Colours in the Steel

K J Parker is an amazing writer who has a great ability to construct a believable world for her characters to inhabit. Parker writes with a style and humour that makes reading her a joy.

Colours in the Steel is the first volume in Parker's Fencer trilogy which follows fencer-at-law Bardas Loredan. In Perimadeia, the centre of the known world, legal disputes are settled by duels between professional fencers. Loredan, a former soldier, has been doing this for a while now and is starting to grow tired of his life. He dreams of retiring and opening a fencing school, but events intrude upon his dream as Perimadeia finds itself under siege from the vast hordes that live on the plains.

As I said before Parker writes with such a flowing style that you just want to devour her books in one sitting. The world she has created sucks you in. I can't wait to read the rest of this series.