Product Description

Perimadeia: the famed Triple City and the mercantile capital of the known world. Behind its allegedly impregnable walls, everything is available. Including information which will allow its enemies to plan one of the most remarkable sieges of all time. The man called upon to defend Perimadeia is Bardas Loredan, a fencer- at-law, weary of his work and of the world. For Loredan is one of the surviving members of Maxen's Pitchfork, the legendary band of soldiers who waged war on the people of the plains for many years, rendering an attack on the city impossible. Until now...But Loredan has problems of its own. In a city where court cases are settled by lawyers disputing with swords not words, enemies are all too easily made. And by winning one particular case, Loredan has unwittingly become the focus of a misplaced curse from a young woman bent on revenge. The last thing he needs is to be made responsible for saving a city.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #276914 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 503 pages

Review
'incredibly vivid, refreshing, fun, thoughtful, absorbing' - SFX 'Action-packed adventure . an intriguing tale of magic, manipulation and revenge.' STARBURST

About the Author
Having worked in the journalism and the law, K. J. Parker now writes and makes things out of wood and metal.

Customer Reviews

Hugely enjoyable - wonderful prose and subtle humour.
Never having heard of the author, I bought this on impulse (maybe the magic working its quirky effect on me? - no headaches though!) and Joy! - something refreshingly different! Here is an author who is obviously intimately familiar with law, fencing, medieval ballistics and human interaction. I don't know the gender of the author, but the style 'feels' distinctly feminine - no I don't mean Barbara Cartland, more like Barbara Wood or Sheri Tepper - but with all the extra fine detail that sets it apart. Add to this a wry, self-depracating humour and a magical theme that runs through as a mostly unobserved undercurrent and you have a book that almost sets its own genre. I'm still trying to work out who really is the magician in all this.... maybe the next book will reveal more? Oh, I sincerely hope it fulfils the promise of this one - rarely have I read such a wonderful book, especially a debut novel..... more please! I can't recommend this highly enough.

Great book, but the series is a disappointment
Why do I give colours in the steel only three stars if I thought it was a "great book." The problem is, you read this book. You like Parker's style, his attention to detail and some of the concepts he's developing. After that you go out and buy the sequels and you are utterly crushed - the story just doesn't go anywhere, the ending of the third book is a cop out and the whole thing leaves a bad taste in your mouth. So if you have the will power to read the first part of a trilogy and leave the rest, go for it, otherwise you're better off elsewhere.

This is an excellent book
I agree with the review by the other reader. This book is brilliant. It grips from the word go and is a real through to early morning read. But the sequels are a poor relation and not worthy of mention. Buy this and read it is as if it were a single tome - and enjoy it!