Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City cover art

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

The Siege, Book 1

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

By: K. J. Parker
Narrated by: Ray Sawyer
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

K. J. Parker's new novel is the remarkable tale of the siege of a walled city and the even more remarkable man who had to defend it.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all.

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.

©2019 K. J. Parker (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK Action & Adventure Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Siege City Funny

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Last Witness cover art
Litany of the Long Sun cover art
The Witness for the Dead cover art
The Shadow of the Lion cover art
Apprentice Quest cover art
Forsworn: A Powder Mage Novella cover art
Dungeon Crawler Carl cover art
The Will of the Many cover art
The Squire cover art
Dead Irish cover art
The Silmarillion cover art
The Martian cover art
Children of Time cover art
Empire in Black and Gold cover art
Rewinder cover art
The Hills Have Spies cover art

Critic reviews

"Full of invention and ingenuity...Great fun." (SFX)

"Parker's settings and characterisations never miss a beat." (Library Journal)

All stars
Most relevant  
Great story and I love the accent and tone of the narrator and how it maps to the character.

Fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really recommend this book, as Orhan, an imperfect and unreliable narrator takes you through his efforts in defending a city from unimaginable odds.

Its a clever book, with elements of Archamedes, Byzantine, and Roman themes - all centres around one man's struggle with being different.

The narrating was brilliant - and he really suited the character. My only criticism would be that it would be better if the voices were more different for each character, but then i guess I've been spoiled by Stephen Pacey.

highly recommended

A must for fantasy/historical fans

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
it's a good listen Ray Sawyer's performance is the best bit of the book for me really inbodys the main character

nice to have a fantasy without a out and out hero

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
...I couldn't. He's ingenious, which I like, but he becomes especially insufferable as you approach the ending.

Thought I could stand the main character

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Its been a while since I have enjoyed a book this much. Great characters, plenty of action, some moments of real pathos and a twist around every corner, just damned clever writing.

It has everything

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great example of what this author is so good at doing; a hugely satisfying, coherent world in which creative problems require creative solutions by realistic people. The plot is more a vehicle, but a perfectly adequate one. Good narration, but point deducted for the accent mixup near the beginning. Not really a forgivable lapse, and could have easily been corrected with even moderate care, but didn't get in the way once it settled down and in general the performance was good.

Great fun, some spectacular images

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great story, great reading performance. Except, the narrator's accent flips from North to South (England) very noticeably. The performance is great but the scent shifts, very strange.

Am I the only one ti think this?

Accent shifts North to South and back again

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Pulled along through story by the wit, honesty and ingenuity. Fabulous and genuinely funny.

Difficult to put down(you know what I mean).

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
this book is great and the narrator is the perfect pick. it's fairly short but has a great story that never gets too slow or fast.

one of the greatest short books

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The story is written as a memoir of events by the main character giving a narrative of the events.

The humour throughout is brilliant with a character who doesn't take fools and finds himself in impossible situations to try to solve.

I really liked how the story flows and you never grt to a point to want to stop listening.

Highly recommend this as is well written, amazingly narrated and a joy to sit back and listen to.

how did I miss this!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews