Words are inadequate

Steven Brust, Vallista
Vlad Taltos #15

Wiseass ex-assassin offers to help out a very strange little girl and finds himself trapped in a very strange haunted house. Certain worldbuilding questions are answered in ways that make it look suspiciously like the author had them planned all along.

As has been the case since at least Athyra, and arguably since Teckla, Vlad books are mostly recognisably Vlad books but each one is doing something a little different. Which is neat; means that new ones feel familiar but not too same-y. It also means that occasionally they go pretty far afield into territory I'm less fond of. Athyra was one of those, at least up til my most recent reread. Vallista is another.

So: this is a ghost-story, and/or a haunted-house novel. (The chapter titles are all puns on famous ghost stories or haunted house stories, in addition to being relevant to the content of chapter in question.) As a Vlad novel this doesn't really work for me, possibly for the same reason that Dragon, as an in-the-army-now memoir, doesn't. That being: it's either the genre itself, or the way it's employed in the Vlad books, and I'm not sure which.

To the extent that there's a typical Vlad-novel structure: Vlad is presented with a problem; he flails around getting more information, often while trading snark with his friends; he eventually does something that brings a sort of resolution. I like this structure. It usually works for me. Vallista follows it, but not in a way that I enjoyed.

Partly this is, and I keep harping on this, the lack of secondary characters. I think more of it has to do with the nature of the flailing. The house Vlad and Devera are trapped in is weird, in lots of ways. Doors go to different places in the house, or outside it; members of the household are less than helpful in unexpected ways. I've run RPGs like this and enjoyed them; my players seem to have also enjoyed them; I think I'd enjoy playing in one. It's ... I was going to say "it's not a fun formula for a novel, for me," but no, Issola did something very similar, and I liked Issola quite a bit. So I guess it does go back to the lack of secondary characters. Loiosh helps but he's not quite enough on his own.

So: not a favourite but I'm glad I read it, and would happily reread. If you wanted more Devera: Vallista has more Devera than any book thus far, though not as much as you want. If you wanted more metaplot: Vallista has more metaplot than any book thus far except Jhereg or Issola, and even those are arguable. If you wanted to know what happens after Hawk ... hopefully that's coming soon.

The Great Big Dragaera Reread, part 5

VALLISTA HAS SHIPPED! *happydance* Guess I'll have to keep cracking on these. SUCH HARDSHIP.

It's interesting to move from "books I've reread so many times they're like old friends I've not seen in awhile" through "books I know pretty well and enjoy getting reacquainted with" and on into "books I like a lot but don't know as well as I could, or as I think I do."

( Klava, Dzur, Jhegaala, Iorich )

The Great Big Dragaera Reread, part 3

The Ace books have decidedly Aged Well, which is always a pleasant surprise. The treatement of Easterners feels remarkably relevant and contemporary (at least, so saith this white dude), and the sense of having wandered into someone's high-powered D&D game doesn't persist past Jhereg, or maybe Yendi. I'd definitely recommend them.

( Athyra, Orca, FHYA, Dragon )

The 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.

---

( The Book of Jhereg )

Steven Brust, P.J.F., The Viscount of Adrilankha
[consisting of The Paths of the Dead, The Lord of Castle Black, and Sethra Lavode]

I read PotD and LoCB when they first came out, and when people asked me how they were I said "I can't pass judgement on only part of a book." Now that SL is finally here I've read them all straight through.

Viscount rocks. On first reading, it's as good as Phoenix Guards was, the first time I read that lo these many years ago. It's huge and sprawling, it builds on the things that made Phoenix Guards and 500 Years After so cool [the voice, the characters, the action], it adds in new fun things like the Gods and Morrolan. Everyone's fate is resolved [at least, up through the Vladiad and beyond], and yes, I actually cried at a Certain Character's last scene. Wonderful, wonderful book.

As for the individual parts. . . I can't pass judgement on only part of a book.

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Raphael Carter, The Fortunate Fall

My third time reading, and I think I actually understood almost everything that's going on in it this time. An incredibly dense cyberpunk novel, by a recent addition to the Scribblies, set in a futureworld that's so unlike our own I was utterly lost the first time I read the book. Though that didn't stop me from seeing the incredible sadness that Carter brings out. Not for those wanting a pleasant read. [I did not cry at the end of Fortunate Fall, because the pain and misery built so slowly that by the time it might have been appropriate my emotions had already passed that peak and were huddled up numbly, waiting for the end. So beautiful. . .]

Anyone with an interest in cyberpunk should read this book. Anyone with an interest in gender studies should also read this book, though the gender stuff's a bit more subtle than the cyberpunk.

"Oh, Andreyeva, you do not understand His Majesty at all. He does a thousand things that do no good. His-Majesty-In-Chains does not care what is effective, only what is right."

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Tim Powers, Last Call

Nth reread. This was the first Powers I ever read, over Memorial Day weekend ten years ago to distract me from girl problems. Worked like a charm; I thought it was one of the best things I'd ever read. I hold it to a higher standard because of that, and so the flaws show through. The biggest one is the freakin' yooge cast of characters, too many of whom don't get developed at all (Neal Obstadt and Diana's boys are the worst of this lot). Even the major characters sometimes feel too flat; the four protagonists are fine, as is Georges, but nearly everyone else could've been better. (Especially Nardie and Ray-Joe.)

The plot's wonderfully intricate, and Powers writes well enough that the lack of characterization doesn't kill the story. It would have been nice, though. [Come to think of it, Anubis Gates was weak in that regard too. I think I need to reread my other Powers books (well, Stress of Her Regard and Declare, being the ones I own) and see if the characterization is weak in all of them.]