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Lyorn (Vlad Taltos #17)
I really enjoyed this one! I feel like the series has really picked up with the recent books, now that we're getting into the endgame and the modern-day timeline of the plot is starting to move again.
Also: MUSICAL. That part was fun, though I admit that I'm mostly with Vlad on musicals and actively disinterested in anything to do with fictional show business (like sports, my brain slides right off it), so this book managed the feat of keeping me hooked and interested, and also explained the details for Vlad's benefit. I loved that he spent most of the book at a Stephen-Maturin-on-a-ship level of both ignorance and lack of interest in everything related to the theater, continually missing what the scheduling is or why anyone's doing what they're doing, and alternately asking blatantly obvious questions or no questions at all, but eventually getting sucked into the camaraderie of it despite himself. Vlad, ILU.
Brust continues to be playful with narrative, in this case incorporating other characters' POVs because Vlad is randomly getting their thoughts (similar to the Morrolan POV via mindmeld in the last book). I really loved how this showed us little slices of the experience of living in Adrilahnka that Vlad doesn't normally see. And a few intriguing little Dragaeran worldbuilding details I don't know if we've seen before - though I'm sure I've forgotten more details of these books than I remember - like twilight lasting a long, long time, or the slightly odd smell of the sea. (I also love the casual detail of 2-, 3- and 4-day plays, which sounds terrible but also makes sense for the long-lived Dragaerans.)
And Kragar has a son! I loved the Kragar-Vlad friendship development in this book, with Kragar not even thinking about selling him out, and Vlad's corresponding bafflement about why he wouldn't. Also lots of lovely little bits throughout - Vlad glaring at Keira when she refuses to tell him anything Keira wouldn't know and suggests that he go talk to Sethra for the rest of the story!
This was definitely a book that showed off how casually Vlad, by this point, can talk the most powerful people in the world into doing him favors - getting the world's most powerful and terrifying sorceress to run small errands for him, inviting the Empress to a rinky-dink theatrical production as step 92 of his 200-step Xanatos gambit (and she said yes!), calling up a goddess for a casual chat ...
And, in general, this book had some wonderful, wonderful payoff for Vlad's 17-books-and-counting character arc. Of course there's the big thing, which is Vlad reluctantly kicking-and-screaming his way into taking on a hero role, as well as his mini-epiphanies along the way, such as thinking about how if he had to go back to being a remorseless killer to survive, he's not sure if he could. But the biggest thing that only occurred to me as I was digesting the book afterwards is that Vlad doesn't just agree to step into a hero role in the coming fight, but he does it for Dragaerans.
I think it took me a while to notice this because I'm pretty sure he doesn't think the word Dragaeran or Easterner once during that final internal monologue (and Brust is a careful writer, I don't think this is an accident). He just thinks "people," and the specific thing that changes his mind - as a culmination of all the other changes - is the empathy to recognize that he can't stand letting them go through the same kind of jerked-around-by-fate destiny that he's suffered his whole life. And it's really the Dragaerans that are affected by this, not the Easterners, who are largely just living their lives without Jenoine interference. It's the Dragaerans who are the subject of a giant multi-millennia experiment, the Dragaerans in whose place he puts himself, the Dragaerans who stand to gain or lose their free will through the results of the coming showdown.
And there's Vlad: who we first met as the guy who "kills Dragaerans, not humans," who views his assassin skills as a way of getting back at a world that's constantly beaten him down, and specifically at the Dragaeran part of it; Vlad, who tells us continually how much he hates Dragaerans (and isn't lying); Vlad, who goes from the assassin who specifically targets Dragaerans and relishes it, to "hating Dragaerans in general and loving them in specific" by the time of Athyra; and now, Vlad, who only thinks of them as people as he's making the decision to risk his life and the most vital core of himself to set them free.
Loved it, terrified of where it's going, can't wait for Chreotha.
Also: MUSICAL. That part was fun, though I admit that I'm mostly with Vlad on musicals and actively disinterested in anything to do with fictional show business (like sports, my brain slides right off it), so this book managed the feat of keeping me hooked and interested, and also explained the details for Vlad's benefit. I loved that he spent most of the book at a Stephen-Maturin-on-a-ship level of both ignorance and lack of interest in everything related to the theater, continually missing what the scheduling is or why anyone's doing what they're doing, and alternately asking blatantly obvious questions or no questions at all, but eventually getting sucked into the camaraderie of it despite himself. Vlad, ILU.
