Hawk by Steven Brust

 So, Vlad has returned to Adrilankha, hoping to visit his son by his estranged wife, Cawti. But those pesky Jhereg assassins just won't go away, and in addition to having her house watched, they keep attempting to kill our old friend. Finally, he decides he's had enough, and a random conversational tidbit from Daymar sends him off down a convoluted path to redeeming himself with the organization. It will take all of his sneakiness and all of the help his old friends can provide, but it will be worth it to finally stop living life looking over his shoulder.

There's really nothing terribly new and exciting here, aside from a hint that Vlad's love life might eventually get better. Aliera's mysterious daughter puts in a cameo appearance, we get to find out a bit more about Vlad's old sidekick, Kragar, who now runs his area for the Jhereg, and Lady Teldra reveals some of her new Great Weapon powers.

What is this now, book fifteen of a planned nineteen? I hope Brust gets back in form at some point and starts writing a more inspired handful of books to finish things off, or the whole series will die with a whimper, not a bang.

The Incrementalists by Steven Brust and Skyler White

 I think I have purchased and read nearly everything that Steven Brust has written in the last couple of decades, beginning with Jhereg, and including Cowboy Feng's Space Bar & Grill, Brokedown Palace, and To Reign in Hell. I ran across this collaboration with Skyler White at the library and decided I'd better read it. Not a fatal error, but not exactly up to Brust's usual standards, either.

Several years back, my insurance agent inexplicably hired an office assistant who was horribly incompetent. Her sins were far too many to list here, but they led me to state on more than one occasion that she had to be either related to him or having an affair with him. I'm afraid that I'm left wondering the same thing about Brust's relationship to Skyler White, as there seems to be no other reason to screw up a perfectly good writing process which has produced masterpieces of fantasy fiction for many years. I will, however, give White the benefit of the doubt at this point and will try reading something else by her to verify my theory. You'll be the first to know, gentle readers.

The novel is just way too long on talk and too short on action. The premise is that there is a group of effective immortals who make "incremental" changes by influencing people towards or away from some course of action, making the world a slightly better place, one bite at a time, so to speak. They never try to make major changes, just little ones.

The narrative is split between the viewpoints of Phil, an incrementalist who has been on the job for over two thousand years, and Ren, the woman he has selected to replace a member who has died, who was (it seems at first) incidentally also his lover for the last two hundred years, in various incarnations. These folks don't possess physical immortality, but their memories and personalities can be passed on to new bodies, integrating the old with the new, more or less, depending on how dominant each personality is.

Phil is a professional poker player, participating in the WSOP, so everything happens in Vegas, and stays in Vegas. It turns out that his dead lover, Celeste, was far more skilled at the whole business of subtle influence and change than anyone realized, as it develops that she influenced Phil to pick her successor, and to fall in love with Ren, even when Celeste's personality doesn't appear in her new host as expected. Celeste is playing some sort of long game, which may be detrimental to the long term plans of the Incrementalists as a whole, and they spend endless chapters debating what to do about it, while Ren and Phil work out their various emotional issues.

It could be that this is the first book in the series, and after a couple hundred pages of setup, we'll be graced with some actual plot movement in the next one. Keep your fingers crossed.

Jhegaala by Steven Brust

 I'm afraid that Jhegaala is probably the least inspired of the Vlad Taltos series, and the only one I've never reviewed here. It takes place shortly after Cawti has left Vlad, and when he has gone into self-exile from Adrilankha, trying to avoid the Jhereg assassins who'd like to collect the bounty on his head. He visits his country estates briefly, spending some time with his grandfather, Noish-Pa, then heads off to the country of the humans, Fenario, where he hopes to connect with his roots, I suppose.

It doesn't take long for Vlad to find trouble, or trouble to find Vlad. When he arrives in a small town near where some of his mother's relatives are supposed to live, he attracts the attention of the three factions in the town; the Coven, the Guild and the Count. Perhaps eighty years before this, the Count's predecessor discovered a process to make high quality paper in bulk, and began to displace the peasants from their traditional lands and practices, to come work in his factory.

In some of the earlier books, Cawti is involved with the Teckla and other workers in the Empire, as they began to chafe against their chains, a retelling of the French or Russian revolutions' allegories, and it feels that Brust, in the midst of trying to tell an interesting Vlad-style mystery, is presenting a microcosm of the stresses of the industrial revolution on feudal society.

