The Company

I picked up this book because I am a big fan of fantasy. I especially like how newer authors are taking the genre in different directions. In fact, I thought this book would be a bit like Joe Abercrombie - which it was to an extent. What got me about this story was the concept. I thought it was so much better than the typical wizard blows up stuff. In fact, as other reviewers have divulged, there is no magic system at all in this book. It is more alternate universe than fantasy.

The story revolves around the 4 main characters who you get to know more and more about as the story goes. However, the more the story goes, the less I like these characters. In fact, I found this to be a tough read because there is nobody in the story that I can even remotely relate to. I felt by the end I was a somewhat disconnected observer more than an engrossed reader.

If you are looking for a good read about redemption, love, or good winning over evil - stay away. This is a tale of gluttony, greed, and all vile human traits spread out in story form. I slogged my way to the end of this book hoping for some redeeming quality and did not find it. If you are wanting to delve into the basest of human weakness, this is for you.

Pros:
o Different type of fantasy novel than normal
o Interesting new world

Cons:
o tough, tough read...
o explores the negative side of humans with no redemption

Overall - I cannot recommend this book. For me, it just didn't tick the boxes I look for in a Fantasy novel.

Nope, no spoilers here.

I figured after reading the underwhelming Engineer Trilogy that I should give K.J. Parker another chance. Bottom line here: I really wanted to like this novel, but at the end of the day, I was left unsatisfied.

Let's be clear here, I didn't hate THE COMPANY, but I sure didn't love it either. This novel follows the story of A Company, a small group of soldiers who were considered the most fearsome during a past war. THE COMPANY is partially about their attempts to reintegrate into society after the war, and partially about their attempts to colonize an island they...procured.

The good? OK, I suppose we can start there. The set-up of the novel is well done. The flash-backs between the current time-period and their days in the war are well done. It has a slight LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA feel to it. The big, problematic-type logic flaw that was present in the Engineer's Trilogy is absent, and it made the novel a tad more enjoyable.

The premise is extremely worthy as well. I love the idea of people who were your lifeline, your stability becoming your obstacles. Lots of drama and conflict there. Or potential for it rather.

However.

The subtitle on the novel says "The War is Never Over." I wish that was really the case. What it should have been was "This Book Isn't About War." Yes, I'm aware that Parker probably meant to be all symbolic here. Whatever. Had this novel focused on the actual war (this novel is billed as military fantasy, after all), and less on the poor administration of a colony, it would have been much more interesting. Really, I'm not a violence starved maniac, and I can appreciate a book that isn't filled with it. However, my expectations with this novel weren't met. I feel that the promise the author made went unfulfilled.

Also, Parker has clarity issues in her writing. Where Scott Lynch was able to seamlessly transition between past and present, Parker is unable to do so quite so perfectly. In addition, the jumps between the PoVs aren't as clean as in her Engineer novels. In other words, the story was a little better, but the writing a little worse than the Engineer Trilogy.

I also had trouble with many of the characters in a lot of ways. In this type of book especially, the characters need to be engaging, vivid, and interesting. Sadly, most of them were pretty flat and didn't progress a lot. Earth to Parker! When you kill a character make it awesome! Character death was handled in a very 'meh' sort of manner in this book. Give it impact on the emotions of other characters! I know, a novel concept (no pun intended).This was poorly done here.

As you can see, I was left unsatisfied. Look, all I want is a good story, with good characters. This just wasn't quite up to that challenge. It promised a lot, but delivered on very little of it.

In all, I've decided THE COMPANY--and consequently Parker--is middle of the road. Some people are certain to love it, while others will consider it nothing but mediocre. I am in the latter camp. If you did like her other works, you will, without a doubt, like this novel, and you should purchase it. If you were "meh" about her work, this won't change your mind in the slightest.

Recommended Age: 16 and up. Lots of administrative type stuff here that will go over a younger person's head.
Language: There were professional soldiers, so yes, there is language. It is prominent, but not excessive.
Violence: Very little. Kind of a bummer. These guys are supposed to be crazy awesome, yet all they do is stand around and live off reputation. Rather lame.
Sex: Nope.

