A Practical Guide to Evil (Book 1) by ErraticErrata

“‘Diplomacy is the art of selling a deal you don’t want to people you don’t trust for reasons you won’t admit to.’

-Prokopia Lekapene, first and only Hierarch of the League of Free Cities”

How could I try to sell ACX subscribers on reading A Practical Guide to Evil (PGtE) by ErraticErrata (EE)?

Well, it’s got a plucky teenage bisexual protagonist making morally dubious choices in a fantastical world with a diverse cast of loveable, likable, and so-hateable-you-love-them characters. A magic system that’s actually consistent and legible, hilarious dialogue, and frenetic fight sequences…

No, come on, this isn’t Tumblr, I can do better.

While superficially it’s a young adult fantasy epic about Evil triumphing over Good, it takes its world seriously and manages to create a multilayered masterpiece. Like A Game of Thrones, the expansive cast and detailed backstories presented seem like only a glimpse of the world the author created; the details are presented in the order which makes for a compelling story, but the characters and world develop together in ways that are deeply compelling.

That might work on GoodReads, but I think this series deserves better…

What would you do if you knew you were in a simulation? As in, your existence is predicated on beings from outside your Reality created you for their own purposes, and your position and continued existence depend on you and the people you interact with doing the bidding of the simulators, but they won't tell you any of the "rules" and the objectives of the simulation are seemingly opaque…

Oh, that framing might be catnip to ACXers, but I only remember that theme appearing in later books; I wonder if it was present at the start of the series?

In the beginning, there were only the Gods.

Aeons untold passed as they drifted aimlessly through the Void, until they grew bored with this state of affairs. In their infinite wisdom they brought into existence Creation, but with Creation came discord. The Gods disagreed on the nature of things: some believed their children should be guided to greater things, while others believed that they must rule over the creatures they had made.

So, we are told, were born Good and Evil.

Ages passed in fruitless argument between them until finally a wager was agreed on: it would be the mortals that settled the matter, for strife between the Gods would only result in the destruction of all. We know this wager as Fate, and thus Creation came to know war. Through the passing of the years grooves appeared in the workings of Fate, patterns repeated until they came into existence easier than not, and those grooves came to be called Roles. The Gods gifted these Roles with Names, and with those came power. We are all born free, but for every man and woman comes a time where a choice must be made.

It is, we are told, the only choice that ever really matters.”

– First page of the Book of All Things

Huh, I think it’s safe to say that my framing was indeed intended by the author. But that puts me in a bit of a bind, since I think that theme is more muted in the first book, so I’m going to focus on other aspects of the story, setting, and themes.

The Plot

A Practical Guide to Evil takes place in an archetypal fantasy world known as Creation, and on the continent of Calernia, where there exists the Good kingdom of Callow, which has been in perpetual conflict with the Evil Dread Empire of Praes. But unlike the Reality we inhabit, denizens of Creation know that their “physical laws” can be bent by magic, or a particular person embodying a Virtue (or Vice) to such an extent that the Gods notice them, and bestow them with the supernatural power of a Name. Since this world operates on tropes, the Good Guys Always Win, and the Good Kingdom is (almost) always always able to repel the invasions of the Dread Empire, and maintain a united front while the Empire faces constant low-level insurgencies. But, several decades before the events of the book, a new Black Knight and Dread Empress (traditional military and political leaders of the Empire), arose from their centuries of accumulated defeats. They studied the missteps and fateful mistakes of their predecessors, and decided to take a consequentialist and competence-based approach to reforming the Empire (which took decades), and only then did they go to war with Good kingdom. This Conquest took place many years before the start of the Book, and since then Callow and its people has been administered as a province of the Dread Empire.

