Brust, Steven

• Series: The Khaavren Romances

  • The Phoenix Guards (9)
  • Five Hundred Years After (9)

    • A story set in the ancient history of Dragaera, the standard world for Brust's novels in which humans (Easterners) live along side Dragaerans, a tall, dark humanoid race with typical lifespans measured in centuries if not millenia. Dragaerans come in 17 different varieties, making up houses much like medieval European nobility. Very complex and wonderful world. Anyway, these novels revolve around a Dragaeran guard and some of his acquaintances and their adventures. It is written in the tradition of Dumas' "The Three Musketeers". Sounds audacious, but Brust pulls it off. What a great pair of books! Describes a lot of the history that is only mentioned briefly in the Vlad Taltos books. They are both novels, not short story collections, in case my writing above implied otherwise.

• Series: The Vlad Taltos Books

  • Jhereg (9 r)
  • Yendi (10 r)
  • Teckla (8 r)
  • Taltos (9 r)
  • Phoenix (9 r)
  • Athyra (8 r)

    • A series of first-person narratives about the adventures of an assassin and his wisecracking lizard familiar in Brust's great world of Dragaera. I once wrote a term paper for my Parageography class at UT-Austin on this world, and it was a lot of fun! And I got credit for it...can you believe it!? Anyway, Brust's hallmark is a tight, complex and exciting plot. I can't recommend any of his books too highly. If you don't have them, get them. Period.

  • Orca (8)

    • Since this is the first book by Brust I've had the pleasure of reading since I started my reviews page, I thought I'd review it separately. I thought it was rather ironic that just before reading this book, I read "Pleading Guilty" by Scott Turow, a similar book in many ways...with a personable protagonist narrator, an interesting female "sidekick" and a strange and convoluted investigation. Of course, Turow's book doesn't hold a candle to Brust in terms of writing style, plot, characterization, milieu, etc. Makes me wonder how a guy like Turow can sell so many more books than Brust. Back to "Orca" though, Brust has certainly evolved away from the initial few books about Vlad the Assassin and is now exploring interesting (and somewhat unsettling) ground with no real indication of what the future holds for Vlad. Some readers seem uncomfortable with that and miss the "thrill" of the first few books, but my own opinion is that the quality is still quite high, just of a different kind.

  • Dragon (9)

    • Another very strong book for Brust. I have to admit that I broke my golden rule and bought this one in hardback with barely a moment's hesitation. Brust is one of the last authors around who can do that to me. Anyone who enjoyed the first two books in the series (and hasn't liked the recent course change into a different phase of Vlad's life) will gobble this book up, as it is set during the events of the first books when Vlad's relationship with Cawti was just beginning. During Yendi (?), Vlad makes an aside in his narration of the sort that "Oh, and I was really tired because I went off to go fight the battle of Baritt's Tomb, but that's a story for another day." Well, that day has come and this is the story.

      The only weakness I could possibly see would be for a new reader to Brust. If this is the first book someone were to read in this series, I can imagine the confusion would be nearly overwhelming, what with all of the references to previous tales and inside jokes with characters. If you're going to invest the time in this series, it is best to read it from the beginning. Dragon could fit in at any point after Yendi, I think, and would be best read shortly after Taltos.

• Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill (5 r)

  • I didn't like this as much as Brust's other works. It is set in its own independent world and is kind of a sci-fi story more than fantasy. It has a pretty good plot, and I would recommend it, but it is only my fourth favorite of his sets of works.

• Agyar (8)

  • This is somewhat similar to the Taltos books in its style and tone, but it is set in the "real world" and is about a guy who... well, I wouldn't want to tell you anything because half the fun is trying to figure out what Jack Agyar is and what he is up to just from his autobiographical notes... Suffice it to say that this is definitely up to Brust's usual standards of excellence and is a wonderful stand-alone novel. Very powerful and emotional ending despite the character's seemingly emotionally detached personality. I was surprised and impressed.

• To Reign In Hell (6)

  • I first read this a very long time ago, when I was about 17 with little experience regarding Brust. My reaction was mostly negative, and I recalled it as something to be slogged through rather than enjoyed. I reread this much later (in 1999, now 31) and appreciated it more. I still can't give it high marks, as the plot is just not very compelling (which is saying a lot, given that this is the history of heaven and hell). However, the dialogue is truly the saving grace, and the book is worth reading just for the 20-30 one-liners sprinkled throughout. It compares favorably to Zelazny's "Lord of Light", another novel about warring factions of gods (I suppose it is no accident that Zelazny writes an intro for Brust's book here), so if you like that, you should love this.

• The Gypsy (with Megan Lindholm) (6)

  • Somewhat similar to "Agyar" in tone. I like the way Brust enables the reader to figure out much of what is going on with only the vaguest of clues. Good plot, as usual.

• Freedom and Necessity (with Emma Bull) (6)

  • Brust and Bull are both very good writers on their own with similar styles, so I was really looking forward to seeing the results of their team-up. Perhaps my expectations were too high, because I was disappointed. I give them credit for trying something very different (as usual)...in this case, the difference is that the entire book is written as an exchange of letters and journal entries between the four principal characters.

    At first, this intrigued me. I enjoyed reading about certain events from a variety of points of view, and the authors were good about writing realistic character "monologue" from a point of view of limited knowledge. After about a third of the book, though, the usual "fluff" in the letters back and forth began to grow a little tiresome. I found myself wanting less and less to see two or more descriptions or interpretations of the same event, and I wanted a faster paced plot.

    This book is set in England during the 19th century, and it is essentially pure fiction, with none of the magic/fantastic elements so common in the other works of these authors. It involves a plot of political intrigue in England as a group of revolutionaries makes plans to try to overthrow the government in favor of socialism/communism. It felt authentic, and it was unpredictable and interesting. On the other hand, it made me impatient, so I have to give it a relatively low score (for Brust) simply because I didn't enjoy reading it as much as I had hoped I would.

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