Steven Brust

Fun. Trilogy of novels featuring Vlad Talos, a human living in a world of 'dragonkin' nominally humanoid, but substantially longer lived. They're organised into families which have distinct traits, but most of the time appear more or less human, politics, greed and honour being their normal vices.

This is the published order of the tales, which is a little odd, because the 2nd is a prequel to the first, and some of the later stories are set even earlier. There is magic around but it seldom does much other than allow silent communication between people who know each other well, and teleportation - which is frequently blocked and so of little use. The politics between the various gangs and families are the driving motivations and Vlad mostly just tries to stay out of the way, except that his work brings him up against some people with very convoluted plots. The 3rd book is less straightforward as it involves a lot of Vlad moralising over whether this was the best career he could have chosen, and whether is wife (also an assassin, and a firm presence in the first, and introduced in the prequel), will approve of his actions.

I'll probably read some more of these if I find them because they're fast paced enough with a reasonable balance between tough choices, action and thinking about what happens.… (more)

I feel very mixed about this one. In some ways it was pretty funny, as usual, though not as funny as I remember the earlier books - and even later books like "Tiassa" - being. It's creative in a lot of ways, and the climax is ingenious. Unfortunately, one major issue I had with it was that it was boring.

One opening criticism I have is the cover. I believe he's been using the same cover artist for a while, and my criticism isn't precisely the artist's work, it's that it looks really stupid. Maybe there's something about lyorn being like loyal dogs ready to stab with something sharp at a moment's notice. It's more sensible than some of the other fantasy animals we've had, in a way. It just looks very dumb, and I've thought it was dumb since the cover was first previewed. This series isn't exactly known for good covers, though, and this is no exception.

Every book in this series - at least that I can recall - has a particular conceit for the opening of each chapter, unique to each book. For one book, it was Vlad talking about food. Last book, it was the lead up to Vlad and Cawti's marriage. This book has the creative idea of Brust taking popular real-world songs (not all from musicals, but mostly from musicals) and writing new lyrics that fit the performance in the story. If I were more familiar with all of them, I might find that more endearing. As it was, I even struggled with ones I recognized. If you'd like a full list of the songs, Brust posted them here.

"Modern Major-General" ("Pirates of Penzance") was funny. I didn't spot "My Favorite Things" ("The Sound of Music") and I think the phrasing doesn't precisely work, but it's cute, anyway. I truly did not spot "Sunrise, Sunset" ("Fiddler on the Roof"), and it's just sort of weird. I totally did not spot "Going Through the Motions" ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling"). That one's honestly clever, though not surprising, given Brust has written fanfic for one of Whedon's other shows, "Firefly". I DID spot "Shall We Dance" ("The King and I") (but that was kind of obvious so it's not that remarkable). "Hot Patootie-Bless My Soul" ("The Rocky Horror Picture Show") is pretty creative. I must have been so out of it because I did not at all spot "What comes next?" ("Hamilton"), despite its obviousness. I appreciate the inclusion, but it feels a bit safe. "If I only had a Brain" ("The Wizard of Oz") is a bit more creative.

Really, really should not have used a song from "The Mikado". I'm just saying. Really should not have done that. Or linked to the performance he did in his link.

The use of "Never Gonna Give You Up" (Rick Astley) is funny.

A lot of this book felt like Brust didn't want to be writing it. I know there are two more planned books in the series, and I believe he's already made progress on the next one, and I wish him the best. But so much of the book was jumping to random things even more than usual. There were at least five narrators this book, including asides for when Vlad was reading and the song sections. Vlad specifically stops communicating to other characters for chunks of the story and spends a lot of it pacing impatiently. I'm also not sure if Brust has some bone to pick with lawyers, and it wouldn't surprise me if he did just because a lot of people do, but the lawyer section in this was kind of ridiculous. A part of me wonders if this is hearkening back to his divorce, which made the whole Cawti/Vlad break-up such a noxious read. If some divorce attorney made him really pissed off, I wouldn't be surprised. It's not as unpleasant as the Cawti/Vlad break-up was, but it's not exactly pleasant, either.

I appreciated the inclusion of some development for Kragar's backstory. I find his relationship with Vlad to be one of my favorite parts of the series, and I really enjoy Kragar as a character and learning about him, and the relationship he has with his son is fascinating.

Overall, though, it felt like Brust was checked out of the story for his characters, hence why he kept skipping between them, two different story asides, and the main plot. I dropped this multiple times while reading, and struggled to come back to it. There are good moments, and fun Vlad + random people moments. People care about Vlad and Vlad is struggling to understand that. The bigger plot is poking in. He has a very interesting conversation with Vera. There's a lot of promise for the last two books. But it's a struggle. The sad thing is, I went back to early books in the series, hoping to see them with fresher eyes, since I haven't reread some of them since 2008 or so. Although I still adore parts of "Orca" and "Issola", these books really are messy. That hasn't really changed. It's just getting less tolerable these days.… (more)

It’s more difficult than usual to evaluate this book, because I was so manifestly not in the right frame of mind for it. Even though [b:War's Unwomanly Face|4025275|War's Unwomanly Face|Svetlana Alexievich|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1338204032s/4025275.jpg|15615499] was deeply upsetting, it was the right thing to read when the main emotion I'm feeling is grief. ‘Freedom and Necessity’ isn’t really compatible with grief, at least not as I experience it. It’s an epistolary mystery set in 1849 amid Chartist agitation. The four main characters, two women and two men, get up to exciting and dangerous adventures as they unravel a conspiracy. Although I could appreciate the plot and characterisation on an intellectual level, and they’re very good, on an emotional level the novel couldn’t touch me. All the romance left me entirely cold. I reiterate, this was due to my mood rather than any deficiency in the book as such. It was a case of wrong place, wrong time. If I hadn’t been away from home, I would have put it aside for something else. It’s rather a waste, really. I think the intensity of the epistolary format requires particularly close engagement with characters, which I wasn’t able to manage here. Nonetheless, I found the plot tense and involving. The cameos from Marx and Engels were very pleasing, although the debates on Hegel sometimes became a bit much. Don’t expect [b:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|14201|Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell|Susanna Clarke|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1357027589s/14201.jpg|3921305] levels of magic, as there are merely hints of supernatural. Instead, this is a novel of interpersonal affairs and political machinations.… (more)