carol. 's Reviews > Lyorn

“The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.”

--Musical.

What?

--It's a musical.

Well, we all must have our little jokes to amuse ourselves, mustn't we? Vlad is back in fine form, as is Brust, and it looks to be like the series is wrapping up with only two more books expected. This book finds Vlad hiding out at a theater due to their psijic protections, direct fallout from his actions in Hawk. It is one of the ironies that Vlad can't help but notice.

"Oh, and to catch you up, because I care about you more than I cared abut Jenka, what was funny was that I knew very well why they needed money: me. I'd just pulled off an operation that had the potential to make a lot of money for a lot of criminals, so anyone who wanted in on the action was going to have to gather funds in a  hurry. In other words, yeah, the thing I'd done to get me out of trouble was now in danger of getting me in trouble.

I refuse to draw any conclusions about life, but you can if you want."

In fact, Brust take self-referential to a new art form with the subject of the play being the production of another play. Pushing the reader to ever more dizzying heights, he provides Vlad the historical book upon which the play is based, so that we too can appreciate the artistic commentary of the play's writer, by whom I must clearly mean Brust.

"The musicians I'd noticed earlier started playing, and I became frightened. A guy entered from the same place as we had, turned to show himself to all six sides, and said, 'I am their own dramaturge!' Then, as I was afraid would happen, he started singing."

Brust, as all fans should know by now, is a musician, whose specialties include filking, a kind of music parody where the words are related to sci-fi or fantasy. He leans heavily on his filk music background, and opens each chapter with a musical number from the play--I mean musical. (Oh yes, Brust is also in fine form with the call-back joke). I slowly realized that each song was done in a different style so there must be some underlying joke here, but it wasn't until I followed one reviewer's hints and checked Brust's site, dreamcafe,that I realized they were re-writes of (mostly) familiar musical tunes (the Buffy musical escaped me). The songs actually do a nice job of foreshadowing some of the events and conflict of each chapter.

Point of view is largely first person Vlad, but as always, we don't know his intricate plans until the grand opening (literally, in this case). There are a couple of third-person scenes from Sethra, Kragar and a couple others that could have been left out. Sethra's scenes continue to hint at larger, Cycle-wide intrigues.

The Jhereg play a significant role here, necessitating appearances by Kragar, Kiera the Thief, The Demon, and even Cawti. And Vlad's usual convoluted plans would go amiss without the inclusion of Daymar and his special skills, as well as the normal consult with Sethra.

Can you start here? I suppose, but would never recommend it. Brust is of the immersion school and does not believe in too much of the "as you know," although you'll note that Vlad occasionally has handy little asides as quoted above. Brust began this series in 1983, creating the Dragaeran calendar and the 17 creatures that stand for each time period in the cycle. Each book has been named after one of these creatures, with the the exception of Taltos. Lyorn is book 17 in the series, with two more planned, Chreotha and The Last Contract. I can hardly wait.

For those who want a creative fantasy setting and a long-running series whose author is not afraid to shake up the formula, the is one of the best.