I picked up my first Steven Brust book in 1996. I was 13, strolling through Shopko, and saw a copy of Orca on the shelves. I bought it, because it had what looked like a dragon on the cover and I was 13 and freshly into my dragon girl era.
It took me several rereads before I figured out what the hell was going on. And, due to some pretty huge spoilers, it is in retrospect one of the WORST Dragaeran novels to begin with. But there was something special about it that made me pick up the other Vlad Taltos novels, and reread the series year after year after year.
Since the pandemic began, I've been getting my latest reads from the library. I'm reading lots of great stuff, but it doesn't give me much time to return to Dragaera. I haven't reread the series since sometime before 2017 (because I've only read Vallista and the later books once).
So now, with only two books to go before the Vlad Taltos saga is complete, I'm going to make the time. And I'm going to take some notes as I go, and I'm going to document them here.
I'll go in as close to chronological order as possible. There will be loads of spoilers (seriously - on page 17 (heh) of Brokedown Palace, I spotted something that I'm going to need to keep an eye out for down the line). I'm thinking I'll do one post per book. I may post short passages that I especially love.
It took me a long time to get around to reading Teckla for the first time. It was just hard to get my hands on it, and this was well before the days of ebooks making that kind of thing easy.
And then it turned out to be a hard fuckin read, too.
It's bleak. A lot of stuff starts crumbling beneath his feet, and he's flat-out told at the start of the book "nothing you do is going to change the outcome". Which isn't quiiiiiiiite true but it's still ROUGH.
Time for spoilers. There'll be a reference to some stuff we find out in Orca, so spoilers for that book and everything after.
"[Loiosh] didn't say anything, but presently memories began to present themselves for my consideration. Cawti, as I'd seen her at Dzur Mountain after she had killed me (there's a story there, but never mind); Cawti holding me after someone else tried to kill me; Cawti holding a knife at Morollan's throat and explaining how it was going to be, while I sat paralyzed and helpless ... "
This was a delightful line to catch, since we do end up seeing it in Tsalmoth.
He felt something cold against his throat, and looked up to see Cawti staring down at him.
"You will get him back," she said.
The context of the moment in Teckla is that Loiosh appears to be helping dredge these memories up. Verra really took a light touch with whatever she did to Vlad at the end of Tsalmoth.
So Paresh does appear to be the Teckla who encountered Aerich in Sethra Lavode. Paresh is likely to be just as reliable a narrator about the event as Paarfi was, so the truth of the matter is probably somewhere in the middle.
Cawti keeps trying to convince Vlad that he knows, deep down, that killing people is wrong, and that he wouldn't have gotten into assassinations if he hadn't been forced into it (like she was). That his motivation behind it - killing Dragaerans - is a lie because he was one in an alternate life. And while it's true that it did shake him to find that out, and he did question his motivations over it, it still feels... empty I guess. She's kind of latched onto the past life while ignoring the current one.
At the very least, it's very easy to see why he doesn't care whether a particular Dragaeran lives or dies, and when you bring in the incentive of cold hard cash in hand, well. He was already beating up Orca punks before Nielar ever offered him a job to do it. For Cawti, though, this is Vlad being forced into working for the Jhereg, and that's one of the angles that just doesn't work for me. Had there been other jobs for Vlad to take after his father died, instead of being an enforcer, would he have even considered that?
Cawti sees a big picture, but it doesn't feel like she gets just how big The picture is. But how could she? Vlad is one of the only people in the whole world to see the actual Cycle. He doesn't understand what it means, or how it affects his world or life, but it does in a way that Cawti and her revolutionaries honestly can't touch.
IDK. It's hard to really be on Cawti's side for this, even if she's not wrong about things. But also it's easy to be on Vlad's side for this, because we know a lot more about his background and motivations.
Aaaaaanyway....
The scene with Franz's ghost is definitely an interesting one having read this series out of order the first time around. There's more stuff about the soul and reincarnation and all that, and then there's the line: "I guess there aren't any pregnant Easterners around here who quite fit the bill."
The way things have already started rolling downhill with Vlad & Cawti's relationship, she has to be pregnant with Vlad Norathar already. So has baby Vlad already got his soul, or is Franz's soul not a good fit? Probably not something that will ever be relevant, but it's interesting to think about.
