Book of Jhereg
Aug. 29th, 2017 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishThe Great Big Dragarea Reread, part 1
I'm rereading all of Steven Brust's Dragaera books, more or less in publication order: fourteen mainline novels, five Paarfi romances, one side story, and three short stories.
Sparked by the impending release of Vallista and the realisation that I've not read the Ace volumes in, oh, probably not since Issola came out, despite having read them to exhaustion in the decade previous.
My mass-markets are packed up so I'm reading the Ace books in the SFBC collected editions. As far as I know the main changes are some terminology around pre-Empire sorcery ("raw chaos" to "raw amorphia" etc), and the removal of the Cycle poem at the front of Jhereg. I liked the poem, and it made the chapter headings make sense, but I seem to be in the minority.
Jhereg
Wiseass assassin with a chip on his shoulder takes on a big job, gets in over his head, and unravels a twisty plot with some help from his friends. Roger Zelazny and Raymond Chandler, eat your hearts out.
This doesn't read like a first novel. An early novel, sure: there's some as-you-know backstorying, some places where the author isn't quite confident of his storytelling or his humour. Some places where the worldbuilding goes a bit over-the-top: the whole "reincarnation of the founding of the Empire" bit, for instance, which is mostly a throwaway (and treated as such in later books). The 'housebreaking' joke at the very end feels out of place.
But the plot's tight, the characterization's solid and consistent, and the dialogue frequently sparks. I can see why I fell in love with this when I picked it up on a whim in 1990, and I'd happily recommend it again. It's not so much "read these, they get better after the first couple!" (though they do) as it is "these are good but they get GREAT after the first couple."
Yendi
(Aha, the collected edition is also missing the territory maps from Yendi. Oh well.)
Wiseass assassin gets in over his head in a territory war that isn't really about the territory, and falls in love with his would-be killer.
It's a bit thin, mostly. I like a good twisty plot and Yendi's not quite strong enough for that. I think with more direct interaction with Sethra the Younger and the Sorceress in Green (particularly the latter), it might have been. Watching Vlad and Cawti get together is worth it, though.
Teckla
Wiseass assassin begins to question his life choices when his wife gets involved with a bunch of Marxists and the Marxists incur the wrath of certain organised criminal elements.
This is where they start getting great, I think. The moral complexity starts ramping up, the author gets more certain of his skill, the characters get substantially more depth to them. It's also just a really good portrait of a relationship that's coming apart because the people in it have changed.
I rather enjoyed the book's organizing theme, the laundry-list and the way each chapter relates to a specific bit of cleaning.
"A Dream of Passion" (online)
"Canonically non-cannon" [sic], saith the author. Older, less-wiseass ex-assassin investigates a disturbance at a place he used to work.
Atmospheric and short enough to be worth five minutes' read. Reminds me of Zelazny's first couple of stories, "Horseman!" and "Auto-da-fe," though with less poetic language. Praising with faint damns.
I'm rereading all of Steven Brust's Dragaera books, more or less in publication order: fourteen mainline novels, five Paarfi romances, one side story, and three short stories.
Sparked by the impending release of Vallista and the realisation that I've not read the Ace volumes in, oh, probably not since Issola came out, despite having read them to exhaustion in the decade previous.
My mass-markets are packed up so I'm reading the Ace books in the SFBC collected editions. As far as I know the main changes are some terminology around pre-Empire sorcery ("raw chaos" to "raw amorphia" etc), and the removal of the Cycle poem at the front of Jhereg. I liked the poem, and it made the chapter headings make sense, but I seem to be in the minority.
Jhereg
Wiseass assassin with a chip on his shoulder takes on a big job, gets in over his head, and unravels a twisty plot with some help from his friends. Roger Zelazny and Raymond Chandler, eat your hearts out.
This doesn't read like a first novel. An early novel, sure: there's some as-you-know backstorying, some places where the author isn't quite confident of his storytelling or his humour. Some places where the worldbuilding goes a bit over-the-top: the whole "reincarnation of the founding of the Empire" bit, for instance, which is mostly a throwaway (and treated as such in later books). The 'housebreaking' joke at the very end feels out of place.
But the plot's tight, the characterization's solid and consistent, and the dialogue frequently sparks. I can see why I fell in love with this when I picked it up on a whim in 1990, and I'd happily recommend it again. It's not so much "read these, they get better after the first couple!" (though they do) as it is "these are good but they get GREAT after the first couple."
Yendi
(Aha, the collected edition is also missing the territory maps from Yendi. Oh well.)
Wiseass assassin gets in over his head in a territory war that isn't really about the territory, and falls in love with his would-be killer.
It's a bit thin, mostly. I like a good twisty plot and Yendi's not quite strong enough for that. I think with more direct interaction with Sethra the Younger and the Sorceress in Green (particularly the latter), it might have been. Watching Vlad and Cawti get together is worth it, though.
Teckla
Wiseass assassin begins to question his life choices when his wife gets involved with a bunch of Marxists and the Marxists incur the wrath of certain organised criminal elements.
This is where they start getting great, I think. The moral complexity starts ramping up, the author gets more certain of his skill, the characters get substantially more depth to them. It's also just a really good portrait of a relationship that's coming apart because the people in it have changed.
I rather enjoyed the book's organizing theme, the laundry-list and the way each chapter relates to a specific bit of cleaning.
"A Dream of Passion" (online)
"Canonically non-cannon" [sic], saith the author. Older, less-wiseass ex-assassin investigates a disturbance at a place he used to work.
Atmospheric and short enough to be worth five minutes' read. Reminds me of Zelazny's first couple of stories, "Horseman!" and "Auto-da-fe," though with less poetic language. Praising with faint damns.