Jhereg

by Steven Brust

Other authorsSteve Hickman (Cover artist)
Paperback, 1983-04

Status

Available

Call number

PS3552.R84 J53

Publication

Ace Fantasy Books (New York, 1983). 1st edition, 1st printing. 239 pages. $2.50.

Description

Steven Brust is the author of numerous fantasy novels, including Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla, and Orca. He lives in Minneapolis.

User reviews

LibraryThing member clytemnestra215
I always appreciate an efficient plot, and Steven Brust has accomplished that with Jhereg. Small details and large play their parts in the resolution of the plot, and one feels rather satisfied about it. There is suspense in anticipation of the climax, and I very much enjoyed watching everything
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play out.

The secondary characters were not incredibly three-dimensional, but I suppose I will see more of them in other books (this is the first I read of his), so there will be more opportunity to learn about them and see how they are other than cardboard cutouts. Amusing cardboard cutouts, but cardboard all the same.

The main character is rather three-dimensional enough, though, and I enjoyed his character. But even more than him, I enjoyed the richness of the world in which he lives. The history and culture of this world is enough to fill many books, which of course Brust has done. The magical systems in place are believable and interesting, and I enjoyed the distinction between witchcraft and sorcery.

I very much liked the distinctions of the Houses to which we were introduced in this first novel. It is always interesting to see how an author divides people in a society, and the Houses are varied and numerous enough to give the reader a viable means of understanding the Dragaeran lands and its people. I am certainly looking forward to learning about more of the Houses. And then, undoubtedly, I'll seek out an internet quiz to identify which one I'm in, as based upon such questionable data as always arises in internet quizzes.
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LibraryThing member ashleytylerjohn
I'm a bit of an idiot. For some reason (the weird name in the titled, weirdly spelled, plus the series' name, plus some one sentence descriptions I must have picked up at some point in time) I had always believed this series to be Science Fiction about a Planet of Psychic Vampires. I was sure of
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it, the same way that, despite not having read, say, "Crumpets With a Spot of Death: A Margie Doobs Mystery", I would be sure that it would be a cozy mystery with characters who eat dessert and own cats.

But I was wrong. Jhereg is not SciFi, nor is it set on a planet of Psychic Vampires. It's a high fantasy adventure romp, with enjoyable antiheroes (the main character's a proud assassin), similar to, say, The Lies of Locke Lamora, or the Riyria books, and is in other word right up my alley. (To be fair, the main character has "psionic" powers, so I was 15% right).

4 stars because (a) I'm not okay with everyone being so casual about So Many People being Assassins (or having been one), and (b) it seemed like the author didn't love it over, and invented hoops to make Assassination seem Not So Bad (e.g. frequent easy ressurection). Those bits felt uncomfortable and cludgy, but are really at the essence of the book, so it's a testament to how much I liked it anyway that it still got 4 stars. It's like giving A Wrinkle in Time 4 stars despite not liking children's books and being uncomfortable with extra-planetary settings.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
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LibraryThing member haiku.tx
Steven Brust will drive you crazy.

Then you'll beg him to do it again and again.

Each book in the Jhereg series is told much as one would expect to hear a story from the narrator, sitting quietly by the fair in his comfortable armchair, brandy in hand, and a watchful jhereg curled around his throat.
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All his characters will quickly seem friends, people (or not) you respect and love, despite of and because of their brilliance and their flaws.

When I was handed the first book, Jhereg, I called the friend who gave it to me part of the way through the reading of it. "Is this the first book? I keep seeing references to events I haven't heard of. Were there books before this one?" She laughed, "He does that. This is the first book, trust me."

I hate him for it. I really do. Yet I own all of them, have sought him out for signings, and have a second copy of Jhereg to loan to friends.

Misery loves company after all.

If you love a thought provoking, mystery, science-fiction-that-is-fantasy, with swashbuckling, theft, magic, and dragon-like pets thrown in, pick up Jhereg. Then prepare to be hooked like the rest of us.
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LibraryThing member drachenbraut23
I read this as part of the group read this month and I have to say it was a real fun read. Yes, an uneven story as roni mentioned, but nevertheless fun :). Steven Brust refers lots of times to events which happened a long time ago, which made it a bit hard at times, because that made me yearn to
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know more about the events hinted at.