So I've been pretty hazy on Vlad's age (because I haven't been paying super close attention really), but Loiosh says at the end that he's been working with Vlad for five years. Vlad was 16 when he got Loiosh, which means at the time of Jhereg he's 22 at best, which made me realize one thing.
He should be at the club.
Fuck AI, look at the wonderful things you can make with only weed and GIMP.
Spoilery remarks under the cut.
Jhereg being the first book published means there's lots of things going on here that may have started out as throwaway lines but ended up having more meaning as things developed. In the first few chapters, Vlad talks a lot about the various assassinations he's done (42, by the end of the book). Maybe we'll eventually find something out about one of the two "fully justified" Morganti jobs he's done. Maybe not.
Gotta love Vlad's first meeting with the Demon, after knowing everything we now know about them both. I wonder whether the Demon got some demon vibes off of Vlad when they met. Wouldn't that be interesting, if he suspected...
Morrolan confirms in this book he's been studying pre-Empire sorcery for about a hundred years at this point. Presumably the blood he was dosed with back in the Paths of the Dead is what Verra was referring to back in The Lord of Castle Black. Someone pointed out he wasn't of the right bloodline to get the most potential out of pre-Empire sorcery, and Verra was like 'yeah, we'll see'. So unless something else weird happens with his blood...
There was a little moment after Vlad fills in Morrolan, Aliera, and Sethra about his situation - Morrolan has left, and Vlad leaves Aliera and Sethra to come up with ideas about how to solve the problem of Mellar. It felt like a brief parallel to the scene where Khaavren leaves Aliera and Sethra to investigate the murder Gyorg Lavode in Five Hundred Years After. Those two are a good team (even if they didn't come up with anything helpful this time).
The really big thing for this book is the revelation about Vlad's soul. I didn't mention it in my Dragon post, but there was a part where Vlad dreamt that he was arguing in front of the gods that he deserved to be admitted to the Paths of the Dead as a Dragon. It is an interesting moment, knowing the reality of his soul's history. Dolivar was a Jhereg when he betrayed Kieron, but maybe that soul has Feelings about that that bled through into Vlad's dreams. Weirder stuff has happened to this boy.
It does really make one question the whole rule about Easterners's souls not going to the Paths of the Dead. At what point did Dolivar's soul stop being a Dragaeran and start being an Easterner? Did Dolivar's soul really hang out for a few hundred thousand years until Vlad was born, or did he get reincarnated a couple times? How many more rules of the Paths of the Dead (or Dragaera in general) are more loosey-goosey than the gods would have our protagonists think.
Not going to lie, a lot of the books published after Issola are very hazy for me about where they land in the chronology, so thank goodness that Tsalmoth was a recent publication, or I'd have forgotten about it and left it off far too soon.
The next book in line for me is Jhereg, and I'm fairly sure that the sequence from there goes Teckla, Phoenix, Jhegaala, Athyra, Orca, Issola, Dzur. Tiassa is partly early days, but I believe the bulk of it is post-Issola, so I'm putting it off. I need to figure out where Iorich, Hawk, and Vallista land exactly.
My husband and I started watching The Sopranos right around when I started Tsalmoth, and that led to a whole lot of mental crossed wires, which resulted in this:
As always, spoilery stuff below.
So right off the bat, this is a book written post-Issola, but takes place before it. So every fuckin chance he gets, Vlad gives us more substance on any interaction with Lady Teldra.
We walked up to the great double doors of Castle Black, which swung open as we approached. They do that. If I knew how to make my doors do that, well, I guess I probably wouldn't. But it's a nice effect, you know? And even nicer with Lady Teldra framed in the doorway, in her green and white and smile and all like that.
AUGH
Lady Teldra, of course, was perfect, on Noish-pa's arm, waving to everyone we passed and appearing to have the time of her life.
AUGH AUGH MY FUCKIN HEARRRRRRTTTTTT
Also there's a bit in Dragon that I almost included in my previous post about Aliera waving at Vlad & Morrolan and how weird a mental picture that was (especially given that this is the Aliera literally days from having returned from the Paths of the Dead), but Lady Teldra waving to everyone is 10000% believable.