None of the factions in town believe that Vlad is simply here to visit his relatives, and they all assume that he has a hidden agenda which would destroy the delicate balance the powers have attained in the town. When Vlad's poking around results in the killing of that family, things begin to get serious for him, and his desire for justice pushes him to stay far longer than he ought to.

The usually witty dialog is mostly missing, and Vlad's depression a bit contagious in this one. You can throw it out of the series and not miss much.

Dzur by Steven Brust

Vlad finds out that his wife (or ex), Cawti, is having problems in South Adrilankha. He gave her his Jhereg interests in the area when he left town, and left the rest of his business to his long time lieutenant, Kragar, but when she began to try to clean up the corruption in the area, she lost control of things, and now other Jhereg are trying to move in. The situation is complicated further by the death of the head of the Jhereg Council, so there is  a succession war in play.

So, Vlad returns to the city where anyone who recognizes him can earn a hefty reward for turning him over to the Jhereg, or an even heftier one by killing him, permanently. Vlad's only new advantage is the great weapon he acquired, which he has named Lady Teldra, and which has some interesting new abilities in protecting him from enchantments and other spells. He's also acquired a new ally, in the young Dzur, Telnan, sent to him by Sethra Lavode, as sort of an apprentice, I suppose.

The story is actually two tales, intertwined, and I'm not sure which one is more important. Brust has occasionally leavened his tales of Vlad with digressions on the subject of properly prepared meals and appropriate wines and brandies to accompany them, but he expands that in this novel to encompass a multi-course meal served to exquisite perfection at Vlad's favorite restaurant in Adrilankha, Valabar's. Every course is lovingly described, as the staff there caters to Vlad and Telnan, and the two of them converse on the nature of heroism, and cooking principles that probably apply to assassination and other important things in life.

An excerpt from the meal:
"Transitions are important in a good meal, whether the next flavor has only the most subtle differences from the previous, like between the fish and the goslingroot, where the butter and the lemon defined the flavor, or drastic differences, like between the salad and the chicken.
In this case, it was the wine that provided the continuity, and reminded my mouth that, however much things changed, and however one moment was completely unlike the one that preceded it, they were both still moments in an endless stream, the product of all that has gone before, and the producer of what will follow; the lingering chill of the wine, now partaking of the fullness of a red, now of the elegance of a white, making us step back a bit from the irresistible now of the chicken, and declaring an eternal context of life, or meal."

And so, Vlad jumps right into the middle of the brewing conflict in South Adrilankha, with little idea what's going on, and lacking the intelligence he used to have Kragar obtain for him. Somehow or other, he needs to come up with a viable plan to save Cawti's people from the Jhereg's exploitation. A familiar line, uttered by Vlad's familiar, Loiosh,  on the nature of Vlad's planning:

"How about the one where you stumble around until something happens, Boss? And then you almost get killed, and have to be rescued by...."

And Vlad finally finds out about something that Brust has been hinting at in sidelights for a couple of books now, Cawti bore him a son after he left town, whom he has never seen. A bittersweet ending on this one.

From Wikipedia, about the Vlad Taltos novels

I just wanted to put this up here for reference, regarding the Vlad Taltos series, as I often wonder what the chronological order of the books should be.
There are currently 13 novels in the series (19 are planned).

1. Jhereg (1983)
2. Yendi (1984)
3. Teckla (1987)
4. Taltos (1988)
5. Phoenix (1990)
6. Athyra (1993)
7. Orca (1996)
8. Dragon (1998)
9. Issola (2001)
10. Dzur (2006)
11. Jhegaala (2008)
12. Iorich (2010)
13. Tiassa (2011)

Chronological order of novels:

1. Taltos (1988)
2. Yendi (1984)
3. Dragon (1998)
4. Tiassa, section 1 (2011)
5. Jhereg (1983)
6. Teckla (1987)
7. Phoenix (1990)
8. Jhegaala (2008)
9. Athyra (1993)
10. Orca (1996)
11. Issola (2001)
12. Dzur (2006)
13. Tiassa, section 2 (2011)
14. Iorich (2010)
15. Tiassa, section 3 (2011)

Issola by Steven Brust

In Issola, Brust returns to the top of his game, with the great snappy dialogue, sarcastic wit, and intriguing action that made the first few books in this series such winners. Vlad is still technically on the run from the Jhereg, who would love nothing better than to kill him, but when Lady Teldra finds him in his wanderings and tells him that Aliera and Morrolan have disappeared, he cannot resist the call of duty, and returns to Dzur Mountain, lair of Sethra Lavode, to confer, consult and conspire.

