Review: The Book of Jhereg, by Steven Brust

I first read this something like a decade and a half ago, and have vague memories of liking it. But tastes can change.

This book is actually a three-in-one deal, with the stories Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla included. All follow the first person dramas of Vlad Taltos, human assassin in a world of Dragaerans (elves), with rich and powerful friends, and usually rich and powerful enemies too.

My reading speed has tended to be on the slow side lately, but I made surprisingly rapid progress with both the start and end of the book (well, books). The writing style is fast-paced and dialogue heavy, with less in the way of description and more in the way of things happening. That’s not to say the plot twists are overdone, just that the story keeps ticking over nicely (in this regard it’s the opposite of the pros and cons of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series).

Whilst there’s backstory to the world the action almost entirely occurs within a single city, in which Vlad’s an underworld figure who inherited a title his father bought with the family fortune, such as it was, enabling him to have some status among the Dragaerans. The stories are set apart in terms of time and don’t progress in chronological order. I didn’t have an especial problem with this, although it’s a perhaps unusual choice.

The first, Jhereg, sees Vlad tasked with an extremely tricky assassination, with potentially dire consequences if he can’t achieve it quickly (not least his own impending death). The second, Yendi, occurs before this, and has Vlad facing a threat from a rival underworld boss with rather more backing than he’d expected. And the last, Teckla (perhaps my favourite), sees Vlad’s wife getting caught up with some revolutionaries amongst the lowest ranking elves and humans. I don’t want to get into more detail than that, but I did end up reading about half the last book in a single sitting I found it so engaging.

If you’ve never tried Steven Brust’s stuff I can recommend this as an introduction. The only thing stopping me getting more is that I already have a comically enormous to-read list. But when it’s time to buy something new this series will be one of the things I consider.

Thaddeus