K I'm going to have a little cry and come back to this.
There's a few references to queer relationships in this one. The first clear reference to queer characters that I remember came in Tiassa, although I also have a vague memory of Sethra referring to an early early character in Dragaeran history changing their gender (or having an ambiguous one), so there's also that. Assuming I'm remembering correctly.
Waaay back in Five Hundred Years After, there's a bit that talks about how Morrolan's parents got together, so the opening to chapter 2 with Vlad speculating that Dragons court while on the battlefield makes me happy.
There have already been a few references here and there about reincarnation, and the sometimes weird way souls behave. I know there's a moment in Jhereg where Vlad learns that he is a reincarnated Dragaeran later in the series, so moments when Vlad says something like "I don't know, I've never been married as a Dragaeran. Unless, you know, that reincarnation thing is real, and even then I don't remember, so ask someone else" are super fun.
Our boy can't even be 25 yet and already his memory is like Swiss cheese...
And now, a series of lines that I found Interesting as I read this:
"... and Morrolan wondered what it would be like to care about someone that much..."
Interesting...
"[Aliera] approached him, touched his head, and Morrolan felt the tunneling flare of energy from the orb coming to and from her."
This might be nothing, but I don't know that it's ever really been described quite like that, how a wizard can actually feel the flow of energy from the Orb to another wizard when that other wizard is casting a spell. Interesting.
"The Necromancer repeated the word, that is, my name, and I felt a sudden jolt, and then it was like I was cold for a second, then it went away."
Morrolan was present at this moment. Morrolan knows Vlad's demon name. INTERESTING.
The way the end goes, it could easily be read that Verra did something to the memories of many people regarding Vlad's demonism, but even if Vlad is her specialist little guy, it's hard for me to imagine her wiping the memory of her specialist big boi Morrolan for him, or her actual daughter. Cawti has the strongest likelihood for getting mind-wiped, but it's all likely that everyone else remembers but just never brings it up because Vlad doesn't.
Well, I read more books out of order. I forgot that Dragon takes place literally days after Taltos, right up until they started talking about Baritt. Oh well!
Spoilers under the cut, Yendi first, then Dragon.
I really like Yendi, but I didn't have a lot of thoughts about it. It's a fun read!
I didn't mention it in Taltos, but the book really hits on how young Vlad is during these early stages. He's 13 when his father dies and he starts living on his own, 17 when he "works" for the first time, and he becomes a boss of his own area shortly after. By the time we get to Yendi, Vlad is still only in his early 20s at best. This didn't seem like anything when I was reading this in my early 20s but now to me, he's an absolute baby and I am so stressed for this boyyyy.
Picture an old man - an Easterner, almost seventy years old, which is a very impressive age for our race. But he's in good condition for his age. He is poor, but not destitute. He has raised a family in the midst of the Dragaeran Empire, and done it well. He has buried (an Eastern term for "outlived"; I'm not sure why) a wife, a sister, a daughter, and two sons. The only surviving descendant is one grandson who nearly gets himself killed every few weeks or so.
Ahhhh this bit got me. Not only do we know nothing about Vlad's mother, we also don't know anything about his uncles (EDIT: for some reason, I thought Noish-pa was Vlad's maternal grandmother - so he had an unknown aunt and uncle, not two uncles), or grandmother. :(
I have a few more thoughts about Dragon.
Dragon starts right off talking about memory. "... I know my memory sometimes plays tricks on me." There are a few points where Vlad mentions remembering some additional things from his time in the Paths of the Dead, but never exactly what. I can't remember if/when we find out what those extra things are.
Vlad's meeting with the Serioli has a lot of good stuff packed in there. It's mostly Spellbreaker-based, but all the stuff about the Great Weapons there is good.
I like all the battle tactic stuff, it's all explained in a way that makes sense as much as it needs to, for a dummy like me. It's the right amount of both context and flavor. I believe Brust has been a long-time Civil War buff, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the troop movements and battle stuff was informed by that.
And then, of course, once the battle stuff really gets going, Vlad's memory gets another hole punched into it by whatever happened during his dreamwalk while recovering from the spell that hit him so bad.
