Tiassa (Vlad)

Okay, well that was just a Taltos fanboy's dream.

Fair warning, I've liked pretty much every book in this series, even Jhegaala, which was too convoluted and ponderous for me to get much of a buzz from. But this makes up for it fifteen times over. We get tantalizing hints at longstanding questions, not to mention the reappearance of fan-favorite characters... and a certain fan-favorite narrator.

This is not a good entry point into this series. It was written for people who have read both the last twelve Taltos novels as well as the five Phoenix Guards books. Anyone else might well be lost. But read them. You're in for a treat.

I've read the Vlad Taltos series since they first came out. Over the years I've really enjoyed them. But, since Vlad left Andrilankha the series has lost a lot of luster. Brust seems to like to experiment with writing styles and at times seems bored with his character.

In Tiassa he wastes many pages of text with the weird convoluted style he uses in 500 Years After. He can actually write 5 pages of text to cover a paragraphs worth of plot. I keep hoping he brings Vlad back to Andrilankha and gets back to what the made the series in the first place.

I'm losing hope, though. Pity. This was once my favorite series and I waited for each installment.

I hate to say this, because I love Vlad and all the previous Taltos cycle novels, but this book was, quite simply put, disappointing. For one thing, when I see a publishing date for a "new novel of Vlad Taltos", I really do expect to have the novel focus on Vlad Taltos. This book did not. Indeed, most of the time spent was with other characters and narrated in the dreadful faux Three Musketeers tone that lacks all of the sarcastic snap and wit I love so much in the rest of the series. This book also utterly failed to really move the story forward or address any of the long standing questions of the series or even the new ones. It invented a new, so far rather boring artifact, but Lady Teldra didn't get more than a cursory mention in the last two pages. We didn't see Morrolan or Aliera at all and the only mention of Kiera, Setha or Krager are all set in a time frame before Vlad was even married to Cawti. Usually I can't put these books down and I read them over and over again, wearing them out and buying second copies but this one was a chore to finish and I doubt I will ever need to spend the money to replace this copy.

I was very disappointed, this was not a Vlad Taltos book, this was a Viscount of Adrilankha book. Instead of the sarcastic style of writing I love, I got the Dumas style which I hate - if Brust wants to write like that, fine but don't sneak it into a Vlad series book!

I'll make this brief. I have been reading this series for 25 yrs now. I am officially done. Boring, awful and pointless. Or, maybe I just missed it altogether. I think the worst part was the dialogue. Good god the dialogue. Repetitious, aimless, horrid.

Steven Brust is the renegade literary son of Fritz Leiber and Gene Wolfe, taking from one a devil-may-care attitude, a casually brilliant cast-off-detail attitude towards worldbuilding, and a sensibility just a hair bloodier and more calculating than the reader expects, and from the other a sense that every detail has been precisely chosen, a reticence to ever give a fact twice, and a sense of humor even darker and more secretive than Leiber's. The Vlad Taltos novels are Brust's central work: a sequence of thirteen novels (so far), set in a world many dozens of millennia in the future and (probably) very far away in space, in which the main characters are men and a race remotely extracted from men, with creatures called gods and aliens with the powers of gods lurking around the edges of the narrative but never coming close enough to be entirely caught by the lens of story. Each book has been a separate, discrete novel, ostensibly completely understandable on its own and telling a distinct story -- and, yet, that reticence of detail and worldbuilding sense mean that Vlad's world only makes sense through the slow accretion of those details, and through a conscious effort to bring them all into focus together.

TIASSA, that thirteenth novel, is actually not a novel -- it's three novellas, told from different points of view, all involving Vlad to some degree and tracing his interactions with a divine artifact in the form of a silver tiassa. (A Tiassa is a winged large cat -- see the one on the cover? -- and it's the symbol of one of the seventeen great houses that the Dragearans -- that race created from men I mentioned before --- divide themselves into.)

The novel is also called TIASSA because the central character of Brust's other series set in the same world -- a deeply droll and charming series of books called the Khaavren Romances, deeply influenced by a wordy 19th century translator of Dumas that Brust imprinted on when young, deliberately modeled on Dumas's Musketeer books, and ostensibly written by a long-winded and occasionally dim Draegearan noble named Paarfi of Roundwood -- is Khaavren, who is of the house of the Tiassa as well as being the captain of the Empress's personal Phoenix Guards. And Khaavren -- as well as his wife, the Countess of Whitecrest -- are as important to this book as Vlad is.

Along with those three novellas (or perhaps novelettes; it's not a long book), there's a bit of linking material to make it all flow, but those are all quite short (and only really will make sense to devoted readers of the series). The first is in Vlad's voice, set during his days as a crimelord (between [[ASIN:360893264X Jhereg]] and [[ASIN:0441799779 Teckla]], I believe), in which that silver tiassa statue is used as part of a con Vlad runs and in which Khaavren's son is involved. The second is in omniscient third-person, is set a few years later, when Vlad is on the run, and has at its center Vlad's then-estranged wife Cawti and the Countess of Whitecrest during an apparent major threat to the Empire. And the third is in the voice (uncredited) of Paarfi, with Khaavren as the central character and Vlad as a crime victim whose circumstances he investigates.

