Quote:
| Redlass said
Oh hey, I just finished reading that book a few months ago. It's the only Brust book I've ever been able to get through (I've picked up and put down one of the Phoenix books about four times now, never gotten past the second chapter). I really enjoyed it. What did you think? |
I love Brust. I think of him as a parodist (in the best way), but he's really a pretty substantial writer on his own. "To Reign" is his take-off on Zelazny. The Phoenix Guard books and the Viscount of Adrilankha cycle are take-offs on Dumas, so if you don't love Dumas, you'll find them heavy sledding. (In fact,
Phoenix Guard is a direct take-off on
Three Musketeers.) Forgive me for not doing the courtesy of finding links for you, but I've reviewed (on Eps)
Brokedown Palace (which may still be listed as "Brokendown Palace"),
Dragon,
Issola, and I forget which one of the Adhrilankha books, so you can get a good idea of what I think of them from that. The review of "To Reign" is upcoming on Rambles.net, but probably won't be up for some weeks -- he has a backlog from me right now and refuses to do a special "Bob" issue (maybe because he's still waiting for an assigned review, which I'm working on).
As for "To Reign" specifically -- I take it as his homage to Zelazny. It's very reminiscent of
Lord of Light,
Creatures of Light and Darkness, and
Donnerjack, and I found it totally absorbing, except that the climax is sort of anticlimactic (even though, or maybe because, it grows completely organically out of the situation and characters). I found it very interesting (and entirely characteristic of Brust) that all of the characters are what I would call "frail" rather than "evil" or "good."
In my role as advocate, I'd recommend almost any of the Vlad Taltos novels, especially
Jhereg and
Orca. Vlad in a lot of ways is a combination of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled topic.
Bob
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