There's a great descriptive piece about Sethra, the undead enchantress:

"...there she was; tall, pale, undead; she had forgotten more of sorcery, even the forbidden sorcery of the ancient world, than anyone else would ever learn. She was a vampire, but it didn't seem to bother her much; and to those who told stories of her it was almost superfluous, like hearing that the guy who is going to cut your heart out plans to kick you in the shin when he's done. Her origin was in prehistory, and some had come to believe that she was the living personification of the world itself, that it would end when she ended. I doubted this myself: I mislike the idea of a living personification of being undead.
Her features were those of a Dragonlord, except that, if one looked for it (as I did), one could see hints of the Dzurlord in the shape of her ears and her eyes. She dressed in black, black, black - the only hints of color upon her today were a red stone about her neck, a yellow stone on a ring on her right hand, and the blue hilt of Iceflame at her hip. She wore enigma as if it were her due."

Aliera and Morrolan turn out to have been abducted by the Jenoine, a mysterious race which used to inhabit the world and who are responsible for the genetic manipulation that created the Dragaerans and Easterners from the same stock. They have a plot in play to regain power, and the opening gambit has been played. Vlad and Teldra journey together to the pocket universe where the Jenoine hide out, and Vlad takes on the most dangerous commission of his life, a contract to kill a goddess.

Of course, nothing ever goes exactly as planned around Vlad and his friends, and the plot goes seriously astray before the Jenoine are defeated. Along the way we get to know Lady Teldra far more deeply than we ever expected. This is a neat bit on Brust's part, as Teldra has just been a bit player throughout most of Vlad's story, appearing at Morrolan's front doors to greet his guests and make them feel comfortable. Vlad has an astonishing revelation when he finally finds out why it is that Teldra treats everyone she meets so courteously, making them feel as if she really likes them (even Easterners like Vlad) - she actually truly likes people! How astonishing.

We get a great history/mythos lesson on the world of Dragaera, delivered by Sethra when Vlad demands more background before he commits to the latest foolish and dangerous quest, whic, explains a few things about earlier events, but leaves some new questions unanswered. The "key" event in this book, which will probably play out in later installments, is the creation of the great weapon, Godslayer, which is meant for Vlad to carry. Vlad also is really turning the corner on becoming a hero, rather than the antihero we began with.

Dragon Revisited

I just finished re-reading Dragon, by Steven Brust. Wrote a review, and then when I double-checked, found that I'd written a review on it back when I first read it. As there was nothing significantly different in my impressions this time around, I will merely direct you to my previous post.

Orca by Steven Brust

It seems inconceivable to me that I could have purchased a book in a series that I love, with a protagonist I'm attached to,  placed it in the TBR pile, and then failed to read it for several years, but that is what appears to have happened with Orca. I began re-reading it (or so I thought) and came to the realization slowly that none of it seemed at all familiar, and the surprise ending was indeed a surprise. So I must either conclude that I failed to read it when it first came out and I bought it, or my memory has finally slipped into the abyss.

Orca takes place about a year after the events of Athyra. Vlad has been wandering around, avoiding the Jhereg, and trying to find someone to help poor Savn recover from the effects of his battle with Loraan. Vlad ends up in Northside, seeking the aid of a sorceress who has had some success with people who have had magical brain injuries. She's a rather gruff old woman who is being evicted from her lifetime home, and Vlad makes a bargain with her to help her stay on her land if she will cure Savn.

In his investigation, Vlad stumbles upon a far larger problem - an Orca named Fyre has been murdered, but the representatives of the Empire sent to investigate are involved in a cover-up, as it turns out that his shady business dealings, if brought to light, could cause the collapse of multipe banks and several Houses within the Empire. Vlad enlists the aid of his old friend, Kiera the thief, to steal some papers from Fyre's estate (in both senses of the word) so that he can begin to figure out what's really going on, and Kiera's curiousity keeps getting her more deeply involved as the plot thickens.

