I’ve been on a bit of a journey lately with my own reading schedule, trying to develop different reading projects to make sense of “the genre,” along with the world that the “genre” exists within. That’s a very vague way of saying “god I need something to read that I can talk about positively.” And don’t worry, there are a few think pieces in the pipeline to be assembled and polished that bring some larger ideas to a more concrete realm for our dear readers. As part of that effort, I’ve wanted to engage with how science fiction and fantasy deal with religion and faith since so much of each genre sort of pigeonholes both in favor of making Gods real and inconsequential, or they don’t breach the question at all. Enter K. J. Parker and his most recent release, Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead.
Brother Desiderius’ dreams are coming true. He’s being sent on a mission to witness an ecumenical council. Unfortunately, that dream comes with a catch, and that’s where his favorite partner, Sister Svangerd, comes in. You see, they aren’t there to participate in the debates, but to kill a princess who will be in attendance. Along the way, someone tries to stop them, but they are able to dispatch them with extreme prejudice. However, by the time Desiderius and Svangerd get a plan together to follow through with it, someone has already done their job for them. And the way she was killed looks a little too familiar to Desiderius. It’s not long before he realizes why, and he, along with Sister Svangerd are pulled into a game designed by God’s loyal opposition, Evil itself.
Admittedly, my engagement with Parker has been low throughout my reading life. I’ve read several of his books as Tom Holt and found them funny. I adore his novellas because they feel sharp and incisive, capturing his dark comedic streak like lightning in a bottle. And recently, I dove into his Engineer Trilogy with Devices and Desires (yes, I have a different take than Andrew) and came away invigorated. Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead continues his knack for dark, unreliable narrators with a chip on their shoulder and a need to separate themselves from the world in which they inhabit.
The Not Quite Dead is a smaller-scale book – following more along the lines of something like Prosper’s Demon. The reader is relegated to a single point of view (and it’s not the eponymous Sister Svangerd herself), and the conflict occurs over the course of several days in a bottled ecumenical council. It keeps the story tight and could lead to some frustration for some readers looking to feel a grand sense of scale and political intrigue. The plot isn’t necessarily meandering as much as it’s obfuscated from the protagonist. A mystery is afoot along with the adversaries’ goals. Much of the “action” is short, chaotic, and filled with more dialogue than it is with the ringing sound of metal, or the sharp, cutting squish of blades entering flesh. Sister Svangerd herself is on the sidelines despite her innate charisma and complexity as more of her backstory is revealed. The big moments of the council are all hearsay as Desiderius has to check in with Svangerd as he tries to intervene on his perceived frontlines in the ways he thinks important.
From a pure entertainment perspective, your mileage may vary with The Not Quite Dead. Desiderius often interjects with exposition-heavy monologues about the state and history of the church as he sees it. Though he is an atheist priest, he is fascinated by the various ways the larger church of the Invincible Sun has reconstituted itself in times of crisis, smugly pointing out that the Church and the Invincible Sun aren’t as neatly formed as one would expect of such a mighty and far-reaching institution. It’s all said in very “aren’t I so good at being a clerk, if only the church’s followers were as smart as me.” Not to mention his constant need to remind people that “those 8-foot-tall zombie assassins aren’t evil, they’re pretty common in my ass crack of a geographically backwater region, and they are well documented.” And despite his clear attraction to and, hidden from himself, love of Sister Svangerd, he can’t help but dismiss her understanding of the world as simplistic and pitiful. And ultimately, not a lot “happens,” beyond a bunch of people trying to convince Desiderius he needs to cause a split within the church now, to avoid a split later. Actions he never follows through on while reminding himself that good and evil don’t really exist.
And yet, I felt totally engaged in the book. The protagonists’ diatribes about the history of the church were crunchy morsels for someone like me, as I was able to understand the history Parker was pulling from. Desiderius’ constant reminders about his intellect and choosing not to choose are him papering over the fact that he just doesn’t really want anything to do with all of this nonsense. He consistently talks about how excited he is about seeing a certain debate amongst the titans of the church, but constantly finds ways to avoid them and interact with something familiar, the zombies from his hometown. Even his attempts to stop them physically constantly end with him losing control of the weapon in a matter of seconds and then having that weapon broken in front of his very eyes, proving his impotence as the zombie stalks off into the night. Meanwhile, Sister Svangerd is being entrusted to utter the last dying gasp of a revered mother within the church that momentarily stitches a growing wound amongst the factions within the church. She is looking for ways to act, to “do good,” so to speak, whereas Desiderius just sort of meanders into trouble, thinking a good chat and some intellect can stop the worst. And while he does stop things from happening, he never finds a way to redirect or change things. Despite his insistence on God and the loyal opposition not being real, he has major “everything will turn out fine eventually” energy, while literally everything is going on behind the scenes of his perception. Whenever he asks Svangerd to update him, he sort of brushes her off with a “that’s nice, but we have a real problem on our hands.”