Like all the K.J. Parker novels I have read, and probably all of his novels in existence, The Company is a tale of regrets, tragedies and betrayals and the things humans do to erase them and rise above them. In a fantasy world equivalent to the 19Th century in society and the late 16Th in weaponry(sans gunpowder), a newly retired general returns home to his tiny seaside and farm land community with a lot of embezzled military money and a plan to create a safe place to live out his days with the four friends he has had since he was 3-years old. In his thorough and detailed manner, Parker shows how all five of these men fall back into the patterns of behavior that kept them alive through a long and terrible war that ended in a bitter, unfinished manner. Even the successful and happy members of this group of veterans literally drop everything in their lives to follow their old leader on this seemingly perfect plan to set up a new community where they would be the founding fathers. Although he knows the plan is based on a clever but fragile bit of graft that may come tumbling down at any time, the most successful and wealthy of these veterans goes along with their leader just because he is lonely and bored. In truth, even the happy married man among them wants more out of life and all of them hope to find happiness and fulfillment together and free from the judgement of people who can never understand them(an all too real feeling among veterans). Ultimately the plans of the general are beset by details and factors that he hadn't compensated for or had refused to foresee in his optimism.Against all of these difficulties the five veterans fight back and overcome everything, armored in their faith and trust in each other.But the greatest threat to them are the secrets that members of this new colony have in their past and present.The greatest tragedy of this story is that the thing the veterans valued most, the unshakable faith and trust they have in each other is lost when two great secrets are revealed and leads to the final tragedy.As in his previous Fencer-At-Law and Engineer trilogies, terrible crimes go unpunished and the reader is left wondering what happened after the ending. I am always amazed that no matter how much he upsets me, I always come back for more K.J. Parker(this is the 8Th book of his I have read).

This novel isn't overly bad. In fact, if you're into genre fiction and not expecting much in terms of character development, human insight, etc., it might even prove to be a beach-worthy read.
Yet, make no mistake, this is no great oeuvre.

Yes, the 'mysterious' K.J. Parker (a pseudonym, I'm told) slightly veers away from pure-fantasy (a genre that deserves its own bad reputation as the vast majority of books belonging to the canon are written by nerdish amateurs), yet if your benchmark is something like the Man Booker shortlist, this is, at best, third-rate fare.
Here is a quick list of all the main issues: firstly, like in most fantasy novels, there is no research whatsoever (the idea behind this is that since you're setting the storyline in a purely fictional world, you don't need to bother with history, logic or the nitty-gritty that goes into making novels plausible. Really, this is why they are so quick to write). The writing is good...in a bland, uninspired way. Parker falls prey to the annoying habit of coming up with weird-sounding names for his/her characters, another fantasy staple. To top it all, there are several passages that, at least to me, reek of misogyny but I'll blame that to the nerdish streak inherent to almost every fantasy writer.

As for the story...quite simple: 5 people who spent half their lives fighting together (in a middle-agish world), suddenly decide to re-unite and set up a colony on a remote island. The idea is to create an idyllic community for themselves and their wives. Too bad the dream turns into a nightmare (it's the human nature baby!)...until the final revelation.

Forgettable.

This story, while unique in detail, closely follows the same thematic format as 2 other stories (both trilogies) of Parker's that I've read, specifically the Engineer trilogy and the Fencer trilogy. Be that as it may, I gave this story 4 stars simply because of the quality of the writing. If you've never read a Parker story before, you can't go wrong starting here. Parker is an excellent writer, and I enjoy his/her style (I don't know who Parker is, but have heard that name is a nom de plume), but the deja vu gets a bit disconcerting after a while. I've gone back to other stories just to verify that yes, the character so-and-so in story such-and-such was also doing X or saying Y just like this one.

The main character of Parker's stories is always someone whom you want to like, and you are led to sympathize or empathize with that character in each of Parker's stories. And then the character turns on you, sometimes unexpectedly, and always in an unforeseen manner. Also there's always a foil (sometimes more than one) to the main character, and usually we're led to dislike if not actually hate that character at first, then Parker slowly shows us that character's humanity until we can only develop conflicted feelings about them. I guess that's what gives Parker's stories their power. It's kind of a Parker calling card, in the same way that unexpected twists are M. Night Shyamalan's claim to fame. No matter the story, no matter how different the story is on the face of it, there's always the same kind of thing going to happen in it.

