Making History
Oct. 8th, 2025 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearMaking History by KJ Parker is a novella in which 12 academics are tasked by the First Citizen of their country with creating an ancient city that will demonstrate to the populace that the war he wants to wage is justified.
It's very short but also very convoluted and intricate, with far too many indistinct characters (and names) and quite a lot of detail about different archaeological and linguistic things.
At one point, the narrator actually says that he's about to be really boring for a while and he wouldn't blame the reader for skipping ahead a bit...
It's also rather scattershot, with different important characters and plot points coming out of nowhere quite late on.
It gets really fun and interesting in the second half, though, so I'm glad I persevered, since it goes in some unexpected directions and the last few sentences in particular made me laugh out loud.
It's very short but also very convoluted and intricate, with far too many indistinct characters (and names) and quite a lot of detail about different archaeological and linguistic things.
At one point, the narrator actually says that he's about to be really boring for a while and he wouldn't blame the reader for skipping ahead a bit...
It's also rather scattershot, with different important characters and plot points coming out of nowhere quite late on.
It gets really fun and interesting in the second half, though, so I'm glad I persevered, since it goes in some unexpected directions and the last few sentences in particular made me laugh out loud.
