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Tiassa (2011)

by Steven Brust(Favorite Author)

4.02 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0765312093 (ISBN13: 9780765312099)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Tor Books

series

Vlad Taltos

review 1: The character of Vlad Taltos, after so many tales become ever more complex even as he tries to live his life simply. Thwarted at every aspect of his life, clearly we are shown once again how the Gods conspire to make his life, not boring, as I think Vladimir would put it.Here we also see D'artagnan, I mean Kharvaan come back into the story line. Several little vignettes that make-up these tales around an artifact, all though interfacing with Vlad in some way or other. (Possibly because after so many tales Brust could not think of a tale to utilize the characteristics of his Tiassa Race of Dragearans. But, now after 12 other books about Taltos, and the 5 about Kharvaan, we are ready for the series to end. We know enough about Vlad to want to see a conclusion, and as others ... morehave complained, Brust is taking his time completing his work. To write the Beatrice and Benedict like banter can not be an easy task, one that takes refinement to create. And at first these passages are a pleasure to read. But near the end, after so many of them, taking pages to move the story an inch, it is time to skim rather than savor each word as a reader. The only banter that flows well by then is that between our hero and his familiar. They are short, quick double entendres. Where once Taltos led a life that was LOL funny, now the capers are becoming the same as before, just a different day, and it is time to make in interesting again by doing something different. The Banter also serves to mask emotional growth, and thus characters who hide behind such only give us a facade become characters that are no longer of any interest to us.Yet, those of us who like this creation, this empire that Brust has created would like to see the series end, and while some of the tales would be worthy of a reread, this, I think is not one of those. It is a good strong book as you read through much of the other work in Fantasy, but were you to pick this up without a strong reference to who Vlad is and those others in the Empire, you would be hard pressed to see it as a gem. Thus for Mr Burst we can only hope that he can find a way to make of this series as captivating as the first books when it was unique.
review 2: Tiassa is a bit all over the place, multi-viewpoint and multi-style. You get Vlad for a few chapters, third-person limited for a few chapters without Vlad ("semi-Vlad" if you will), and then a few more in the Khaavren Romance/faux-Dumas style, in which Vlad appears. In terms of Brust playing with viewpoint, it's the biggest surprise since Athyra. It's fun to see Khaavren and Vlad share billing.Plotwise, it's a bit disappointing. I get that this Silver Tiassa maguffin will Be Important Later On, but I kind of wanted more of a clue to that than I got. In fairness, I probably missed things because I tried to read Orca before reading Phoenix, didn't get what was happening, and never picked it up again. But usually I can read any Dragarean novel without thinking, "Oh, I should have read this other book to understand what's going on."Overall, a different take on the ongoing Vlad Taltos saga, but not a terribly satisfying one for all that. less

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