The 2020 sequel to Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City by K. J. Parker. The novel continues the story of The Siege, with a new protagonist (who, since he's an actor, understands he's the protagonist).
The City has settled into the routine of carrying on with their lives while surrounded by a huge army that wants to wipe them out. Some people understand that this is not a sustainable scenario, but they're not the right people, and meanwhile an actor needs to earn a living.
So once again we have a snarky Unreliable Narrator, who admits to being not necessarily objective as to his contributions to the City's defense. And as the stakes get higher, Notker is bound and determined to serve the City... that is, until he has a chance to scarper off with his pockets full of small valuable things...
Contains examples of:
- Anyone Can Die: Hoo boy, I hope you haven't gotten attached to anyone you meet in the story.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Inverted. One difference Notker sees between himself and the enemy is that he kills far fewer of his own people, and the people love him for it.
- Arc Words: Several, like "lie and run away."
- Bad Actor, Good Liar: Notker is a mediocre actor and playwright who is fairly good at doing impressions, but ends up doing a very effective (too effective) job when he's commandeered into doing an Emergency Impersonation of slain war hero Lysimachus. Essentially, Notker is kind of a non-entity as a person, and thus a less than great actor, because he put a lot of effort into escaping his past as the son of a gangster. However, since Lysimachus is what Notker's father (or himself) would be like if he found a cause he believed in, while still being a cheerful murderer, Notker can effectively "become" Lysimachus, since he knows exactly how he thinks (thought).
- Becoming the Mask: One of the themes of the book, as Notker has to portray someone else, and there's much discussion as to whether he is becoming that person.
- Call-Back: Several to the first book, but not as many as you would expect from a "direct sequel". We meet Orhan's compatriots, and the Obstructive Bureaucrat brigade, but the siege is presented from the view of an actor, so there's not nearly as much interaction with the details of catapults and assaults.
- Chekhov's Gun: We glimpse many events and items that become vital in the story's climax: Plague ships and the plague island, granite (and the ships that carry it), and rats, to name a few.
- Chekhov's Skill: Notker mentions several things that he learned from his Dad that come in handy in a fight, and his experience includes knowing things like how to fight fires in the Tanneries.
- Cowardly Lion: Perhaps not as much as Orhan in the original, but Notker makes it clear that, given the choice, he'll flee a fight in a second.
- Fate Worse than Death: We find out at the end that Ogus lived through the plague, but has very little of their capacities left to them, basically alive but unable to sense much of anything. The narrator wishes them a long life.
- Motifs: Several...
- The narrator continually refers to the City under siege as living on the edge of a volcano.
- Practically every happening in the story corresponds to either the theater or Notker's father.
- Unreliable Narrator: Like the original story, the narration is clearly biased. Unlike the original story, there is no framing of the narration in a "long-lost document" or any similar pretense. There are hints that the narrator is authoring the story (play?), and he says many times that he's the protagonist, but nothing outright states that the narration is coming from any written word.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: There are many, many plans in this book, and the ones that aren't fleshed out are the ones that work.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Sorta. Notker spends a lot of his time talking about his Dad, and his teachings, and seems to have something to prove, but his Dad is already dead.