That sort of character, paired with the general feeling of people always telling you the “right” thing to do, makes The Not Quite Dead worth talking about thematically. The entire book is a series of unfortunate events, populated by self-proclaimed demons and angels trying to tip the scales by pushing Desiderius to action. They talk about the long game, the need for suffering now to avoid suffering in some distant future. The plan keeps switching depending on how events play out and who he is talking to. It’s all aided by Parker’s ability to deliver incredibly charismatic monologues like a machine gun so that you as a ready start to questions your own moral compass. It’s all very confusing for the reader, and naturally it pushes Desiderius to focus on what he knows best, the zombies from his hometown, and reminds the angels and demons he encounters that they aren’t real. It captures this feeling of knowing that something needs to be done but every suggestion by someone who seems to know what is going on, feels like a terrible idea despite the soundness of their arguments. The goals are so distant, so unfathomable that they aren’t worth struggling for, so Desiderius doesn’t – but this seems more like a character fault than a personal decision that he knows will end up well. He just can’t really be bothered because he doesn’t believe in it. It’s a bold play for an opening novel in a trilogy, but considering where the story ends up, and the second book’s title being Sister Svangerd and the Devil You Know, I have a feeling that Parker is going to take us on a ride, and we’re not going to like where it goes – if you are someone who sees art as an investigation of truths.
So how can you think about this book beyond its silly investigations into the nature of the Catholic Church and the inevitable fragmentation of large political entities? Well, just replace the church with whatever social organization you live and breathe in. We see the world we live in crumbling in expected and unexpected ways. Long-standing organizations we have taken for granted are being questioned by their members as their mission becomes vague. Alliances are faltering and the status quo that we have all come to accept as impossible to fight or change is changing, just not by our own hands. The Not Quite Dead captures this feeling that everything is up for debate and that you yourself feel at the center of the cataclysm, yet unable to effectively do anything about it. There are voices that proclaim expertise and authority, telling you what you need to do to make things better. They tell you they have more information, better plans, and can forecast decades, if not centuries, out of your choices. But do you really want to be the villain that brings it all down, even if you don’t entirely believe in its existence? Do you want to be the one who takes the action that starts the wheels of change, even if you believe that change is necessary, because it might not be a good change? What if, by my actions, hundreds of people die, or maybe just one very dear to me? Can I pull that lever? These aren’t explicit questions asked by The Not Quite Dead, but they are the questions that rear their ugly heads as I contemplate the book and Desiderius’ actions and non-actions.
I do think it’s worth mentioning that there is a specific conclusion to a conflict within the book that sort of comes out of left field in a way that feels like it can both lean into homophobia while also making fun of the Church for being homophobic. I personally am giving a little benefit of the doubt here as it feels very clearly set up to be read by Desiderius as “one neat trick to dispel evil,” and it gives him some satisfaction that he gets a one up on the Church in this regard as he spends his time trying to translate an ancient slur into something that is useful to him. There is a lot of attention paid to the numerous meanings of the word and how Desiderius chooses to see the word and its application to his specific moment, so it leans into Desiderius’ focus on how to read it. It’s definitely a problem based on how you choose to interpret it and how much leeway you’re willing to give, and for me, The Not Quite Dead does just enough to make it work, but it still feels a little off.
I look forward to seeing where Parker takes us with Sister Svangerd. I hope we get more of her being the absolute menace that she is, and that Desiderius gets some of his shit rocked a little bit. I hope there are even weirder, more esoteric things about the Church and how it works, along with more about the particular wing that our protagonists are a part of. It’s nice to finally read some dark, comedic fantasy that tries to capture the chaos of our moment without being about the chaotic things we see every day on our devices. So if you’re able to stomach some of the more off-color bits, and dive into the head of an unreliable narrator, it’s time to join the Loyal Opposition and read Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead.
Rating: Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead – Better than bible study.
-Alex
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