So, it becomes apparent as the story progresses that Kiera is far more than a simple thief, albeit a highly skilled one, working for the Jhereg. She displays a lot more knowledge about the clandestine operations of the Empire than seem likely. So, I began to suspect that she's actually an intelligence operative, working very covertly for the Empress. Then, there was one odd event that just didn't fit properly - a jigsaw piece out of place. Kiera thinks that she sees Devera walk past the front door of an inn. Devera is - or will be - Aliera's daughter, who has appeared in the Halls of Judgement and in dreams to Vlad several times. I wondered how in the world Kiera would know about Devera, let alone recognize her.

I as totally shocked by the answer when it showed up, which convinces me that I just now read Orca for the first time. I hope your first time is good for you, too.

Athyra by Steven Brust

Athyra gives us our first glimpse of Vlad as a fugitive, on the run from the assassins of the Jhereg. The story is mostly told from the point of view of Savn, a peasant who lives on the lands of the Lord of Smallcliff, also known as Loraan, whom we've encountered before when Vlad rescued Aliera's soul and acquired Spellbreaker. Shortly after Vlad causes a stir by appearing in town, where Easterners are seldom seen, a man, Reins, is murdered, and suspicions fall upon the newcomer.

Savn was the first person in Smallcliff to encounter Vlad, and he doesn't think that our former Jhereg friend is the type to murder someone - ha! Occam's razor would tell us that if there's an assassin in town, and somebody dies, the assassin probaby has something to do with it - and he does, just not in the way most of the villagers suspect. Savn is apprenticed to the village physicker, Master Wag, and he gets some instruction in conducting an autopsy, which leaves neither of them with any more information than they started with.

It turns out, however, that Reins was the delivery man who got Vlad into Loraan's house in his earlier adventure, and he's been murdered to draw Vlad into a trap. Vlad lingers a bit too long in plain sight, and gets attacked by Lord Smallcliff's soldiers. When he teleports away, the entire village turns out to look for him, but only Savn has a clue where to find him, and he must decide whether to help or hinder our hero in his new quest to kill the sorceror before the sorceror kills him.

This novel has a more serious tone than we've become accustomed to with Vlad as the narrator. Very little banter and sarcasm from this new protagonist, but I suppose we can live with that in a transitional piece.

Phoenix by Steven Brust

Moving forward with the story line, the peasants are still revolting (thanks, Johnny Hart!), and Vlad and Cawti's relationship is still in limbo. The Demon Goddess Verra summons Vlad to the Halls of Judgement and gives him a commission to assassinate the king of Greenaere, an island kingdom a few days sailing away from Adrilankha. Vlad sees this as an opportunity to get away from the situation with Cawti and her rebellion (personal and public) and heads for the island, where he succeeds at the assassination, but fumbles the getaway pretty badly - a latent depressed death wish, perhaps?

The plot line in this one very skillfully weaves together some interesting elements, as the assassination triggers a war between the Empire and Greenaere, which is not nearly as powerless as one would think. The war serves as a distraction that could result in the success of the Teckla rebellion, or vice versa. Also, while Vlad is there, and when his friends are effecting his rescue, it turns out that the island and its people are protected from psionics and sorcery by a type of mineral that is native there - white phoenix stone. The phoenix stone becomes key at the end of this book, and in future installments, as Vlad is eluding the people in the Jhereg that want him dead.

Vlad continues to experience some personal growth, as he thinks seriously about the type of person he has had to become to be a successful killer and minor lord of the Jhereg. As I mentioned in my review of Teckla, I find this to be one of my least favorite in the series, as it drives the final nail in the coffin of his marriage, despite the heroic efforts Vlad puts forth to save Cawti from the dungeons of the Empire, after plotting by the leaders of the Jhereg lands her there. Call me an old softie, but I just hate it that they can't save their marriage.

Taltos by Steven Brust

 This installment of Vlad's story takes us back in time a bit, to the point in his personal story when he first makes the acquaintance of Morrolan, Sethra Lavode, and Aliera; though she's a rather special case, and the point of the main plot line in this story. In fact, this story unfolds like a trifold wallet; there's the main plot line, in which Vlad is entangled in the affairs of Morrolan and the House of the Dragon, first stealing a staff which contains Aliera's soul from an Athyra wizard who refuses to part with it, and then journeying the Paths of the Dead in order to plead with the Lords of Judgement for Aliera's return, to become the Dragon heir to the throne, there's a secondary plot line in which Vlad is slowly creating an incredibly complex and potent ritual of witchcraft to bring an object of his desiring to the lands of the dead, and a third series of vignettes which show us how Vlad went from being the son of an Easterner with a purchased title in the Jhereg to an assassin, boss within the Jhereg, and somehow the friend of some very powerful people.