Memory holes really do seem to be a decent way to account for plot holes and other contradictions in a 40-year series, though.
One of my favorite things about Taltos is its structure. It's a weave through past, present/different past, different present/future (I was gonna leave it at past/present/future but let's face it, it all depends on where you're standing). At this point for me there is always the delight of spending time with my Dragaeran friends - that's a given - but every reread I remember the way this book is built, and it's a fresh delight all over again.
So now that there's only two books left before the series is complete, there were a lot of lines in this book that flagged for me that didn't on previous rereads. There's things I read that feel a lot more different than they did when I first read this in like 1997, because so much more of Vlad's path has been revealed, but also because I have so much more experience as a reader. You read enough books with good foreshadowing in them, you start being able to see it in something you've never touched before. I love this.
The hard part is remembering that this was written in 88, so you're also looking at a lot of stuff that could be a happy accident, or just get fully retconned (lookin at you, Mister "I Was There When Zerika Leapt Over Deathgate Falls" e'Drien"), so it's hard to point at anything and say "This! This means something!"
Also I have a shitty memory about stuff sometimes, so I can't remember stuff like, say, the Rules About Demons, for example. So I'm probably still missing stuff or flagging something that's actually irrelevant.
"There are other ways to worship her and to attract her attention. In our family, we do not commit blood sacrifice. Do you understand this?"
"Yes, Noish-pa."
"You will never sacrifice a soul to her, or any other god."
"All right, Noish-pa. I promise."
"You swear on this, on your powers as a witch and on your blood as my grandson?"
"Yes, Noish-pa. I swear."
"Good, Vladimir."
"But why?"
He shook his head. "Someday you will understand."
That was one of the few things about which my grandfather was wrong; I never have understood.
This is one of those things. This feels like it could be important as hell. Have we run into this situation yet? Vlad has gone into desperate rage-mode a couple of times, but I also can't think of anything happening where it would even occur to him to offer a soul to Verra or another god. He just doesn't think about the gods that way.
Certainly not after meeting them like this.
"That's her, boss? Sethra Lavode?"
"Yeah. What do you think?"
"Boss, she's a vampire."
"I'd wondered about that. But is she a good vampire or a--"
"Have we ever run into her before?"
"Ummm, Loiosh, I think we'd remember if we had."
Can't remember if Loiosh ever got any quips in about this after the events of Orca. I hope he does. Because also holy shit there are actually a decent number of hints. This is why it is so hilarious to me that Orca was my first Taltos novel.
There's an exchange between Kieron and Aliera that seems to be referring to something revealed in... Phoenix? I want to say? regarding Vlad's soul. I barely remember the details - it was something like he's got the soul of Kieron's brother, who betrayed him.
And finally:
I really didn't know if I was creating justifications that would eventually break down or not. But a couple of days of wondering was all I could take. I managed to put it out of my mind and, to be frank, it hasn't bothered me since.
I don't know, maybe someday it will, and if so I'll deal with it then.
"Deal with it" being, of course, testifying to the Empire. Just like the guy that he'd just finished killing.
Aaaaaah fuck I love this one. I remember getting so excited about it when Brust announced the project way back in the day, because I always fuckin loved The Count Of Monte Cristo.
Baron!Paarfi really seems like he's having more fun than Khaavren!Paarfi. His overall style is still there, but he feels a lot less stuffy/proper.
It took me a while to pick up on the beefs that Baron!Paarfi has collected. He always had moments in previous books where he referred vaguely to other historians with whom he disagreed or disliked for various reasons, but now he is practically writing callout posts every few chapters. I love it.
"We must remark here, in passing, that while the prejudice against the House of the Jhereg - that is, the assumption that they are a House of criminals - is false, as most Jhereg are merely landlords, was as false then as it is to-day."
I know more than a few tenants who would disagree with Paarfi on the subject of landlords and criminality. Let's face it: he's a nobleman and therefore not safe from the revolution.
Sethra Lavode may have taken Tazendra from me, but The Baron Of Magister Valley gave me Livosha, so I can't be too mad.