We meet Vlad Taltos an established assassin and "human" member of the Jhereg. The Jhereg are part of the Dragearan society who live on a world shared by these Dragearan's and humans which are referred to as "Easterners". However, Vlad is hired by the big boss of the Jhereg Council to kill another member who took of with the gold of the Jhereg. This Council member has to be killed quickly, before the news of the crime gets out to the community. However, the villain manages to find sanctuary in Castle Black which belongs to a Dragonlord - another group of the Dragaeran society. If Vlad should kill him there, that could trigger a major war between the houses of the Jhereg and the Dragon with has to be avoided at all cost. Vlad is facing a serious dilemma and will need all his strength and help of his friends to figure out how to get on top of all the ensuing complications. As I mentioned already earlier also the story is a bit uneven, it was a real fun read and contained a lot of humor. I also enjoyed the fact that the women in the story seemed to be very strong and resourceful.
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LibraryThing member SandDune
I wasn't sure about this one to start with - a book about a professional assassin sounded a little ... well ... violent for my tastes, but dipping into Jo Walton's review of Jhereg made me want to give it a go. And I am glad I did, because I enjoyed it a lot and will certainly want to read more in
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the series.

Vlad Taltos is the professional assassin in question: a rare human amongst the dominant dragaera amongst which he lives. Although human, Vlad is a member of the Jhereg, one of the noble Houses of the dragaera, with a title purchased by his father. More than anything the Jhereg operate as an organised crime organisation though, and it's when one of the leaders of this organisation comes to him with a piece of 'work' to dispose of another leader who has targeted the Jhereg funds, that Vlad's troubles begin. For the target has retreated to the one place where any assassination is seemingly impossible.

This is a world of magic, with sorcerers and wizards both plying their own (different) forms of magic. Assassination is not always final, as most corpses can be revivified within a couple of days of death, unless the assassin is particularly determined. Wizards such as Vlad have familiars, and Vlad's is the jhereg Loiosh, one of the intelligent flying reptiles from which the house took its name.

So a fun read this one: highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member marti.booker
Really wish there was a 1/2 star option. Liked the book quite a bit, but I have a hard time giving it 4 stars. Main character took a long time to figure out what was happening, which was a bit annoying, but it was an enjoyable little jaunt into a different sort of fantasy world.
LibraryThing member vidroth
The first book of a wildly creative and worthwhile series, the "Vlad Taltos" books.

I say "first" because it was the first written. It is not chronologically first in its events. But I will *always* go by written date in such cases.

This is a great novel, though it suffers from a few "first novel"
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jitters. That shouldn't stop you. The Vlad Taltos books are remarkable fun, with the occasional kick in the moral or ethical teeth just when you're getting comfortable.

The world of Dragaera is utterly unique (and yes, you can have 'degrees' of uniqueness, thank you), a brilliantly-conceived fantasy world completely unlike anything you've seen before, and yet comfortable. And Vlad is a very funny, very dangerous narrator.