One mystery that remains, touched upon in the vignettes, is why, exactly, Kiera the Thief befriends Vlad in the first place. I suspect that she's somehow more deeply involved with Sethra and her plots than is readily apparent, and may be more spy than thief, after all. I'll have to keep an eye on this in newer installments. If I had to place this chronologically in the series, it would immediately preced Jhereg. More good snarky fun with Vlad and his friends.

Teckla by Steven Brust

I'm never quite certain whether Brust, at the time he was writing Teckla, was going through struggles in his own relationship with his significant other, or not, but he certainly captures the emotions well in Teckla. Vlad finds out that Cawti has been concealing something from him; that she's been spending time in the Eastern quarter of Adrilankha, working with a group of revolutionaries trying to raise the consciousness of the masses, more or less. The tribe of Teckla has always been the lowest of the low, and their labor is mostly responsible for feeding the Empire, but they are treated with contempt, poorly educated, unwashed...you get the picture.

Vlad is, of course, understandably upset that she has been doing this for months without telling him about it, and equally upset that she's gotten involved with a cause which he understands not in the slightest. It seems that Cawti has caught the reformation bug, and decided that her former profession of assassin was immoral, so she is trying to do good works instead. The implied criticism of Vlad's line of work does not go unnoticed, but their marital troubles aren't something that can readily be solved by the application of a dagger in the right location, so Vlad flails about for most of the novel, trying to figure out how to protect Cawti from the retribution that will most certainly follow, from either the Jhereg, whose businesses are being disrupted by the rabble rousers, or the Empress, whose city could grind to a halt if the Teckla do not bring their goods to market.

A difficult read, emotionally, for anyone who has experienced a love gone awry, and perhaps a key turning point in the series for Vlad.

Yendi by Steven Brust

Second in the Vlad Taltos series, Yendi is quite a good mystery, wrapped in a theme a bit like the TV show, How I Met Your Mother. This novel takes place a couple of years before Jhereg - bouncing around in time in this series is something you'll just have to get used to from Brust, unless you buy all of his books and read them in chronological order according to Vlad's life.

Vlad has recently taken over an area for the Jhereg, as a low-level boss, and things heat up rapidly when a rival boss, Laris, decides to encroach on his territory. Vlad forcefully puts a stop to the new, unauthorized enterprise in his area, then meets with Laris to be certain it won't happen again. The meet goes well, on the surface, but Vlad's intuition - and his familiar, Loiosh, know it won't be long before a war begins.

Laris begins systematically attacking Vlad's sources of income, in his illicit businesses, and killing off his enforcers whenever his assassins can catch them alone. Without the quiet help of Vlad's friends, Morrolan, Kiera the Thief, Aliera and Sethra Lavode, he'd be sunk, but a couple of quick loans allow him to stay afloat and pay his people until he is able to counterattack.

When both the Jhereg Council and the Dragaeran Empress take note of the carnage, the Phoenix Guards are called in to keep the peace, and both bosses have to lay low for a while. When the Guards are finally pulled away from the area after peace breaks out, Laris' nearly precognative next attack on Vlad leads him to believe that there may be more here than merely a plot to take over his territory.

We get to find out how Vlad met his wife, Cawti. She and her partner, Norathar, are known as the Sword and Dagger of the Jhereg, and they have taken Laris' money to assassinate Vlad. They succeed, and only Aliera and Sethra's revivification skills keep the story from being extremely short. Who can resist falling in love with the woman who tries to kill them?

Eventually, of course, Vlad and his friends solve the mystery, and live happily ever after...almost.

Jhereg by Steven Brust

Jhereg is the first book in the fantasy series about Vlad Taltos, a marvelously snarky yet quite competent assassin. Vlad lives in the city of Adrilankha, capital of the Dragaeran Empire, an Easterner (human) among the many families of the Dragaerans (elves). Easterners have always been despised, even when they're not being systematically exterminated by the Dragaerans, but Vlad's father purchased a baronetcy for himself and his family, which has allowed him some status, at least in the clan of the Jhereg - an organized crime clan that lets mixed races and even the occasional human join.