Another Parker specialty is the painstaking detail in which certain physical actions or activities are described. Specifically, the engineering or construction of hand-made tools, devices, and weapons; for example, forging a sword, creating a longbow, building a catapult, etc. etc. etc. Parker's descriptions are amazingly detailed, and from what I can tell are also dead-on accurate. I think I read somewhere that Parker is able to describe this things so well because she has actually done (built, forged, designed) many if not most of these things that is being described.

Everyone else by now has provided a fair amount of detail about the story, so I'll just leave my review at this. Parker's writing is very very good. His prose is elegant, understated, filled with humor and thoughtfulness and passion. I find her writing to be a bit addictive, so I'm off to find another Parker story to read. Cheers!

Addendum: Just wanted to update with this caveat ... the story is a tragedy in the Grecian sense, no happy ending here. If you want your stories to always have a happy ending where the princess is carried off by her knight in shining white armor on his brave steed, then Parker's stories aren't for you. Personally, I find a well-told tragedy to be far far more compelling than your typical fantasy fluff. Sorry, no talking dragons or goofy young wizard's apprentices here.

This book was fabulously well written, and some of the repartee between characters is laugh out loud funny. Unfortunately the story is absolute crap and without any other redeeming qualities. The really good characters come to ruin in the most offhand ways, the good but flawed characters work to find ruin, and those characters we could care less about inherit the earth. The setting is a bit of a problem, too, as I don't know if this is supposed to be past or future earth or somewhere else entirely. There does not appear to be any allegory in any of this either. I don't know that a better author could have done anything more with it. It's just a lame story. Pulp stupid.

I've read a number of Parker's books and sometimes I find myself wondering: what was all that about? Great story, keeps moving, interesting characters and culture, but sometimes it seems to end too soon or just leaves off hanging. That was pretty much this story; mind you, it was a great ride getting there. To put it into context, the company involved is not a merchant company; it's a small company (maybe a squad, but that's not much of a title) of elite troops. The war has been going on for ... not quite sure, but long enough to affect all members of the company who leave their homes to attend a military academy. We don't know much about the government except it seems to be respected and honest. We know nothing about the enemy. All we know is that the time is roughly medieval/early renaissance and the main battle formation involves pikemen in what seems to be a phalanx. We have irregular horse archers. So nothing is very "period" to a given time frame we can reference. However, that's the background for the company members. The story deals with them and their adventures after leaving the army. Think Sgt Bilko, LT1 Milo Minderbinder,and the Who's on First routine. The action and planning hops all over the place and the conniving never ends until the final Gilligan's Island-like ending.

A painful read.
Dull, heavily agenda driven and ham handed dogma in the form of literary dung.
I plowed on diligently hoping for some redeeming end but found none

Parker is very inventive in creating a world outside of our own, and this story develops well. Very interesting in the flashbacks to the character development. Mostly credible plot but it all unravels at the end in an unsatisfying and seemingly pointless if believeble way. Left me feeling betrayed in that I read a cleverly crafted plot full of action and drama, only to find out that what happens at the end really wasn't very interesting or dramatic. Kind of a let down. If anything this ending illustrates the weakness in humanity, so it makes a point, but I prefer more idealism in my entertainment. Not sure if I will bother with any more books from this author. (I also read the first of the engineer set, but it seems to beg only buying the additional books and had no particular satisfactory ending either.)

The backstory was very well developed and understanding the history of the characters made their actions, antics, and dialogue brilliant. But the plot was punishing. The cover makes references to the Italian Job (where a masterful plan is executed) but the plot is a constant struggle for anything to go right. The characters seem to fall out of character quite a bit. In the beginning, Teuche is handing out extra money for any lies he tells and avoiding them whenever he can, but then he's suddenly comfortable with lying about every damn thing. The characters all become completely unlikable and it feels like the author just wanted to get the book over with by the end the same way a lot of the readers did.