A Practical Guide to Conquering the World

A Practical Guide to Conquering the World is light and diverting and moves easily, but lacks a lot of the charm of the earlier books. Our narrator is Felix, a translator in the diplomatic corps of The City posted to the great empire of Echman. When news arrives that the The City has fallen, the rest of his mission loses its diplomatic status and dies. Felix had previously saved the life of a princess/hostage with the charming name She Tramples Flat The World (and a personality to match) and joins her little group.

The basic theme of the story, to quote some anonymous Ukrainian soldier, is “we are lucky they are so fucking stupid”. Echman decides to enslave the princess’s people to build a great wall, so Felix and Tramples make a daring escape from their palace, liberate the encampment, and forge an alliance of nomads. Felix, who’s spent years in the great library reading history, teaches the nomads a combination of pike and composite bow archery which is a hard counter to the heavy cavalry of the Echman.

Great empires are surprisingly brittle, top heavy with administration and elite, and Felix moves from triumph to triumph. He reinforces his place by calling himself a prophet and hiring an actress to play the Queen of Heaven, which backfires when people start to actually believe. There is always one more desperate improvisation which works unbelievably well.

I can palpably feel the limits of Parker’s knowledge/imagination here, having read just one of his other books outside of the Siege series. Everything just comes too easily to Felix, with no real tension. This book is fine, but I wish it were actually good.