I had initially forgotten how far into the Interregnum Baron went, which is why I read it last out of all the Paarfi books. The chronology of it is that it begins even before The Phoenix Guards (it begins before Tortaalik becomes emperor), and ends less than fifty years after Adron's Disaster. I'm happy with where I've come to it in the reread, although maybe next time I'll read it after Five Hundred Years After.
And, speaking of which - in my post on that book, I talked about how I loved the way Paarfi kept referencing the date and time, as events crept closer to doom. And here, the passage of time is vague - deliberately so, because Eremit had certainly been only vaguely aware of its passage for so much of it. But also because when the date and time is important, it hits you like a fucking sledgehammer.
"At that morning, on the western edge of the Empire, it was still early in the morning. But in the capital city, more than two thousands of miles to the southeast, it was just past the eleventh hour after midnight on the 17th day of the month of the Vallista in the 532nd year of the reign of his Imperial Majesty, Tortaalik the Third."
Never thought I'd be so hyped for a fuckin cataclysm.
AND THEN
The first time I read this, it had been a while since I read through all of Vlad's books. So I can probably be forgiven for forgetting who it was that got the Jhereg to start selling titles in the House. Daifan was a name that pinged for me at the time, but I had a hard time placing it. Until the end.
MOTHER
FUCKING
DEMON
This is the one of the things that's getting me excited about my Vlad reread. I'll get to reread all the Demon interactions in a totally different light, because now there's so much new info about both of them (deliberately being vague to avoid too many Vlad spoilers)
There's a chapter where Daifan (the first chapter where we see Dust use the name, in fact) is meeting with one of the individuals who destroyed his life, to set up a business deal.
"You have a head for business like an Orca," said Berwick.
"I cannot express the pleasure this compliment gives me."
Translation: you're only alive right now because mere physical violence is too kind for the likes of you
All in all, this is one of my current favorites. I'll be starting Taltos tonight, and I'm pretty sure I'll be rocketing through the series. It's easy breezy until I get to Jhegaala.
Sethra Lavode is always a tough one for me. I have yet to read it without sobbing through the end.
In the Afterword, however, one of the "When I first met Paarfi of Roundwood" bits really hit this time around.
".. he was at work on a retelling of the Eastern legend of the Fenarian gulyas - nosferati, whose immunity to the hostile effects of garlic lends them a distinctly tragic grandeur. This work would have occupied several volumes of text and at least two more detailing the recipes sampled by the characters during their long quest. ... I suggested that perhaps the searching out of these dishes was more Paarfi's motivation than the ancient tale of the hungry undead. Paarfi replied that such thoughts had occurred to him as well, as might be indicated by his proposed title for the work Blood and Paprika."
In a post- Dracula Daily and Re: Dracula age, Blood and Paprika would probably whip ass.
"Duty, that is Aerich. Love, that is Khaavren. I am friendship, and Pel is loyalty. There, you see? That is why we get along so well."
We continue to stan Tazendra, for as little as she was in this book. This would have been a significantly shorter book if she hadn't been put in magical stasis for a year.
Something I intend to come back to, when I get to Teckla: when Aerich goes to Daavya to look for Tazendra, only to find the castle abandoned save for a Teckla. There is a character that Vlad meets in Teckla (or maybe Phoenix?) who described a similar scenario - he had moved into an abandoned castle, was pestered by some nobleman, and he'd harried them with spells he knew. Something like that. A similar situation, but two different perspectives. And who even can say if either is a reliable narrator, if they are describing the same scene? Anyway, when I get to that bit, I hope to come back to Sethra Lavode to see how well the accounts align.
All of the Piro scenes after this point are really rough for me. I love the Battle of Adrilankha chapters, it's fantastic that Morrolan gets some big damn hero chapters, but Piro's chapters are the ones that destroy me. Like, Five Hundred Years After is absolutely a tragedy, but it's mitigated by the fact that most of our favorite characters survived. Sethra Lavode is not a tragedy, which makes the deaths of some of our favorite characters hurt so much more.
"They killed Srahi."
Fuck.
All in all, it's a good wrap-up of Khaavren's saga. We'll see him again, at least once more if I remember correctly, and Piro and Ibronka as well.
