This review originally appeared on Goodreads on June 21, 2012.

The Book of Taltos

By Steven Brust – Ace – January 8, 2002

Review by Robin Marx

This omnibus collects the fourth and fifth volumes in Steven Brust's Dragaera series, Taltos and Phoenix. I read the first three books collected as The Book of Jhereg about five years ago, and while I remembered a bit about the world Brust presents, those stories had completely faded from my memory. I expect the same will happen with these two installments as well. The world of Dragaera is interesting and appealing, but other aspects of the books aren't quite as strong.

Although published fourth, Taltos is chronologically the first story in the series. It introduces Vlad Taltos, a human assassin operating in the Dragaeran Empire. In an interesting twist, the tall, magically-adept Dragaerans (nicknamed “elfs” by the humans) are the dominant species in Brust's world, with humans (called “Easterners” by the Dragaerans) generally relegated to the fringes of society. This book covers Taltos' youth, with a parallel plot-line involving a quest into the Dragaeran land of the dead. The story provides a good deal of insight into the character of Taltos, as well as describing how he gained some of the powerful allies that feature so heavily in the other stories.

The other book in the omnibus, Phoenix, was the more troubled of the pair. In this story, Taltos is called upon by a goddess to assassinate the king of a minor nation. Just why this is necessary is never satisfactorily revealed, although there's some hinting about portents, etc. There's another thread dealing with the human liberation group Taltos's wife belongs to and it's struggle with the Dragaeran Empire, but this plot seemed fairly muddled as well. The ending was much better than the rest of the book, however; Taltos and the final pages of Phoenix are good enough to earn three stars, rather than the two I would've awarded otherwise.

I'm starting to thing Brust may not be the author for me. I find the world of Dragaera interesting and I'm fond of fantasy crime stories (Lankhmar, etc.), but the plots in this volume were a little weak. The Vlad Taltos character is well realized, but the (unnecessarily numerous) supporting characters basically seem to have one shtick. There's Sneaky Guy, Thief Girl, Uptight Swordsman, etc. Whenever Sneaky Guy appears, he's being sneaky, that's it, there's no further development. Uptight Swordsman is Uptight, and Long Cat is Long.

Vlad Taltos's “voice” (the books are written in first person) also rubs me the wrong way. He relates the story in a very casual, modern tone. He talks like every Joss Whedon character, basically. (It didn't surprise me at all to find out that Brust has written a full-length Firefly fan-fic novel.) For some readers (who may also be Whedon fans), this is probably not a drawback. However, I can only take Whedon in small doses, and when Brust (speaking through the character of Vlad Taltos) is describing life and death struggles and the fate of nations in a Whedonesque flippant, detached manner, I find I can't muster up much emotional involvement in the story. If the narrator isn't taking things seriously, why should I?

I own one more Dragaera omnibus, collecting the next two volumes in the series. I'll read Athyra and Orca before deciding whether to keep going or to abandon the series entirely.

★★★☆☆

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