -- he uses an almost absurd abount of semicolons throughout the book. I use a lot myself and I was okay with it, but other readers may be more distracted by it.
( )
  Terrencee | May 8, 2019 |
The Company by KJ Parker
Published by Orbit UK, October 2008
448 Pages

So: the war’s over, the soldiers return home – what happens next?

K J Parker’s latest standalone novel examines such a situation, not often looked at but one clearly relevant in a Fantasy world: what happens to soldiers after the fighting is over?

The basic story here (though to be fair, KJ’s stories are rarely basic) deals with a company of men, skilled in their wartime efforts, who all (or nearly all) have gone back to their homes and their civilian lives. As you might expect, life outside the army is quite different. The impression given here is that after the war, despite the company’s heroism, non-combatants either know little or are unimpressed now that things are returning to normal seven years after. There is a return to the relative simplicity of civilian life and the mundane actions of small village communities. Bravery counts for little.

One of those returning, admittedly later than some of the others in this tale, is recently-retired Colonel (or at times General) Teuche Kunessin, commander of A Company. He has plans. Having leased the island of Sphoe upon his decommissioning, he plans to use the abandoned facilities there and create his own colony with all of his ex-comrades-in-arms. He returns to the village of his birth to recruit his compatriots – cattle farmer Kudei Gaion, defence school teacher Thouridos (nicknamed ‘Fly’) Alces, shopkeeper Aidi Proaipsen and tanner Muri Achaiois - and make good on a promise they made when in the army.

His compadres, realising the strength of the bonds of wartime friendship, rather conveniently drop everything, sell up, buy resources and get hitched in order to make their future life of self-sufficiency a reality. Unfortunately, despite Colonel Kunessin’s reputation for being methodical and meticulous, (and being a KJ Parker novel) things do not go as planned.

This is KJ Parker’s first standalone. For those who found The Engineer Trilogy too long and slow, this might be a better option. It has many of those signature touches of Parker – the slow delivery, the detached narrative, the details of how to make and build things, which this one does. It wouldn’t be a KJ Parker story unless it told us of such activities as how to build a boat, rebuild burnt-down buildings, go panning in a river, build cranes, herd cattle and smelt metal. As ever, KJ’s tale is an education as well as an entertainment, which can, in equal measures, intrigue and annoy.

It also has that slow, yet painstaking, unravelling of a dark tale which KJ has achieved so well in previous books. Again, here it starts slowly but builds cleverly to its conclusion. It is an unsettling story, one which deals with the basest of human actions rather than holds the moral high ground. To some extent the novel subverts the usual Fantasy clichés to suggest some enigmatic ideas that may make the unwary reader uncomfortable. Strangely, despite initial appearances, it is not a tale of heroism, though the protagonists are wartime ‘heroes’. Instead, being KJ Parker at the author’s most cynical, it deals more with the darker values of avarice, greed, snobbery, deception, murder, adultery and cowardice. Though it tells tales of bravery it is more about survival, both in wartime and peacetime.

We also see here another recurrent theme in Parker’s books, that of the importance of gender in this quasi-agrarian situation. There are very different roles for the sexes here, with wives that are bought and relationships are forged in a variety of logical yet rationally unemotional ways. The two are not always compatible. Without giving plot revelations away, their interactions and positions in this micro-society are an important part of this novel and Parker emphasises here how and why those differences between the soldiers and the soldier’s wives are important.

On the SFFWorld forums I’ve précis’ed the book as ‘imagine Lost meets The Italian Job’. At its simplest, it is a survivalist tale combined with a meticulously designed if not executed crime caper. Not all is what it appears to be and much of the fun is watching unexpected things unfold. Though not as extraordinary as some might suggest, it is a very good book, though Parker’s singular worldview may not be for all.

As has been said at times of Parker’s previous work, it is a bitter, dark, cynical tale, yet also a masterfully planned and executed book, one that builds on ever-revealing characterisation and back-story, leading slowly yet inexorably to its final conclusion. Many readers may not like the ending, and although you may not feel happy about it, it is, like Parker’s previous efforts, knowingly and coldly logical. ( )
  buffygurl | Mar 8, 2019 |
K.J. Parker writes fantasy without the dwarves, elves, dragons and other fantastical creatures that normally populate such novels. And she does it with style and panache. Parker's prose is a true pleasure to read. It flows and shines like a stream glinting in the sunlight of an August afternoon in the Deep South. Readers of fantasy are no doubt experienced at reading about great battles and of opposing soldiers in shiny armor wielding blunt and sharp weapons of war. In The Company, Parker explores what happens after the wars are over and there's no more fighting to be done. She also demonstrates rather well that while you can take the soldier out of the war, taking the war out of the soldier is an entirely other thing.

After the aforementioned wars, Gen. Teuche Kunessin returns to his home village where he rounds up his military buddies, holding them to a promise made during the war to set up their own colony apart from the government, wars, and the rest of society. Kunessin has acquired an island as part of the spoils of war and he intends to set himself, his friends and their wives upon it to do just that.

Naturally, things aren't quite so easy as that. Once the group manages to reach the island, all sorts of complications ensue, resulting from the day to day labor involved in establishing a colony, character traits and nature.

If you haven't read any of Parker's other fiction, then The Company (Orbit Books, 2009) is a great place to start. And if you have, then you should definitely add this novel to your bookcase if it isn't already there. ( )
  Steve_Coate | Apr 2, 2016 |
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Hoping for a better life, five war veterans colonize an abandoned island. They take with them everything they could possibly need: food, clothes, tools, weapons, even wives. But an unanticipated discovery shatters their dream and replaces it with a very different one. The colonists feel sure that their friendship will keep them together. Only then do they begin to realize that they've brought with them rather more than they bargained for.

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Edições: 0316038539, 0316038520

 

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