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More Taltos!
I have now read the next two books in the series, and continue to love it. Things picked up considerably after Orca.
Dragon: I really loved the first half of the book (I could just cheerfully read endless pages of Vlad and his familiar/friends/business associates bickering and having philosophical discussions), though my interest tanked somewhat in the second half, once we got into the war stuff. On the one hand, I absolutely love that the battle was so pointless. Usually in high fantasy you get epic battles over world-ending stakes (much as we do in the next book, come to think of it) and I really loved that this battle was exactly as petty and pointless as most war IRL generally is. On the other hand, uh ... he really did a good job of conveying the boring and repetitive nature of being in the army, I guess? Though there was still good stuff going on. I always enjoy watching Vlad's confidence in the inhumanity of Dragaerans take a hit. Plus, of course, we got some interesting backstory including the story behind Aliera having Pathfinder. On the whole I enjoyed this book a lot, but found the second half a bit draggy.
Issola: THAT WAS SO GOOD!! ♥ ♥ ♥ I think this one's tied with Taltos for my favorite book in the series. I love that like 80% of the book was just Vlad being trapped in a room bickering with various subsets of his friends (it's pretty much entirely a "bottle episode", and it was so much fun). I absolutely adored Teldra as a character - I love how she's a type of character who is often characterized badly in this type of book (sweet, kind, a non-fighter), but got to be brave and awesome and score points with diplomacy instead of knives. And then the climax went from being "hmmm, epic battle, exciting I guess" to absolutely riveting once everything with Spellbreaker and Teldra started going down. Plus, we found out a bunch more about their world's history and the Great Weapons, as well as various characters' backstories, and the Jenoine world was entertainingly weird. This book had everything: humor, loyalty, banter, twisty mysteries, and a kickass finale. A+, would read again.
ETA: Writing-wise, I also feel like Teldra's role in this book puts on display how much it matters to have more than one female character in a series. I think that if the only major female character in the book had been a sweet, gentle priestess/diplomat who ends up getting killed off (sorta) to make a cool sword for Vlad, that would have been a bit of a problem even if I'd still enjoyed all her individual scenes, but it's hard for me to take exception to her fate in the slightest when it happened in the middle of a battle in which most of the major players were kickass women and in fact the only male participant other than Vlad got dropped with a spell early on and spent most of the fight being dead.
ETA2: I also really love the jhereg on this book's cover, particularly the iridescent wings. We have no particular canon (so far, anyway) for whether they actually look like this in the books or not, but I like this version better than the more typical gold-colored dragonlike creature on most of the other covers. It still has that dragonlike vibe, but it's so much more alien-looking, very delightfully so.
Dragon: I really loved the first half of the book (I could just cheerfully read endless pages of Vlad and his familiar/friends/business associates bickering and having philosophical discussions), though my interest tanked somewhat in the second half, once we got into the war stuff. On the one hand, I absolutely love that the battle was so pointless. Usually in high fantasy you get epic battles over world-ending stakes (much as we do in the next book, come to think of it) and I really loved that this battle was exactly as petty and pointless as most war IRL generally is. On the other hand, uh ... he really did a good job of conveying the boring and repetitive nature of being in the army, I guess? Though there was still good stuff going on. I always enjoy watching Vlad's confidence in the inhumanity of Dragaerans take a hit. Plus, of course, we got some interesting backstory including the story behind Aliera having Pathfinder. On the whole I enjoyed this book a lot, but found the second half a bit draggy.
Issola: THAT WAS SO GOOD!! ♥ ♥ ♥ I think this one's tied with Taltos for my favorite book in the series. I love that like 80% of the book was just Vlad being trapped in a room bickering with various subsets of his friends (it's pretty much entirely a "bottle episode", and it was so much fun). I absolutely adored Teldra as a character - I love how she's a type of character who is often characterized badly in this type of book (sweet, kind, a non-fighter), but got to be brave and awesome and score points with diplomacy instead of knives. And then the climax went from being "hmmm, epic battle, exciting I guess" to absolutely riveting once everything with Spellbreaker and Teldra started going down. Plus, we found out a bunch more about their world's history and the Great Weapons, as well as various characters' backstories, and the Jenoine world was entertainingly weird. This book had everything: humor, loyalty, banter, twisty mysteries, and a kickass finale. A+, would read again.
ETA: Writing-wise, I also feel like Teldra's role in this book puts on display how much it matters to have more than one female character in a series. I think that if the only major female character in the book had been a sweet, gentle priestess/diplomat who ends up getting killed off (sorta) to make a cool sword for Vlad, that would have been a bit of a problem even if I'd still enjoyed all her individual scenes, but it's hard for me to take exception to her fate in the slightest when it happened in the middle of a battle in which most of the major players were kickass women and in fact the only male participant other than Vlad got dropped with a spell early on and spent most of the fight being dead.
ETA2: I also really love the jhereg on this book's cover, particularly the iridescent wings. We have no particular canon (so far, anyway) for whether they actually look like this in the books or not, but I like this version better than the more typical gold-colored dragonlike creature on most of the other covers. It still has that dragonlike vibe, but it's so much more alien-looking, very delightfully so.
