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Steven Brust Message Board 1/1/2012
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Brust has written!

Author Brust's Book Reviews

Athyra - Vlad Taltos 5
Vlad Taltos is on the run from the house of the Jhereg when he enters a Teckla village and encounters an apprentice physicker boy named Savn. Vlad makes friends with Savn, while setting off a chain of events in the village that begins with a murder and culminates in a battle between Vlad and an undead Athyra wizard. This book is unusual in that it is not narrated by Vlad at all, providing an outsider's perspective of the (ex-)assassin. Also, this is t...
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille
Tor, Mar 2003, 13.95, 288 pp. ISBN: 0765306646 Billy and the rest of the band were within a mile of Jerrysport, Mars when someone turned the town into ashes with a nuclear strike. Billy was knocked unconscious, but besides a headache was fortunate to be alive as he was just beyond the ground zero meltdown range. Galaxy society is in trouble as nuclear strikes like that which recently shook Mars is becoming the norm even with the Trekkies a th...
Dragon
Dragon takes us back to Vlad Taltos's assassin days; in internal chronology, it comes just after the book Taltos. Morrolan gives Vlad a job - the security gig he has later on - and drags him into a Dragon war. Count Fornia, another Dragonlord, has stolen a sword from Morrolan, and Morrolan goes to war to teach him a lesson. After Fornia sends some Dragon goons to beat Vlad up and warn him off, Vlad wants revenge, and gets it, even though he has to enl...
Five Hundred Years After
This sequel to The Phoenix Guards tells the story of Adron's Disaster and the events that led up to it as witnessed and experienced by Khaavren and his friends. Khaavren must find the conspirators who hope to damage the empire and solve the mystery of some deaths within the court. Also, as a special bonus for readers of the Vlad Taltos series, this book features Mario performing his most daring assassination. ...

Brust booklist

Issola
Vlad Taltos, former Jhereg assassin, once again is called upon to help his friends Morrolan and Aliera, who have been kidnapped by the Jenoine, a mysterious race of beings long ago banished from the world. With the assistance of Lady Teldra, Morrolan's superhumanly polite hostess, he attempts to rescue his friends and foil the Jenoine's attempt to invade Dragaera....
Orca
Vlad has gone to Northport with Savn, who was mentally injured while helping Vlad in Athyra, in tow, trying to find someone who can help or heal Savn. The only person who might be able to help Savn wants Vlad to help her in turn - she's being thrown off her land, and wants him to stop it. Vlad brings Kiera in, and together they begin unraveling the mystery of Lord Fyres's death - and the even bigger mystery of why the Empire itself is covering up an as...
Paths of the Dead
The world of Dragaera has been in turmoil since the cataclysm of Adron's Disaster. The Interregnum has been in effect for some 200 years now, and many of the inhabitants of Dragaera are beginning to believe that there will be no more adventures. But boy, are they wrong. This book picks up on the tail end of 500 Years After. The children of many of our original heroes set off on adventures of their own. Piro, the son of beloved Khaavren, is summone...
Taltos - Vlad Taltos 4
Although this book was published fourth, by internal chronology it comes before Jhereg. Taltos tells the story of Vlad and Morrolan's trip to the Paths of the Dead to recover the soul of Aliera. Vlad's first challenge is resisting the temptation to challenge Morrolan, whom he has just met and does not much like, to a duel. His second challenge is stealing a staff from an Athyra wizard. Next comes getting through the Paths of the Dead without losing h...
The Phoenix Guards
The Phoenix Guards is Dumas' The Three Musketeers set on Dragaera, the same setting as Brust's Vlad Taltos series, but in an earlier time. Khaavren goes off to become a Phoenix Guard, one of the elite palace guards, and falls in with three others also seeking fame, fortune, or something else - and the plot is off and running. A decent imitation of The Three Musketeers, complete with a narrator you want to smack; funny, light, swashbuckling reading....
Tiassa
Vlad Taltos was handed a silver tiassa, a sculpture made by a god, and over the years it influences his life and other lives until it finds Taltos once again. Vlad Taltos is a human living in Dragaeran society, and in order to get ahead, he has had to ally himself with powerful people. His father paid for a minor noble title so that Vlad could join the Jhereg House--a faction of Dragaeran society that is associated with corruption, greed, criminal enterp...