Jhereg actually jumps in at the middle of Vlad's story, and subsequent volumes in the saga are occasionally flashbacks to earlier snippets, but what little we don't understand at first is either explained sufficiently by Brust or left as a niggling little question to pique our interest in Vlad's further adventures. At this point, Vlad has responsibility for a certain amount of territory with the Jhereg, and acts as a mid level boss, overseeing gambling, prostitution, and other criminal activities - and very seldom has to do assassinations any more.

However, one of the members of the Council of the Jhereg, Mellar, has absconded with $9 million in gold from the treasury, and it is imperative that he be killed and the gold recovered quietly. Vlad is approached by another council member, The Demon, to arrange for "a friend" to take care of the matter. It's really an offer he can't refuse, and the fee is quite generous, so he decides to take on the hit.

To complicate matters, Mellar has fled to the sanctuary of Castle Black, the floating domain of Lord Morrolan, of the Dragon clan, for whom Vlad moonlights as a security consultant (the beginning of their friendship is found in another Brust novel). Morrolan's honor requires that if a guest in his home is harmed, they must be avenged. The last time a Jhereg was assassinated in a Dragon's home, it led to a war between the clans that nearly destroyed both of them.

This is, of course, an undesirable outcome for Vlad and his friends, so he has to find a creative way to get Mellar to leave of his own will, so he can be killed. In the process, Vlad will learn a great deal about himself, a few things about his friends, and we'll get to learn right along with him about the fun fantasy world Brust has created.

Jhereg is a delightful yarn, with a mystery at its core, which will probably get you hooked on the rest of Vlad Taltos' story.

Tiassa by Steven Brust

I was actually quite surprised to find this out so quickly at my local library. I've been a huge Brust fan for years, and have avidly followed, read, and re-read his Taltos series, so I was thrilled to find Tiassa, the thirteenth book in the series. I'm guessing there will be 17or 18 by the time it's all finished, mimicking the Cycle and accounting for all of the houses, with the addition of the book titled Taltos a while back.

Tiassa is structured a little differently. No surprises there, Brust likes to mess with conventions a bit when it comes to story lines. It begins with a scene between Vlad and Sethra LaVode, where he shows her a silver sculpture of a tiassa which is the focus of the entire story, being rumored to have mystical powers, though its powers turn out in the end to have nothing to do with what is commonly known. Then the story hops back in time to shortly after Vlad and Cawti met (and she tried to assassinate him), when he gets involved in an elaborate con with the participation of the Viscount of Adrilankha, which ends up with Khaavren (of Phoenix Guards and elsewhere fame) owing Vlad a favor.

The story continues to bounce around, and Brust very skillfully weaves timelines and characters from all of his novels together for the first time here. It was quite entertaining to see the contrast between the parts of the tale told in Vlad's "voice" and those in the style of "Khaavren" and his friends. Then, when Vlad and Khaavren are actually on stage together, the banter and verbal sparring are a thing of beauty to behold. Parvi the historian puts in an appearance, as well, giving Brust the chance to elucidate a bit on the notions of storytelling and history.

Unfortunately, it had been too long since I read the last installment of Vlad, so I'm going to have to go back and revisit it, just so I understand the reasoning behind the ending of this book. Might not be a bad idea, if you've got copies of Dzur, Iorich and Jhegaala laying about the house, to give them a glance before you pick this one up. My only other worry is that Brust may be finally going into a Heinlein-esque senile phase, where the desire to throw all of his characters from all of his stories into the crockpot leaves us all with indigestion. Only time will tell.

The Paths of the Dead by Steven Brust

Review written 2003

I've enjoyed most of what Mr. Brust has written over the years, and I'd hoped that this was another novel in the Vlad Taltos series, but it turned out to be set in an earlier period of the Dragaeran Empire. Ah, well. A few years ago, he wrote The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After. This one could have been called 150 Years After, as it takes place that much past FHYA.

In this novel, we get to learn a lot of things about the characters we came to love in The Phoenix Guards and also some things about characters from the Taltos series. We find out how Morrolan got his name, came to study eastern sorcery, and met the Lady Teldra. We also learn more about the Empress Zerika, and how she came into possession of the Orb (the artifact that holds the empire together).

Sethra Lavode, Sethra the Younger, and the Sorceress in Green figure prominently, as do Tazendra, Aerich, Pel and Khaavren.

It's a bit slow in spots, and Brust writes in the mildly irritating conversation style of Parfi the historian, as he did in his earlier works about these characters. I much prefer the style he used in the Taltos novels, but it was still a good read.