Brust continues to be playful with narrative, in this case incorporating other characters' POVs because Vlad is randomly getting their thoughts (similar to the Morrolan POV via mindmeld in the last book). I really loved how this showed us little slices of the experience of living in Adrilahnka that Vlad doesn't normally see. And a few intriguing little Dragaeran worldbuilding details I don't know if we've seen before - though I'm sure I've forgotten more details of these books than I remember - like twilight lasting a long, long time, or the slightly odd smell of the sea. (I also love the casual detail of 2-, 3- and 4-day plays, which sounds terrible but also makes sense for the long-lived Dragaerans.)
And Kragar has a son! I loved the Kragar-Vlad friendship development in this book, with Kragar not even thinking about selling him out, and Vlad's corresponding bafflement about why he wouldn't. Also lots of lovely little bits throughout - Vlad glaring at Keira when she refuses to tell him anything Keira wouldn't know and suggests that he go talk to Sethra for the rest of the story!
This was definitely a book that showed off how casually Vlad, by this point, can talk the most powerful people in the world into doing him favors - getting the world's most powerful and terrifying sorceress to run small errands for him, inviting the Empress to a rinky-dink theatrical production as step 92 of his 200-step Xanatos gambit (and she said yes!), calling up a goddess for a casual chat ...
And, in general, this book had some wonderful, wonderful payoff for Vlad's 17-books-and-counting character arc. Of course there's the big thing, which is Vlad reluctantly kicking-and-screaming his way into taking on a hero role, as well as his mini-epiphanies along the way, such as thinking about how if he had to go back to being a remorseless killer to survive, he's not sure if he could. But the biggest thing that only occurred to me as I was digesting the book afterwards is that Vlad doesn't just agree to step into a hero role in the coming fight, but he does it for Dragaerans.
I think it took me a while to notice this because I'm pretty sure he doesn't think the word Dragaeran or Easterner once during that final internal monologue (and Brust is a careful writer, I don't think this is an accident). He just thinks "people," and the specific thing that changes his mind - as a culmination of all the other changes - is the empathy to recognize that he can't stand letting them go through the same kind of jerked-around-by-fate destiny that he's suffered his whole life. And it's really the Dragaerans that are affected by this, not the Easterners, who are largely just living their lives without Jenoine interference. It's the Dragaerans who are the subject of a giant multi-millennia experiment, the Dragaerans in whose place he puts himself, the Dragaerans who stand to gain or lose their free will through the results of the coming showdown.
And there's Vlad: who we first met as the guy who "kills Dragaerans, not humans," who views his assassin skills as a way of getting back at a world that's constantly beaten him down, and specifically at the Dragaeran part of it; Vlad, who tells us continually how much he hates Dragaerans (and isn't lying); Vlad, who goes from the assassin who specifically targets Dragaerans and relishes it, to "hating Dragaerans in general and loving them in specific" by the time of Athyra; and now, Vlad, who only thinks of them as people as he's making the decision to risk his life and the most vital core of himself to set them free.
Loved it, terrified of where it's going, can't wait for Chreotha.
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We have human lifespans and the Ring cycle!
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I watched the totality of the kdrama Crash Landing on You (2019) in what I estimated to have been the time it would have taken me to watch sixteen movies. (It was the spring of 2020. It seemed like a good idea at the time.)
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LOL! That's a beautiful way to describe that, but yes! (Vlad imagining the poor sod seated behind Zerika trying to see around the Orb also struck me as hilarious)
I think it took me a while to notice this because I'm pretty sure he doesn't think the word Dragaeran or Easterner once during that final internal monologue (and Brust is a careful writer, I don't think this is an accident). He just thinks "people,"
Ooh, you are so right! I completely did not notice this, but I agree that it's huge and that it's got to be deliberate! (I do definitely think the Easterners on the world suffer second-order effects from the Cycle and resulting stagnation, as their powerful neighbors can't evolve past the cyclical wars and stuff, but I also don't for a minute think that Vlad's thinking goes past the "people are being jerked around by invisible strings" implication)
terrified of where it's going
saaame.