In this broken kingdom, we are introduced to Catherine Foundling, a teenage girl who grew up in one of the many orphanages that were set up throughout Callow after the Conquest. When we first meet her, she is appalled by the conditions people in her country have to live under, and she plans to change things by climbing through the military ranks to change how both the Dread Empire and Callow are run, ideally by making Callow independent again. Unbeknownst to her, the Black Knight, probably the most hated and feared man in her world, takes an interest in her and decides to take her on as his Squire. While extremely hesitant, the ability to enact her plans makes this offer quite enticing. “Was it arrogance, to think that if I didn’t step up to fix Callow no one else would do it? Maybe I was just a self-deluded little girl, playing a game whose rules I didn’t yet understand and pretending I knew what it was doing. But it doesn’t matter, does it? … This is how it starts, isn’t it? How villains are born. When you decide that something is worth more than being Good.”[1] Given the title, it’s not surprising what choice Cat actually makes. “‘‘I’m all for doing the right thing,’ I replied flatly. ‘As long as it’s not also the dumb thing. This isn’t a story, you twit. We’re living this. If we fuck up, real people are going to die and we’ll die with them having accomplished nothing.’ … ‘Doing nothing is worse than being Evil,’ I told her, striding forward. ‘Getting people killed because you won’t compromise is worse than being Evil. I’m going to change things – maybe not all of them, but enough. And if that means getting my hands dirty, I can live with that. I don’t have to be a good person to make a better world.’”[2]

The rest of the series details Cat’s efforts to improve her world, and the consequences wrought by her choices. First, she has to deal with the problem that there are other claimants for the Name of Squire - In addition, a Hero has rose up to oppose the Black Knight and restore the Kingdom of Callow. Initially, the hero tries to appeal to Cat’s patriotism to get her to change sides, but she rejects a rebellion as so ill-planned that it’s likely to simply hurt their people for no benefit. But their conflict also sets off the events that will dominate the second book in the series, and brings up questions of what kinds of tactics and means are acceptable in asymmetric warfare. Cat also runs afoul of the Heiress, who represents the power and worldview of the nobility in the Dread Empire (a “classic” storybook type of Evil), who becomes the primary antagonist of the first half of the series. When Akua threatens to kill the entire orphanage where Cat was raised unless she gives up her claim to the name Squire, we get one possible Evil response to negotiating with terrorists:

“‘Do it,’ I said. ‘Kill them. If I give in once, you’ll just use it against me over and over again.’

I couldn’t beat the monsters by being better than them. I’d never had that in me. Too much impatience, too much recklessness. That was all right, though. There was another way: be the bigger monster.”[3]

The fallout of conflict with the Heiress reverberates throughout the rest of the series. Cat does make it to the War College, though she is immediately thrust into an officer position. EE spends a great deal more time than is typical discussing the actual mechanics, terminology, and principles of warfare. This is partly done for character development (Cat’s internal monologue often remarks how boring and difficult it is to keep everything straight), but it also allows the reader to follow everything later when the characters are using these terms and tactics. This is also to set the stage for the final third of the book, which is an elaborate wargame scenario orchestrated by the War College. The lessons Cat receives are intended to allow her to participate in these games, but also allow the reader to follow the action and maneuvering without further digressions. EE keeps the action gripping and the intrigue intriguing, and in this reviewer’s opinion, succeeds admirably, but I could see some of the earlier chapters feeling a bit too informational. But the payoff in the multi-chapter concluding battle is an eminently satisfying one, since even though Creation includes Magic and other supernatural elements, battles are still won via strategy and tactics.

Different Versions and Issues with Reading

(Skip to here if you just want my review of the writing and comparisons to other works)

The reason to read PGtE is that it takes its world building both seriously and ironically. Seriously because EE doesn’t introduce things until they’re relevant, but keeps things consistent throughout - often you’ll realize you already know the answers to questions you hadn’t yet thought to ask. Ironically because of the embedded assumptions of Creation that make the world so compelling. The only meta-rule is that the Story needs to keep getting “better,” so the writing, character development, and the depth and breadth of ideas also grows along with our characters. Re-reading just the first book, I was struck by how well EE’s language captures the emotional valence of youth and ambition, so that I was rooting for the character’s all over again, despite knowing how awful some decisions turn out. So, part of my strong preference for later chapters is simply that I identify more with the characters they grow into, and several key characters are only introduced later; but that’s like being displeased by an igloo that starts off a single block of ice. The story pays dividends, but with a compound interest rate that uses a lot of exponents.

