Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

I quite enjoyed this quirky, wry story about an engineer in a medieval-style world handling the defense of a city that is under siege. It is brutal in places and funny in others. Also, it is quite well written.
The story reads like a historical novel but is set in a fictional world. I hesitate to call it ‘fantasy' as it hasn't any supernatural elements. (Unconventional speculative fiction perhaps?)
Solid 4 stars.