What Makes This Book So Great (34 page)

And so I most sincerely remain, dearest Lords of Publication of Glorious Mountain Press, your enthusiastic correspondent, Jo Walton.

DECEMBER 14, 2009

87.
The time about which I have the honor to write: Steven Brust’s
The Viscount of Adrilankha

The Viscount of Adrilankha
is a three-volume novel consisting of
The Paths of the Dead
(2002),
The Lord of Castle Black
(2003), and
Sethra Lavode
(2004). I’m writing about them together because it feels to me that they are best considered as one work, divided into a beginning, a middle and an end for bookbinding purposes. All the Paarfi books are loosely connected by continuing characters and a developing world, but these three are really one story.

One of the things reading half a ton of Brust together does is make me realise how unquestioned the defaults of secondary-world fantasy are. Fantasy has a certain look and feel and style of conversation and tech level—and more than that, there’s an expected mood, an expectation of the kind of serious it will be. There are exceptions, of course, but they are just that. There’s no inherent reason why you can’t have swashbuckling musketeer-style fantasy with dialogue that flashes like rapiers, but you need to justify it, as you don’t need to justify a story of rivals for a medieval throne. As for the seriousness, there’s certainly funny fantasy but a great deal of it consists of making fun of the concept, not much of it makes you laugh aloud at the humour inherent in the situation. With Brust’s books, you laugh for the same reason a reader inside the world would laugh, even if you occasionally say “ah-ha!” with knowledge you bring from outside.

This three-volume novel is best enjoyed as a historical novel set within the fantasy world of Dragaera. It’s historical accuracy is right up there with Dumas writing the nice and accurate history of France. Paarfi, the writer within the world, has a wonderful voice and a lovely way of putting things, he’s slightly pompous, slightly dignified, he tries to be accurate but gets carried away in his own enthusiasm. He’s a lovely person to spend time with as are his, and Brust’s, characters. I understand that not everybody will get excited over chapter titles variously explaining whether the battle going on is the ninth or tenth battle of Dzur Mountain, but if that sort of thing delights you, then you should certainly read these books. I’d still suggest starting with
The Phoenix Guards
though I see no real reason why these don’t stand alone.

Mild spoilers.

Historically,
The Viscount of Adrilankha
is the story of the end of the Interregnum and the re-establishment of the Empire. The three volumes divide neatly into “introducing all the characters and setting them in place,” “Zerika returns with the Orb and wins a battle,” and “re-establishing the Empire is more complicated than that.” On an emotional level they concern the coming of age of Piro, the son of Khaavren, and Khaavren coming to terms with that. There’s also a fair bit about the way Morrolan grows up, and the dealings of Sethra and the gods with the Jenoine. All of this works very well as story and history—and it has some splendid antagonists and excellent plotting.

While the overall plot is effective and affecting, what I like most about these books is the little incidentals—the way Morrolan builds his castle in the air, for instance, sorcery can get it up, and witchcraft can keep it up. I was also charmed by the explanation for the never-ending party. There’s an ah-ha moment for those who have read
Teckla
when Aerich visits Tazendra’s home and finds a Teckla living there. The chapter titles are adorable. The plots are cunning, but it’s Illista ordering fish that sticks with me. I find Piro and his friends less appealing than Khaavren and his friends, but there’s plenty of the older generation here—and Piro’s dilemma with Ibronka answers something I’ve always wondered about, with regard to the Houses. Zerika’s passage of the Paths of the Dead, and all the debates among the gods, have to be taken as speculative on Paarfi’s part, not historical, but how interesting, after
Issola,
that a Jenoine nearly got in. I do wonder why the Interregnum had to be so long. Nothing would have stopped Sethra organizing this as soon as Zerika was old enough, and as Piro’s about a hundred years old, why wait until Zerika was two hundred and fifty?