PGtE is far from flawless; both the medium and the content have some flaws. Typos, for instance, are still present in several chapters, even as one important benefit of internet-based literature is that those can be corrected easily. There are also a couple plot points and world-building ideas which were clearly meant to have significance laid out in this first book, which never get re-examined or have any resolution. But these, 6635

Sadly, I must conclude this review with a confession of failure. I had intended for this review to only cover and mention Book 1 of the series and recommend it unequivocally…but unfortunately I have to equivocate. Going by just the first book, I could only give it a generally positive review - too much is left unresolved to really consider the ending a “conclusion,” and the writing and characters are memorable, but not enough to really recommend to an audience who probably already has too many works they want to read. So why am I still submitting this review? Well, the most important reason I reviewed just the first book is that I wanted to confirm something about it - that it’s by far the work book in the series. Presumably because EE was still getting his “sea legs” in the craft of web serialization, the writing is not as gripping and effortless as it becomes later. Similarly, the editing and pacing show continuous improvement (possibly simply because EE improved his craft or because more people were reading later books and catching typos/errors right away). This is not to say they are bad in book 1, merely that the writing starts as “good” and later becomes “excellent.”

I discovered (approximately three days before the deadline to submit the review) that I had made a terrible mistake - I was not reading the most updated version of the story! The typos, uneven pacing, and some of the other writing complaints I had were actually fixed - EE had made a deal to host and release the book on the app Yonder. Given that I could sense EE’s growth as a writer simply by reading the story in chronological order, it does not surprise me that the few chapters I’ve reread in Yonder avoid these obvious pitfalls. But now I’m in a bind, because the Yonder app (at least the free version) doesn’t seem ideal compared to simply reading the web-hosted chapters, especially since only the first two books are even available on Yonder. Thus, while I would recommend the Yonder version, if you’re cheap, annoyed by apps, or want to be able to finish the story in the method it was written, then the web version is still your best bet (finishing the books available in Yonder and then switching to the web version is almost certainly the best plan in terms of writing quality, but I know some minor characters had names changed and there may be other continuity issues so I can’t unequivocally recommend this method).

Impressions

One villain very clearly represents an AI that wants to "get out of the box" that is Creation, and it will do anything to achieve that goal. That means it is supernaturally patient, only ever expanding its power when it takes deals offered up by competing nations. The fact that everyone acknowledges these deals are knowingly made with an entity smarter and unaligned with you seldom stops the competing states' desire to make these deals.

The litany of rich and individuated characters in the series cannot be overstated; you'll almost certainly find a few side characters who deserve books all their own. The genius asexual autist has all the knowledge of what needs to be done and what will be effective, but for some reason people seldom agree that the obvious solution is to magically eliminate all obstacles and opposition to the leader's will. One soldier is such a coward with an overactive survival instinct that she consistently plans for the worst possible outcome, and saves the day when something similar to her bad expectations happens, that she keeps getting promoted and sent into ever more dangerous areas. Another character is an engineer who solves problems using schemes that are the fantasy equivalent of Star Trek's weekly modifications to the Enterprise, but since we're dealing with the evil side of a conflict, there is no concern about who gets hurt/killed, unless the damage can be done in a particularly humorous way.

Given the way in which the world-building is both deep and multifaceted, the cast of characters is vast and complex, and the web serial format, the works I would most compare PGtE to are Worm and UNSONG. Wildbow, the author of Worm, was unquestionably a better writer than EE at the start of the series, but even Worm takes a few “arcs” to get really Good, and PGtE also has this earlier “slog” pay off immensely in the end. UNSONG, by contrast, is well-written and immensely enjoyable throughout, but doesn’t have the same story synergy that makes the book seem Even Better once you have completed it. In a purely utils-per-word sense, UNSONG also can’t hold a candle to some of Scott’s short stories. PGtE, by contrast, seems to get continuously better in all aspects as the books go on. Mechanically, this makes sense as EE was improving their craft continuously, but in-story it also makes sense as characters reflecting on their knowledge and experience literally makes them Better at affecting their world.

So, if you begin A Practical Guide to Evil and it does not hook you for the first few chapters, that’s somewhat understandable. But if you see potential in it, I can attest that you’ll be well-rewarded.