As the story begins, the empire is in ruins after Adron's Disaster, and we follow about a half dozen different plot threads, as people try to put things back in order. Some are trying to put things back together by force, while others use subterfuge.

This book is just part one of the series subtitled The Viscount of Adrilanka, and I eagerly await the sequel(s).

Short Takes

(7/26/08) Finished a book by John Stossel, Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity. A pretty good take on things that are debated in America today, though the articles seemed to lack depth. Probably just a compilation of various short reports he's done in the news business, really. Only thing I disagreed with was his take on child-rearing. Reminded me once again that my views are more libertarian than republican, as far as our major political parties are concerned.

(8/10/08) Finished Jhegaala, by Brust - not his best work.

(8/11/08) Read Kushiel's Mercy for a while before dinner. Carey just gets better the more she writes...Continued reading until I forced myself to put it down around 10:30. I'd have stayed up until the wee hours if I hadn't, just to finish it.

Short Takes

10/28/07 Reading Glen Cook's new series, Tyranny of the Night. Slow to get into it, but it's getting more interesting.

11/2/07 Finished the Glen Cook book. More to come in that series, but I'll wait till they're cheap, probably.

1/3/08 I'm either reading or re-reading The Viscount of Adrilankha series by Brust. I had a copy of the middle book in the library, and just picked up the 1st and 3rd the other day, so I decided to start with the first one and work my way into it. I vaguely remember having read it before. I think Brust could have cut the volume of these books in half if he'd left off with the droll dialogue, which grows a bit tiresome after having seen the same turns of phrase for about the seventeenth time. Looks like he's coming out with a new book in the Vlad Taltos series this spring, so that's exciting.

1/16/08 Finished reading Sethra Lavode (#3 in Viscount of Adrilankha by Brust) last night. Everything wrapped up quite nicely in the end. Provides a bit of insight into later events. Morrolan is way cooler than we ever see him being in the Vlad books.

Dragon, by Steven Brust

I've been following the Vlad Taltos series, by Brust, for quite some time now, and I usually grab his latest novel off the shelf as soon as it hits the local stores. Dragon, which fits somewhere between Phoenix and Yendi, I think, is just out in paperback, so I bought it, then held off until I had some time to savor the entire experience in one fell swoop.


This is a good story which fills in some of the missing details from the rest of the series, such as how Vlad goes to work as Morrolan's security consultant, and how Aliera acquires the great weapon Pathfinder. We also learn a little more about Dragaeran Dragon clan (maybe it's more appropriate to call them a race) ideals and motivations.

There's plenty of action, tho of a different kind than we've grown to love Vlad for. In order to accomplish his mission, he joins an army as a foot soldier, and we see how he fares in straightforward combat, rather than his usual sneaky style. There's plenty of sarcastic dialogue and monologue from Vlad and Loish (his jhereg familiar), and a few interesting twists and turns to the plot.

However, I think Brust over-uses the device of bouncing around between times and events in Vlad's life in this one. It worked really well in Jhereg and Phoenix, but not so well in this one. Often, he switched right in the middle of a paragraph, which was disconcerting, to say the least.

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Iorich, by Steven Brust

I always am eager to read the latest in the Vlad Taltos series by Brust. It is, in the words of The Moody Blues, "Lovely to see You Again, My Friend." Vlad is still hiding out in the hinterlands from the assassins of the Jhereg when he catches word that his friend, Aliera, has been arrested for practicing Elder Sorcery. Of course, he can't just leave things alone (or we wouldn't have this new novel to read), so he travels back to Adrilankha to see if he can help get her exonerated or freed.


His task is made a bit challenging by the fact that there's a contract out on his life, and so he must constantly be on his guard when traveling around the city. It turns out that Aliera's arrest is part of a plot worthy of a Yendi, concocted by the Houses of Jhereg, Orca and others to pressure the Empress into legislation that would increase their houses' profits, and incidentally, to lure Vlad into the reach of the Jhereg's hit men.

But Vlad still has friends in both high and low places, and manages to avoid most of the trouble that's trying to find him. He solves the mystery, kills some baddies, and finishes this adventure with his skin mostly intact.

One of the nicer things that happens in the novel is a couple of visits with his estranged lover, Cawti, and their son. They seem to have achieved a truce, at last, and it's good to see Vlad getting a chance to bond with his son a bit. Are we in for a Son of Taltos series at some point? I wouldn't rule it out completely.

This is a must-read for Brust fans.