Give these a try, you won't be sorry!
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LibraryThing member silentq
Another long missing book on my read list, I finally tracked down this first book in the series at Powell's (I've had others in the series for years, waiting to find used copies so I could read them all in order). I wasn't a huge fan of The Phoenix Guards, the language was too ornate to read
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easily, this is much plainer, and I'm sucked into the intrigues and plotting. Loved how the bad guy's plan was slowly ferretted out, and the good guys' plan slowly came together. Could have used a bit more of the swordfighting, but that's just my own preference. :) Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
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LibraryThing member TadAD
It's a bit of fantasy mixed with a bit of mystery, and an all-round fun book to read. The world is utterly unique, the main character hugely enjoyable, the humor irresistible. You should start with this one, even though there are other books that take place chronologically earlier as this is the
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one the provides the 'introductions'.
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LibraryThing member Awfki
I read this a long time ago (around 1985-86) and loved it and the rest of series. They're entertaining and action packed tales about a human assassin living in a world dominated by people who are bigger, tougher and who live for hundreds of years.
LibraryThing member kiri_wren
Steven Brust is a master with words! He obviously puts lots of thought and effort into every single one of his books--they are a joy to reread over and over, and each successive volume maintains the high standards he sets; no formulaic plots here! Vlad is a terrific protagonist, who ends up trying
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to figure out for himself whether he really IS a protagonist (after all, he's an assassin). The issues of race and class that Brust brings in give these books a nice depth and, above all, Vlad's antics and dialogue with his familiar, Loiosh, always make me laugh!
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LibraryThing member hannah.aviva
This book explained a lot about Dragearan society. I really liked getting to know Aliera. I hope one of Brust's books will tell the story of how she got Pathfinder. Now, I'm not surprised as to why the Demon helped him in Dzur, seems to me now that he would owe Vlad even more backup then he gave.
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The end scheme to trick Mellar shows Vlad's strength at recognizing his friends best abilities and using them all to create an unbeatable team. On to the second book - Yendi.
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LibraryThing member iayork
It ain't easy killing people: Maybe it's just my perspective of the genre, but I have always viewed fantasy as taking off in the late 1970s. Sure, there were fantasy books before then - most notably The Lord of the Rings - but as a really marketable genre, things skyrocketed with the appearance of
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the Shannara books by Terry Brooks and the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen R. Donaldson. Soon enough, other big names would be appearing like David Eddings, Robert Jordan and (later) J.K. Rowling, while other authors would be discovered by a larger audience like Michael Moorcock and Fritz Lieber. What led to this sudden popularity of fantasy? Probably as much as anything a game: Dungeons & Dragons, which started years earlier but really took off in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

It was in the heyday of fantasy's blossoming to a full-grown genre that Steven Brust began his series of books about Vlad Taltos, and it is a series that would definitely appeal to the D&D crowd. Middle Earth, for example, was not the best environment for D&D, as true spell-casting was limited to an elite few, leaving the rest to fight in more mundane atmosphere. Brust's world, however, had spellcasters aplenty, through the separate disciplines of sorcery or witchcraft. Characters could be assassins or thieves (which could never exist in Tolkien's world). People could even have psionic powers. The only thing that was lacking was a bunch of monsters. I'm not saying that this was Brust's intent, but this was a fantasy world that D&D players could identify with.

The Book of Jhereg is a collection of the first three Taltos novels, all narrated by Vlad Taltos, top-notch assassin and crime lord. In his world, there are two different species of humanity: the very tall Dragaera and the more ordinary Easterners. The Dragaera are the ruling class, divided into seventeen houses, sixteen of which are noble houses and the seventeenth peasant class called the Teckla. Taltos is an Easterner who has inherited a purchased title that makes him a member of the Jhereg. Each house has an animal it identifies with; the Jhereg is a small flying reptile, one of which serves as a familiar to Taltos.

In the first book, Jhereg, Taltos is an established crime lord, prospering and happily married to his ex-assassin wife Cawti. Though successful, he is also a small-time operator, so he happily looks for ways to be more prosperous. He is hired by a Jhereg Council member known as the Demon to kill Mellar, an embezzler. He must be killed quickly before news of his crime gets out; unfortunately, Mellar has taken refuge in Castle Black, which is a very good place for sanctuary; if Taltos kills him there, it could trigger a major war between the Jhereg and Dragon houses. However, if Mellar isn't killed soon, word will get out that the Jhereg Council can be stolen from, and the thieves will come out of the woodwork. Taltos is on the horns of a real dilemma and will need to figure out what Mellar is plotting, considering that the theft seemed to be the result of an elaborate decades old scheme.

The second book, Yendi, shows Taltos at an earlier time in his career, when he is involved in a gang war with the more powerful Laris. During this war, he will be killed by his future wife Cawti; fortunately, death is not always permanent and revivifying is quite common under the right circumstances. Taltos's war with Laris is actually part of a more complex plot that reaches right up to the Imperial Succession plan.

