SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: January 26, 2021] The Big Score
This book came in at work and the blurbs raved all over it. Since it was barely 100 pages I figured I’d give it a read. I didn’t realize that this was number three in a series about Saloninus. I’m not sure if it matters.
I had forgotten that I had read one of Parker’s books already Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (The Siege #1) which I enjoyed rather a lot.
The story starts with the death of Saloninus. And the subsequent realization that he fakes his death.
The story continues with Saloninus talking about himself and we quickly learn that Saloninus is the most naturally gifted, smartest, wittiest, and just generally wonderful person in the world. Well, not wonderful, surely, as he is also a petty thief and general troublemaker who has been kicked out of more cities than we’ve ever heard of.
He gave a speech at his own funeral in which his sang his own praises as the author of such classics as Analects, Ideal Republic, and Beyond Good and Evil. And as the creator of the telescope, synthetic blue dye, indoor sanitation and a potentially viable flying machine.
The problem for Saloninus is that he never made any money off of his works. He wrote several plays that are now considered masterpieces. He barely got 80 stuivers when he wrote them and now he could never afford to see one of them performed. He went to an abbey to get the money that he has stashed in a grave there. But some grave robber had beaten him to it! Then he heard about an auction where an original copy of one of his plays went for five hundred thousand angels.
That was supposed to be his money source, so he was now completely broke. And things were about to get worse. A woman walked up to him and said, “You were supposed to be dead.” She was a master thief and had proven herself to be smarter and more resourceful (and more ruthless) than he ever was. She told him that she wanted him to kill the Lurian ambassador as part of her “big score.”
In every other section, Saloninus (who is relating this story about himself) goes on a tangent about something that happened to him in the past. Like when he was shot with an arrow but had a medical book nearby to teach him how to remove the arrow without infecting himself. (He then wrote a better medical book, fixing errors that were in the one he read).
Another one described how the woman he’s with is such a master forger that she was able to create the perfect sandal, making it look well-worn and comfortable–from scratch.
Saloninus may be many things–and he is many things–but he is not a killer. But he agrees to do her quest because she’s got him over a barrel.
He goes to the party and finds the ambassador. And he uses some esoteric knowledge of religious matters to get the ambassador to embarrass himself and to be removed (rather than killed).
He assumed that his task was over, but it was far from. The part of the Big Score that she really needed him for was to write a new play. He would write the play and she would forge it and make it look a decade old. Then she would sell it at auction for millions of angels.
Despite Saloninus’ greatness, he is humble (in a humblebrag sort of way). He says that he never tried hard to write a play. He Just imagines conversations between people he invented. He’s not sure if he can write a great play in such a short time. She tells him he doesn’t have much of a choice.
He tells her about his idea for his play:
There’s this prince. He’s lounging about, feeling vaguely discontented, when suddenly his father’s ghost pops up. I was murdered by my brother, the ghost says. You know, the one who subsequently married your mother and seized the throne. Avenge me.
And? she asks.
The Prince avenges him.
And? she asks.
That’s it.
What about the sub-plot, she asks.
There isn’t one.
Love interest?
No
Oh come on.
There’s a certain amount of internal debate about morality and the nature of human existence.
She hates it: “Padding. What you’ve got there is Act One, Scene One and Act Five, Scene Six. Now go away and figure out the rest of it”
So he writes a play and she manages to make it look perfectly aged. And she presents it to the Duke to see if he’ll buy it.
The book was described as very funny although I didn’t find it very funny. But I see it was also described as “witty and hugely entertaining” which it definitely was.
When I was finished, I saw that someone on Goodreads (Steve) posted this:
Readers familiar with Parker’s commonly used fantasy world based loosely on the medieval Byzantium Empire will have come across Saloninus, a mix of Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Galileo, etc. He’s commonly name checked in Parker’s stories set in this world as the source of all academic wisdom, but here he gets an entire story to himself.
So that explains a lot of what I didn’t get. Saloninus was not in the book that I read. I suspect if I had read the other books, this would have been a really fun treat. But by itself, this was just a fun little novella.
Parker (pseudonym of Tom Holt) has written a ton of books. I’d like to read more.
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