Every time I read The Lord Of Castle Black, and Paarfi says that he went to such pains to represent each of the Houses in Zerika's journey through the Paths of the Dead, I say to myself "Aw shit I forgot he did that, I should go back and reread that" and I never do.
I didn't do it this time, either.
There's sooooooo much more action here - this book absolutely zips by and I was halfway through it before I realized it. I started imagining a lot of the fights all anime-style. It would look sick as hell.
Spoilers below
There's a bit where Paarfi remarks that Zerika had been growing more and more Imperial, and listed several possible factors. It occurred to me this time around that he has been depicting this whole time just how seriously she took the business of restoring the Empire. She has been locked in from day one. But restoration of the Empire was the goal from day one. K芒na just started out acquiring territory because warlord, which then turned into imperial ambitions. The message Zerika got was: you're the last Phoenix, if you don't do this, it's gonna be the Interregnum (or worse, it's not inconceivable that Sethra told her about the threat of the Jenoine) for the rest of time.
I love love love how much Tazendra comes into her own as a wizard over the course of this book. Previously, she'd just been the source of flashstones and some assorted magical effects, but now. One of the first wizards to accomplish a teleport. ACTUALLY BEING the first to levitate an e'Drien castle since Adron's Disaster! Queen queen queen queen queen.
And speaking of that levitating castle... I forget how much the Taltos series talks about Morrolan's circle of witches - I feel like it's barely mentioned at all. But there's a bit where Paarfi mentions that the circle has a whole community "upon which many volumes could be written". So now I have to wonder - who out there has an OC who's one of Morrolan's witches? What do they get up to in their isolated wing of Castle Black, in between their levitation and witch-calling shifts?
And speaking of Morrolan... it's fuckin killing me that I can't remember if he started getting into pre-Empire sorcery in any of Vlad's books. He had to have been, though, at some point. There's a bit in the last chapter, where the gods are speculating about who among them K芒na allied himself with. Verra makes a comment that the reason she made a pact with Morrolan is because "I knew that he would go from the Eastern arts to those of the Empire, and that he will, someday, pass beyond those to the oldest of the magical arts, which are my province."
Was it a plot point in Issola that Morrolan has started using pre-Empire sorcery? It's been too long, I just can't remember. Feel free to @ me, it's gonna bug me for a while.
Anyway, this is probably the most fun volume of The Viscount Of Adrilankha to read. Sethra Lavode always makes me cry too much.
Excerpt from Some Notes Toward Two Analyses of Auctorial Method and Voice
How to Write Like Steven Brust
Steve has two theories about literature, and one set of instructions on how to write it.
First theory: "The Cool Stuff Theory of Literature is as follows: All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool. And that works all the way from the external trappings to the level of metaphor, subtext, and the way one uses words. In other words, I happen to not think that full-plate armor and great big honking greatswords are cool. I don't like 'em. I like cloaks and rapiers. So I write stories with a lot of cloaks and rapiers in 'em, 'cause that's cool."
Second theory: "The novel should be understood as a structure built to accommodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff."
How to write like Steven Brust: "It's really simple. What you do is put up a sign on whatever wall you face when you're writing. The sign says: And now I'm going to tell you something really cool."
Spoilery stuff below - it's probably loads of spoilery stuff from here on out, folks.
I had to laugh at Paarfi's bit at the beginning, basically saying that he dgaf about the role of the Dragon-Jhereg war on the events leading to Adron's Disaster, basically because it doesn't involve Khaavren. lols
I keep forgetting that The Paths Of the Dead opens with baby Morrolan. And I love the way Paarfi writes baby Morrolan. And, of course, Teldra gets introduced and I lose all my shit. Also also we get another coachman named Miska. Because of course we do.
The adventurous tone is back, and all the hardships that came with the Interregnum are mentioned but not especially dwelled upon. This is a time for the restoration of the Empire! Sure there's plague and bandits and warlords, but none of that can stand against our heroes! That said, The Paths Of the Dead isn't quite as actiony as you might expect, but then again it really is the first third of a single work. It works as a book, but it works better if you kind of think of it as part of something larger.
