No Choice - SFBA Book Club

eBook, 27 pages

English language

Published June 17, 2022 by Subterranean Press.

ASIN:: B0DM4JK9BY
Goodreads:: 177586575

(1 review)

In this all-new tale, published here for the first time, World Fantasy Award winner K.J. Parker delivers his signature blend of action, humor, and unexpected but perfectly logical twists. Set in the tantalizingly detailed world of much of his other work, No Choice tells the story of a narrator from a landed and politically connected family with a history of losing scions in battle.

At first, it isn’t a stalled and seemingly doomed war that concerns the main character, but the fact that his father has been sentenced to death for a murder he most definitely did commit. Political maneuvering and family dynamics come in to play, but to no avail, so off to the wars the narrator sails.

There, he conceives a series of nested plans that may very well preserve the life of a man who deserves to die, win a war that nobody should be fighting, and …

In this all-new tale, published here for the first time, World Fantasy Award winner K.J. Parker delivers his signature blend of action, humor, and unexpected but perfectly logical twists. Set in the tantalizingly detailed world of much of his other work, No Choice tells the story of a narrator from a landed and politically connected family with a history of losing scions in battle.

At first, it isn’t a stalled and seemingly doomed war that concerns the main character, but the fact that his father has been sentenced to death for a murder he most definitely did commit. Political maneuvering and family dynamics come in to play, but to no avail, so off to the wars the narrator sails.

There, he conceives a series of nested plans that may very well preserve the life of a man who deserves to die, win a war that nobody should be fighting, and maybe, just maybe, save his own skin in the bargain.

2 editions

Phil in SF reviewed No Choice by K. J. Parker

Uninspired short story

2 stars

I've already forgotten the name of the protagonist, but the gist is: prominent noble in standard fare fantasy world is jailed for killing his wife. Son doesn't know what happened, but vows to get father out of jail except he's first being sent to the front lines of an unwinnable war. He draws up plans like a Pepe Silvia meme, wins the war in hours, then high-tails it back to the homeland for poorly written Machiavellian political intrigue to get his dad out of jail. Dad is mad at getting out, confesses to killing wife because she nagged, and then father & son are on opposite sides of more political intrigue.

Poor poor execution on a half-assed idea.