DECEMBER 15, 2009

88.
Dzur stalks and blends with night: Steven Brust’s
Dzur

Dzur
is definitely my favourite Vlad book and one of my favourite of all books. It begins with a visit to Valabars, the famous Eastern restaurant in Adrilankha, which has been mentioned since
Jhereg
but never seen before. This visit to Valabars frames and shapes the book, each chapter begins with a description of a course. Here we have grown-up, mature Vlad, with Lady Teldra by his side, no longer an assassin but back in Adrilankha, solving a small-scale mystery. This book is set in the main continuity, it begins mere minutes after
Issola
. We get to see most, if not all, of the ongoing characters of the series. As well as Valabars, there’s another thing that’s been mentioned in various contexts and turns up for the first time here. Brust’s on absolute top form in
Dzur
. It’s a delicious book and I love it.

I think this might be a good place to start the series. It would certainly make you want to read the others to catch up, but I think it would work as an introduction. Besides, there’s the meal in Valabars. Don’t read this if you’re hungry, or if you have no expectation of eating good food soon. Also, this might not be as much fun if you hate food. I don’t identify with Vlad much, but he says at one point in
Dzur,
“I’m a fair cook, I’m a
superb
eater,” and oh, me too.

I’ve had another thought about reading order, by the way. When the books are finished, it will be possible to read them in Cycle order, and that reading might have its own interest and benefits. I’ll look forward to trying it.

I was so deeply absorbed in this book that when I read the description of Valabars mushroom and barley soup and the way Vlad can’t make it exactly the same at home because there’s something he’s just not getting, I wanted to email him and suggest that he try just a tiny bit of nutmeg, going in when the mushrooms do. I didn’t want to email Steve Brust to suggest this, though that would be a much more practical proposition, I wanted to email Vlad. Also, I’m allergic to peppers, so I found myself wishing that Brust had made up a Dragaeran name for “Eastern red pepper” so I could pretend it was some fantasy thing that wouldn’t make me ill, instead of just thinking, “Well, you could just leave that out and it would be fine.”

Vlad certainly behaves like a Dzur, stalking and striking and taking risks—not just being in Adrilankha at all, but rushing in to Verra’s halls, and the confrontation at the end. Sethra says Dzur can tell the difference between strategy and tactics and Dragons can’t, and we do see Vlad recognising the difference and changing plans as required. The member of House Dzur is Vlad’s dinner companion Telnan, who’s young and cheerful, has a great weapon and who will one day be called Zungaron Lavode. Oddly enough, House Dzur is one of the houses we’ve seen most of before their book. Not only is there Tazendra in the Paarfi books, but there’s the Dragon/Dzur revenge in
Jhereg,
there are the Dzurlords who go charging up Dzur Mountain, there’s Sethra, who seems to be a Dragon/Dzur hybrid though nobody would mention that, and there are a number of jokes about how many Dzurlords it takes to sharpen a sword. So I was if anything expecting more rushing in than there is—not that there’s not plenty.

As for ongoing mysteries and revelations, Mario walking up to the table is priceless. Mario’s been considered a legend, he makes his appearance in
Five Hundred Years After,
and now here he is, quietly walking up and having a conversation, doing an assassination, still alive, still Aliera’s lover, still the best. The pacing on this one is brilliant. I could never write a series like this, because I couldn’t wait for nineteen years and ten Vlad books to pull off something this cool, it would keep me awake nights with excitement.

The other thing is Vlad finding out about the existence of Vlad Norathar—we’ve known about him since
Orca
but Vlad hasn’t. The book ends with the expectation of Vlad meeting his son and then going to Valabars again. I was just saying that this is grown-up Vlad, and it occurs to me that being a father, having a role as a father, would be the next thing for that. I don’t see how he can manage it though, not if he can’t be in Adrilankha.

The thing I like least is Verra messing with Vlad’s memory. I don’t mind unreliable narrators, but I hate characters not remembering things they used to remember, and I was afraid it was going there. However, what we seem to have is a great big excuse for a retcon of any events of
Taltos
that Brust wants to change. I’d rather have an excuse than have books contradict each other, and if they have to they have to—there’s been surprisingly little of that. All I can think of is the sudden existence of wheeled transport in
Dragon
when the specific absence of it is mentioned in
Phoenix,
and the bit with Morrolan saying he was with Zerika at the top of the cliff, when according to Paarfi he was not in Piro’s party. Anyway, the memory problems stopped being a problem with me after Vlad did his Dzur-like dash to confront Verra about them. Brust may be cheating with this, but he’s cheating in style.

