Vlad returns to Adrlankha to find out why Aliera has been arrested. That's a risk for him, as the Jhereg are still hunting him. This is a good mix of Vlad snark, politics and Vlad's usual creative ways of solving problems - not all of which involve him making someone dead. I thought this was one of the better installments in the series, though it is a bit convoluted, which is normal for the author. Fast paced, witty and full of great characters and dialogue. Highly recommended. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2022/12/2022151-iorich-steven-brust.html ( )

Another complicated plot not unlike [b:Yendi|817357|Yendi (Vlad Taltos, #2)|Steven Brust|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1302450419s/817357.jpg|1058]. I decided not to try to fight this one and just go with the flow. I think that this was one of the funniest entries in the series, and the deleted scenes at the end where great. ( )

Book number 12 (by publication order) in Steven Brust's fantasy series centering on Vlad Taltos, former a crime boss and assassin and current wanted man. This time, Vlad returns to his home city, even though people are trying to kill him there, in order to help out a friend who's been arrested on trumped-up charges for political reasons.

As usual, it's all very light and readable, with flashes of humor and a protagonist who balances competence with appealing fallibility. But the plot of this one just didn't do much for me. It's interesting enough in theory, I guess, and I did enjoy getting a glimpse of how the legal process works in this world -- I've often thought the world-building is possibly the best aspect of these books, and this is a decent example of that -- but in execution, the story kind of left me cold. Most of it just consists of conversations in which people are deliberately not saying things to each other, followed by Vlad making hard-to-follow leaps of logic about what they're not saying. Maybe none of that's actually unusual in this series, but I think it's taken a bit too far here, in ways that made it harder than it should have been for me to understand and care about what was going on.

Rating: 3/5, although I did consider giving it another half star just due to the worldbuilding stuff and my general feelings of good-will towards the series. ( )

I'm always so pleased with these novels! I love them, but let me be entirely clear. I love them more now that Vlad is back in town. He's a city boy at heart and I feel so much more comfortable when he's getting into trouble with the Jhreg on his home turf.

It's so fun to see him get interested in the laws at long last, too, but not more than I like seeing him get to know his little son. Things might not be getting all that much better with him and his ex-wife, but at least with a weapon of power and a whole society of long-lived nobles after him 24/7, he doesn't have all that much time to worry about what she thinks of him.

Or what his other friends think of him. Or why they're being set up by different factions of the empire or the Justice of it. Even the Empress is caught in a really hard spot.

The novel takes place in the latest time slot, thank goodness. :) I like a lot of the out-of time novels, but I'm very, very curious about everything that happened after his Weapon of Power was awoken.

But last, but not least, I do need to mention that Brust's deleted scenes at the end of this novel nearly stole the freaking show and had me giggling furiously the entire time. This man knows his shit. Of course, I already knew that. Still, it's nice to pit Vlad up against all those other tired fantasy tropes and skewer the living shit out of them directly rather than indirectly. :) So Delicious. :)

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