Phoenix (Taltos book 5)

[sholio]

You know how sometimes a book just makes you clutch your heart and go "ohhhhhh"?

I think I'm actually going to stop reading this series for a little while here, because this is a very good, satisfying place to stop - it's not the end, but it's AN ending, and I need to reclaim some brainspace/heartspace for canon review for my various fic exchange assignments. And right now my head is full of Vlad and friends, which, while lovely, is really NOT WHAT I NEED. So I will let it rest here for a little while, and pick it up a bit later on, when I have time to spend on it properly again.

That was so lovely, though. I love the things this series has to say about friendship and duty and responsibility and loving people across the divide of duty and culture and race, and I think it's clear that while this is probably a goodbye between the main cast for a little while, it's not a goodbye forever. I really like that Cawti and Vlad are still close even though they're not together as a couple anymore. I love that his friends are still willing to do damn near anything to save him, and vice versa. HIS GRANDFATHER AT A TABLE FULL OF DRAGAERANS! I love that with Easterners and Dragaerans slaughtering each other all over the city, the characters take the sides they have to take, and fight for their people, and then go save each other. I love that even Kragar has been pushed and pulled and dragged into being a different, better person from being around Vlad (and also the subtext that there is literally no amount of money that Kragar will accept to betray Vlad).

I love Vlad's line about finding "more Dragaerans to hate in general, and love in specific."

I love these books. ♥

p.s. I looked up Vlad's comment to Loiosh in the previous book that "You're not expendable, you're not stupid, and you're not going", because it was so damn familiar that I was sure I'd heard it somewhere before, and aha, it's a Blake's 7 quote. (Slightly altered: the original is Avon, in the first person.) I am amused that I wasn't wrong, and also amused at the hat tip. Well played, Brust.

Comments

[senmut]

That is a good stopping point!

[sholio]

I think it's a good place to hold for a bit!

[alchimie]

It is an excellent place to hold -- Phoenix was the most recent when I started reading, which worked out well since by the time there was another one I was ready for more.

[rachelmanija]

It is a good stopping point, but there's some great stuff coming up. Let me know when you want to continue and I'll read along.

[sholio]

I'll let you know! I think probably when I get back from Cali, and/or get my h/c exchange fics done. XD

[heavenscalyx]

It's an awesome series, and it's so nice to read about your joy in it. There's a lot of reread value in it as well, I remind myself, so perhaps I will go back and read some again.

I'm amused that my association with that quote is just a Nancy Button (that I believe I owned at one point, in my formerly vast Nancy Button collection), because I never got much of a chance to watch Blake's 7.

[sholio]

LOL, full disclosure: I didn't remember the quote from the show, I remembered it from leafing through a catalogue of sci-fi merchandise in the 80s and seeing it on a button. I don't know why my brain holds onto things like that, but it does. I have seen most of B7 so that was probably a factor as well, but mainly I remembered it from that button.

[sheron]

What's the verbiage? "I'm sure this won't become a major fandom for me..."

[kore]

LOL, my version of it is an actual tag in my blog "I'm not even in this fandom"....

[sholio]

I would like to point out that I DISTINCTLY do not remember saying that in this case. XDDD

[kore]

I haven't read this series but Brust throws in a lot of easter eggs like that, like Mike Ford. It gives such an extra little bit of pleasure.

[sholio]

It was a fun one to notice! It makes me wonder what else might have sailed past me.