I was reading Pat’s blog and found an excerpt from K. J. Parker first standalone novel, The Company.

When you have no idea what a book is about, reading the first few pages and some reviews could help. But reading online is the suck and I get distracted or tired rather quickly.

This time I was intrigued instead and almost made to the middle part ;)

Mysterious female writer, probably under a pseudonym. Even the wikipedia has no clue.

Anyway, I really liked this description of an house:

Then, before he was ready, he was standing at the top of the yard, looking down the slope. Directly in front of him was the old cider house, which had finally collapsed. One wall had peeled away, and the unsupported roof had slumped sideways, the roof-tree and rafters gradually torn apart by the unsupportable weight of the slates; it put him in mind of the stripped carcass of a chicken, after the meal is over. A dense tangle of briars slopped out over the stub of the broken wall, and a young ash was growing aggressively between the stones. It must have happened so slowly, he thought; neglect, the danger dimly perceived but never quite scrambling high enough up the pyramid of priorities until it was too late, no longer worth the prodigious effort needed to put it right. There would have been a morning when they all came out of the house to find it lying there, having gently pulled itself apart in the night. They’d have sworn a bit, shaken their heads, accepted the inconvenience and carried on as before.

I like a lot the introspective, tight kind of prose. It seems that no line is outside a precise purpose. Short, precise sentences that perfectly define not just the character’s thoughts, but even the perception, mood, awareness. Carefully selected and measured words.

That’s an example of perfect characterization (I mean the whole part I read, not just this quote). Precise, insightful and yet not overwritten or unrealistically explicit.