It's a particularly arch and oblique entry in the series, of primary interest to the kind of readers who re-read an entire series in preparation for a new book. For those people, TIASSA will be, I expect, another treasure trove of new hints and clues to place carefully next to the hints and clues from previous books to build a slightly more complete picture of the still-mysterious parts of Vlad's life. For those of us who prefer books to stand on their own, TIASSA will be somewhat less satisfying, though it's slyly entertaining and darkly amusing in all of its parts. But I would never recommend a new Brust reader start with TIASSA; there's far too much history and nuance left unstated here.

-- But of course.

Indeed.

-- So?

Yes.

-- Then, a review?

Naturally.

-- When?

Now.

This is, sort of, a Vlad Taltos novel, but it is more the three musketeers from a thousand years before, in Vlad's time, with him as a passing character on the side, loosely pulled together. Not a bad book, moves things forward, including his family and personal dynamics, but it is a slower novel, really a long short story's worth of material wrapped into a novel. A very good deal of narrative in the above fashion.

If you do not like the other series in the same world, but with a different style, you won't like this one. If you are interested in more information, more development and have patience for bits and scattered pieces (some of which are not pulled into the novel at all, but are just vignettes that are probably going to be more relevant in the past or future of the series), it is enjoyable.

My impression of this book is it's what an author writes to answer demands for a book he doesn't want to write. A way to say "Here, happy now?". When they know you won't be happy so they can feel satisfied with their having not wanted to write it. That said, there are enjoyable parts of the novel but it doesn't really advance the plot. It's a holding pattern book that has a section written in a very polarizing style that many people cannot stand. It comes down to whether or not you like his Khaavren Romances. If you hate them, you will find the writing style of the final 1/3 of the book an interminable slog.

Overall, if you enjoy the Vlad Taltos books, I would find it hard to believe you wouldn't like this. It's a very enjoyable read. Moreover, if you also enjoyed the Khaavren books, you'll finally get to see the joining of those two "lines" in this novel. This makes for something of a unique experience in the realm of the Vlad Taltos books as you have what essentially presents as a single united story which occurs over an extended period and from different perspectives. Personally, I feel this "balances" the book both from perspective (you get different sides of the story) and impact (you have more or less three "build-ups" and conclusions to each part as well as building up all the way to the end). Some might miss the abundance of Vlad-type dark humor which is present only in his (largest) section.

The book essentially includes 3 "Parts" or novellas which are all connected by a thread. The first part concerns an episode from Vlad's past, primarily during the time of his engagement to Cawti.

The second part focuses on a consequence to this first episode, told in Cawti's perspective, but involving Norathar, the Empress, and the Countess of Whitecrest (Khaavren's wife). This occurs after Vlad and Cawti's separation while Vlad is apparently back East somewhere.

The final part is told from Khaavren's perspective, similarly to that you've seen in the books focused on the head of the Phoenix Guards. Yes, including some of the same banter and stylistic elements you'd expect in those books. This was excellently done, however, and you really get to see the care that the Empress has for Vlad and you see the respect for him grow in Khaavren throughout as well.

If you're looking for "all the answers" to the dangling plotlines in the series, you are definitely not going to find them. In fact, the only plot advancement you really see that is relevant to the rest of the series is the fleshing-out of relationships. But who knows how important that will become in later books in the series? Besides, there's going to be at least one book for each of the houses in the cycle anyway. Of course.

If you're looking for deep and thought-provoking reading... why on earth are you reading the Vlad books? These are meant to be light, fun, fast-paced reads with action and humor. Maybe tinged with a little dark reality, but still. Be realistic.

If you've read the other books in the series (either series, really) then you probably ought to just go ahead and get and read it. You know you're going to do so eventually.

Some background about me will be helpful placing this review in context. I am a long time fan of the Vlad series and of Brust in general. On the other hand I've only been able to tolerate the Khaavren romances. The ability to write ten pages where nothing moves the story forward is not a writting style I enjoy.

Tiassa would be better served if Brust had taken the two plots he developed for this one book and turned them into two full novels. The transition is rough and in reality there is nothing to connect the two story lines but the sculpted Tiassa. It is too thin a thread for me to follow. This left me feeling that I had been cheated out of a whole novel and had two short stories/novellas delivered instead. However the saving grace of this book is the writing which, as with all of Brust's books, is lyrical; he simply knows how to write an engaging sentence. Also there is more information revealed about Vlad and Cawti which I found enjoyable. If you like Brust I would recommend this book to you. If you have never read any of his books I recommend you start at Jhereg or Taltos.