I love the seed that's planted with R枚anna's dream while she's in the coach. She chooses the path of adventure in the pursuit of fortune and glory. Ibronka, she feels, can have the love and contentment. It feels like a throwaway, until you remember that Ibronka's a Dzur, and Paarfi never gets around to introducing any handsome young Dzurlords for her to fall in love with...
It took me forever to get this written, for how little is here. I'm actually nearly finished with The Lord of Castle Black.
I swear I love this book more every time I read it. The Phoenix Guards is a fantastic setup for Five Hundred Years After, because it primes you so well for the things that are to come. And then the book itself just piles the tension on, chapter after chapter, then page after page.
Even if you'd only read The Phoenix Guards, you'd have gotten enough hints about Adron and his Disaster to pick up on it at the early stages of the book. And if you hadn't even read that, well. Damn, what a ride.
This latest reread has me appreciating the way Paarfi constantly makes note of the date and time. His audience knows exactly what happened on the seventeenth day of the month of the Vallista of the 532nd year of the Reign of Tortaalik the First. So of course the first line of the book states that it is the ninth day of the month of the Vallista of the 532nd year of the Reign of Tortaalik the First. 8 days until disaster, folks. Here's how it happened...
Spoilery stuff below
It is so good to see Sethra, and she appears wonderfully early, too. Her interactions with Aliera are The Best. Her interactions with Tazendra are PERFECT and make me love them both sooooo much more. I love that Sethra sees Tazendra so clearly. "There has never been a stupid sorcerer who has lived path his five hundredth year." And then Sethra's monologue about being a Dzurlord at the end of the chapter... Incredible.
Morrolan's father and brother, Rollondar and Molric e'Drien, appear in this book, and Morrolan himself is referred to obliquely at one point. I haven't checked the timeline, but Five Hundred Years After was published in the 11th year of Norathar II's reign, so it's conceivable that, if Zerika II stepped down at the right time (or if some other weird shit happens - that's always on the table), Vlad could still be alive to read this. He's read at least one Paarfi book. I could imagine him being ready to give Morrolan shit about how his parents got together, then maybe rethinking it when learning how his father and brother died.
When I get to Vlad's books, I need to always remember Aliera's relationship with Mario whenever she gets bitchy about Jhereg.
AND SPEAKING OF RELATIONSHIPS I love Khaavren and Daro. I love the chapter where they get together. I love that there's a point earlier where you get to see Khaavren from Daro's point of view - how she'd been at the court for some time, seeing him constantly carrying out his duty, reliable and respectable. So while, yeah, they have an hour-long courtship, it wasn't like she had no clue who he was or what he was like.
This particular read through, I got really hooked on the inevitability of it all. The suggestions here and there that things could have gone differently, had the smallest choice been made differently. The points where person after person realized the tragedy that could, would, soon enfold. How they all faced the encroaching doom.
I absolutely adore Paarfi and the Khaavren romances. I can't remember when exactly I first read The Phoenix Guards, but I had definitely already had a minor obsession with The Count of Monte Cristo and other swashbuckling adventures. If I ever write fanfic, I might manage a passable Dragaera-style version of Scaramouche. That would be fun.
Anyway, whenever I first read TPG, I was already deep into my sword girl era, so this was entirely up my alley. And I eventually made it a point to read The Three Musketeers and the sequels, especially when The Viscount of Adrilankha was released. I gotta say, I think as a pentalogy, the Khaavren romances are better than the D'Artagnan romances. Louise de la Valli猫re is a fuckin slog, and The Man In the Iron Mask wasn't much better.
This shouldn't really be a post about the other 4 books in the set, but the truth is I didn't take a lot of notes as I read The Phoenix Guards, and I don't have a lot of thoughts about it. It's a wonderful standalone book, but it's also a beautiful first step on the journey that is the friendship between Khaavren, Aerich, Pel, and Tazendra (my beloved).
Spoilery stuff below
I don't know if I ever quite caught before how similar the events regarding Crionofenarr are to the legend of Fenarr as presented in Brokedown Palace. It is interesting to think of the two stories being of the same event - it's a two-sided Rashomon, but with the added layers of time and secondhand-reporting adding to the obfuscation of the truth (my headcannon is that Paarfi only likes to think he's a reliable narrator).
