- Hardcover: 113 pages
- Publisher: Subterranean Press (July 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 159606241X
- ISBN-13: 978-1596062412
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.7 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #191,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A+ for Purple and Black,
By
This review is from: Purple and Black (Hardcover)
Khaldun's Disclaimer: Reviews will mainly concentrate on novels that I enjoyed, and in writing them I will attempt to be succinct and to avoid all manner of spoilery comments. A grading guide follows my reviews. Also, please note that while I have read widely in the genre, my tastes are quite distinct and thus readers should absorb my wisdom with, at the very least, a few pinches of salt. Cheers.- Purple and Black (novella) by KJ Parker Characterization: 8/10 Nico and Phormio are old college friends who, at the start of the novella, find themselves in an odd relationship: Nico has become Emperor, and Phormio has become been dispatched as a military governor. The interplay between these characters is wonderful, and despite the fact that the entire novella is made up of letters back and forth, I felt as if I knew both of them. No complaints here. Plotting and Pacing: 9/10 Enough events transpire during the plot of this novella to fill a doorstopper fantasy. I'm happy to say that the epistolary form helps move everything along at a nice, brisk pace that doesn't let up until the ending. Sometimes there are times when you really don't want to read another description of a dark forest or a ferocious beast, so KJ Parker's novella is a nice departure from the norm. Setting: 6/10 The novella is set in some kind of Byzantine-esque alternate history. I don't really get much of a sense from the setting except that it is vaguely medieval. I only gather this much because of the means with which they write, the food that they eat, and because of the descriptions of the soldiers. I feel a bit guilty even judging this category, but the fact is that the setting is relatively unimportant here. The lack of a fully-realised setting (almost impossible in an epistolary novella) was by no means detrimental to my enjoyment of the story as a whole. Style and Themes: Style 4/5 and Themes 4/5 KJ Parker and her/his protagonists are straight to the point. As previously mentioned, Purple and Black is written in an epistolary format, where the reader is able to see both the ritualized communication of their official dispatches (written in purple) and the back-and-forth banter of their unofficial messages. Parker infuses a great deal of humour into the text even as he/she portrays some of the dirtier aspects of politics and war. Total: 31/40 This novella was a wonderful surprise for me. I'd been hearing about KJ Parker for a while now, so I picked this up at the library to try a few pages. I read about half of it before taking it home (at which point I finished it and encouraged my father to read it as well). I'm not sure it's worth buying, but it is most definitely worth the read. I've heard that some of his/her longer works get bogged down in describing things probably not worth describing, but this is not an issue here. Definitely get your hands on it if the opportunity arises! - Grading: Note that '5' is an average grade for each category, unexciting but still decent. Therefore, any novel that scores above twenty is above average and thus better than most of the other stuff floating around in bookshelves (at least in my opinion). Rating Scale 01-09: Nigh unreadable 10-19: Get it from the library 20-24: A modest endorsement 25-29: Well-rounded and enjoyable 30-34: Highly recommended 35-40: A must-read!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews) 6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Political Themed Fantasy,
By The Mad Hatter "Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book... - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Purple and Black (Hardcover)
Pseudonymous K.J. Parker has been making a name for herself over the last few years with well-reviewed Military Fantasy such as The Engineer Trilogy and The Company. When I heard about the Purple and Black novella I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to dip my toe into her works. Purple and Black is told through the letters an Emperor of a sprawling land and one of his oldest friends who is also current governor of one of the most remote parts of the country. The letters are printed in black and purple, which is used to good effect by Sub Press's two color design.The worldbuilding while not fully developed feels like a medieval setting with the back pinning of a religion akin to the Egyptians of old where the ruler is close to being a God. Yet there is a lot of backstabbing history in this government, which pops up again and again as it is the theme of the story. The Emperor with an often funny yet self-defeated tone fell into his role as the rest of his relatives killed each other, which left him the de facto ruler. The characters while scant come across well for such a short number of pages, but Parker does manage to tell a good yarn with an usual story which is complete to boot. Overall, Purple and Black is a tasty treat and would provide a great break for those of us draw to giant fantasy tomes. I give Purple and Black 7 out of 10 Hats. Fans of political themed Fantasy would be advised to track a copy down. 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By Jacob Glicklich "Raskolnikov" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Purple and Black (Hardcover)
Exquisitely drawn story, very funny and then very tragic in all the right points. The story is an exchange of letters between two figures, the newly crowned Emperor and his long term schoolfriend set out to command at the frontier. The genre elements are a bit thin (it's closely modeled after Rome but equally clearly has its own specific events) but the actual process of emotion and exchange is first rate. Feels very much like a parable, sketching out the question of idealism and pragmatism in politics, and what happens to student promises for justice once the former students attain real power. A fairly grim long-term perspective, but the spark of character detail and effectively rendered perspectives make this a satisfying read, at once unique, plausible and surprisingly fun despite the grim result. Glad I came across this one.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking,
By E. Smiley - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Purple and Black (Hardcover)
I picked up this book because I'd heard good things about the author, and was not disappointed.The novella consists mostly of letters between two friends: one newly made Emperor, and the other out to quash a rebellion for him. It's a short book, but packs quite a punch; as with many epistolary novels, there's more unwritten than actually on the page, which makes for wonderfully thought-provoking reading. And unlike in most epistolary novels I've read, the letters here actually sound like letters that people might write to one another: there's not a lot of scene-setting, description, dialogue, or telling each other what they already know, which leaves us to fill in a lot of blanks. Like many of my favorite books, this one is set in a secondary world, but without magic, dragons and so on. It focuses on political intrigue and the corrupting effects of power, and is predictably grim. The one problem I found was that the language felt perhaps too modern and slang-y for the (ambiguous, but certainly premodern) setting. Purple and Black is expensive (I was fortunate enough to find it at the library) but was certainly worth an evening of my time. |
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