"The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
--Ambassador Kosh, Babylon 5

Devices and Desires is about the unfolding of a reasonable man pushed to unreasonable ends. Ziani Vaatzes is an engineer for the Mezentine Republic, which rules its hinterlands through economic and technological domination. Vaatzes starts the book sentenced to die for the crime of exceeding the Republic's holy Specifications in building a clockwork toy for his daughter. But rather than die, he breaks free and makes his way to a mountainous duchy that has just lost a war to Republic. He'll build weapons for them, teach them the secrets of precision engineering, and let them get revenge. Of course, it's all a part of Vaatzes' real plan for a private revenge, and the engineer doesn't care how many lives he has to ruin to get home.

The theme to this book, hammered again and again, is the inescapabilty of causality. Vaatzes has no choice but to design his revenge. The Mezentine Republic has no choice but to launch a genocidal war to prevent Vaatzes' knowledge from escaping. Various nobles have no choice but to be dutiful or or disciplined or indecisive, as their upbringing shaped them. It's not a very satisfying theme, if we want to believe that characters have agency.

Devices and Desires is fine, if a little long, and I'll probably read the rest of the series. But honestly, it feels like a first draft of ideas Parker handled with much more verve in the incredible 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City