Love the choice to have Devera show up to inform her grandfather that her mom's just been born. Devera's gonna Devera. It does make me wonder, for the first time, how things would have gone had Adron not been called back to Redface. Well, it probably wouldn't have been quite as interesting for Khaavren, anyway. We wouldn't have gotten that great scene with him being questioned under the Orb.
I've already gotten started on 500 Years After. I love the tragedy of it all.
Brust is such a pro at nailing a distinct voice for his books. I love how this doesn't read like any of his other books (except maybe bits of The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars because there's a bit of fairytale storytelling to that one too).
The amount of stunningly beautiful paragraphs in this book is ridiculous.
Spoilers below.
Devera shows up on page 17 (of course), and mentions that "her friend" told her to visit the East. I can't remember any specific point where Vlad tells her that, buuuuuut maybe it has to do with Jhegaala? Mikl贸s asks her at the end when she reappears if she has seen what she meant to see in Fenario, and she said she had, but with Devera (and the years that passed between their two meetings) that could mean anything.
Once you've read any of the other Dragaera novels, it's hard to not constantly think about how this book relates to the others. The Empire - always referred to as Faerie - is never actually seen here, even though three of the major characters have been there, learned sorcery, and returned to Fenario.
The setting here always gave the impression that it takes place before even the Khaavren romances, but I always forget about certain bits that, during this reread, made me rethink that. I'd need more clues, but some things Devera says at the end feel like they're meant to hint at a closer connection to Vlad.
There is a point where Miklos is reflecting on his time in the Empire, and notes that the Baron he served could teleport ("An effort of will, and he could be miles away"). If I remember correctly, teleportation was not possible until after Zerika returned with the Orb. Or maybe it was simply difficult.
I also don't remember many (or any?) people using telepathy in the Khaavren novels until after Zerika returns as well, and Devera asks Mikl贸s if B枚lk can speak mentally.
I find myself wondering so often how magical things in Brokedown Palace correspond to sorcery or witchcraft as it's presented in other books. It's easy to read a great deal into this, while forgetting that this story is, essentially, a fairy tale. Vlad might be something of an unreliable narrator of his own stories, and Paarfi takes "artistic licenses," but BP is a fairy tale, and it's got fairy tales in the interludes to remind you of it. But it's still fun to think about.
I poked around a bit to see if anyone else had more insight on this book - I quite liked bits of this review by Jo Walton.
"Looked at one way Mikl贸s goes into Faerie and labours for two years and comes back as a wizard. Looked at another he goes into the Empire, becomes a Teckla, gets a perfectly ordinary connection to the Orb and learns a little sorcery."
This is a fantastic observation. Sandor is the only one with enough skill in sorcery to challenge Mikl贸s, but we barely see him do anything with it. And while there are witches in Fenario, they are isolated and hiding. The greatest magic in Fenario is whatever is going on with the River and the Tree.
B枚lk, of course, is another one of those strong magical forces at play. Maybe the closest thing we've encountered to it in the other books are demons, but that doesn't feel right (admitting here I don't remember a lot of the rules about demons). He is able to be used as a weapon against Verra the Demon Goddess, and that feels more like a peer to her. Can the Demon Goddess be banished with the blood of a demon? Seems unlikely. But they know one another, and it sounds like they have tussled before.
I honestly kind of loved the structure of this book. Mikl贸s chapters, followed by interludes, followed by a chapter from the perspective of one of the other characters, then another interlude, and back to Mikl贸s. The sixteenth chapter takes some of that structure (Mikl贸s; another character; Mikl贸s; the next character) and I think it's very well done that way. The narrative shifts as the action does, and it is satisfying when you catch the pattern.
I do end up wondering if it would have been better without the hints at the connection to Vlad, especially if the hints turn out to be nothing. Devera knows what will happen to Mikl贸s's daughter - "I won't have to watch over her; everyone else will have to watch out for her." That's pretty much all we get. Well, we know of one super dangerous human lady, with no patronymic and a fuzzy history. How does that impact how we look at her story, if we remember that her grandfather may have been a demon?
Dating sim set during The Phoenix Guards - who you can romance changes depending on the House you choose. There's a secret Teckla option where you die gloriously in a failed revolution.