DECEMBER 17, 2009

89.
Jhegaala shifts as moments pass: Steven Brust’s
Jhegaala

Jhegaala
is another one that I hated the first time I read it. As it only came out last year, I’d only read it once before this, so I haven’t yet had time to get to like it. As I also hated
Teckla
and
Athyra
on first reading, I’m reasonably confident that I will. All the same, I picked it up with a certain amount of reluctance, and I didn’t enjoy it all that much.

Jhegaala
is definitely not where you want to start this series. It’s out of the main continuity, set between
Phoenix
and
Athyra
. When I finished
Phoenix
I wanted to read it, because I never have read it there, where it belongs in internal chronology, and I swear next time I’m going to read them that way and see Vlad developing and having my events in order rather than doing all this complicated juggling. After
Phoenix, Jhegaala
might have more appeal. After
Dzur
it feels like stepping back. Vlad’s less mature here, still smarting from
Teckla
and
Phoenix,
and we have to watch him go through the process of becoming more mature. I know it can’t all be meetings with old friends and dinner at Valabars, and I would get bored if it were, you need shade as well as light, but even so, even appreciating that they can’t be all “Vlad has a nice day,” this book is a real downer.

Spoilers.

Jhegaala
is an expansion of a couple of lines in two of the other books. Emotionally, it’s an expansion of the bit in
Taltos
where Vlad mentions that the Easterner kids beat him up for being too Dragaeran and it didn’t hurt as much as when the Dragaerans beat him up for being an Easterner, except that it hurt more inside.
Jhegaala
is Vlad discovering for real that Easterners are just as bad—good, bad, and mixed—as Dragaerans, it isn’t that the ones he knows in South Adrilankha are immigrants damaged by the immigrant experience, they’re like that in Fenario, too. And then, literally, it’s an expansion of the bit in
Orca
when Loiosh suggests they go East and that it needn’t be as bad as it was last time. This is the story of how bad it was, and it really was awful. It’s also probably the true story of how Vlad lost his finger, though it’s carefully not quite specific there.

Jhegaala seem to be some kind of insectoid thing that metamorphoses a lot. I don’t remember anybody from House Jhegaala in any of the other books, and the only one we see here is in the chapter start-quotes from the rather odd mannerist murder comedy play
Six Parts Water
. There we are told that you need to find out what phase they are in. I suppose Vlad does metamorphose in this book and he also does a lot of waiting around and eating, and a lot of time when he might as well be in a cocoon, like the animal jhegaala in some phases, and he’s certainly moody, so it does fit. Vlad comments that Jhegaala grow into and out of things in different phases, and this is certainly the book where he does some of that.

Good things: Vlad in the East, without any magic, without an organization or any friends. No, hang on, this was supposed to be good things. A little bit of Noish-pa. Some interesting information about Vlad’s mother, which I’d have liked if it didn’t go where it did. Some lovely Vlad and Loiosh banter: “There’s nothing worse than a smartass who pretends not to understand hyperbole.” The East, its reality, economics, and sky.

What is with the Overcast anyway? It’s not something the Orb is doing—it was there during the Interregnum. Loiosh and Rocza hold their breath when they fly through it (
Athyra
, Rocza POV) but when they climb through it on the way up Dzur Mountain in
Paths of the Dead
it just gives a reddish cast to everything and they breathe normally. In
Phoenix,
Zerika talks about disasters the Orb prevents that weren’t prevented during the Interregnum, and it struck me that they are natural disasters—mountains spewing fire and lava, people being blown away by strong winds, the ground shaking and cracking open. I assumed then if it was preventing volcanoes and hurricanes and earthquakes it was causing the Overcast, but no. Also, what is it for? It hides the sun and the stars (no moon!) but while Vlad’s blinking in the sunlight, Morrolan missed it when he went to the Empire after being raised in the East, so it can’t harm Dragaerans, which was my first thought.