The third book, Teckla, finds Taltos at odds with Cawti, who has embraced a revolutionary cause. A band of oppressed Teckla and Easterners are demanding better treatment by the Imperial government, which also runs them afoul of another powerful crime boss. Taltos is concerned that Cawti's involvement will endanger her, but his lack of sympathy for the cause will result in an estrangement with her and force him to re-evaluate his own life.

Although the Taltos books offer some humorous insights into the fantasy genre, they are still more straight fantasy than satire. While generally well-written and entertaining, the plots sometimes go beyond intriguingly complex and become overly-complicated. Overall, however, if you are a fan of the genre, then this will be a good addition to your library.
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LibraryThing member Karlstar
The first and certainly not last of the Vlad Taltos series. Vlad is a thoroughly entertaining human assassin living in a city full of Dragaerans, or elves, on other worlds. Tall, sorcerous, mean elves. Vlad is a minor lieutenant in a vast criminal enterprise.
The world, the writing style and the
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character of Vlad are all fascinating. Great stuff, if you like a lot of action mixed with tongue in cheek observations on just about everything.
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LibraryThing member SunnySD
Hired to track down and permanently "disappear" a Jhereg council member who's run off with the treasury, Vlad Taltos and his familiar, the dragon-like Loiosh, along with a cast of friends and employees are tested to the point of death and beyond....

The author apparently has a habit of referring to
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events that happened outside the current book. Not in another book, just outside the scope of this one. If you don't mind that particular habit, which is somewhat annoying given that the events in question actually sound rather interesting, but aren't actually readable due to their existence only in the author's head... it's a good book. I almost gave up on it, but it grew on me.
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LibraryThing member Ishpeck
This first novel in the "Vlad" series helps set the scene for a long and rewarding series. It introduces the characters and the unique urbanized, high-fantasy, criminal culture political climate. The pacing and richness of content in this book are among the key strengths for this and other books in
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the series.
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LibraryThing member pwaites
Vlad Taltos is a human assassin working for the House of Jhereg. Near the start of the book, he receives a very difficult and unusual contract for a former member of the Jhereg Council who ran off with nine million of the House’s funds. What follows is a twisty puzzle set in a strange and
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sometimes confusing world.

Overall, I enjoyed Jhereg, but I had real trouble getting into it. For one thing, I wasn’t expecting the sort of story I got. The cover and blurb make it out to be what I think of as “boy finds dragon book.” In fact, the dragon (well, dragon like creature), Loiosh, plays a relatively small role in the story, and I didn’t care for his voice. Chirpy side-kicks who refer to the main character as “boss” tend to get on my nerves.

However, my main problem was adjusting to the world itself. The book drops the reader into a completely different setting with little to no information. Early on, I figured out that there were two species: humans (referred to as Easterners) and Dragaerans, but I knew little else until after the first half of the book.

The biggest difficulty I had was picturing the Dragaerans and understanding the house system. From the beginning, the only physical description of the Dragaerans is “tall,” which doesn’t tell me how much they differ from humans. It doesn’t give a complete reference to how they compare to humans til after page hundred. They’re basically elves – tall, no facial hair, pointed ears, long lived, otherwise look like humans.

Pretty much all the other animals are fictional species as well, and descriptions of them are usually not given. In addition, characters are described in connection to the fictional animals. E.g. “She moved as gracefully as a dzur” or “her eyes were as soft as an iorich’s wing.” Labeled illustrations of all the animal life and characters or a guide at the beginning would have helped a lot. About midway through, I posted some questions about the animals on my reading journal in the Green Dragon on LibraryThing and was directed towards this immensely helpful guide which outlines what each animal is and what is associated with them. If you plan on reading Jhereg, I highly recommend taking a look at the guide.

Then there was the house system itself. By page hundred, I had an inkling that houses were connected to professions, but I still didn’t really understand the system. Again, I probably wouldn’t have figured it out if it hadn’t been explained to be by someone familiar with the series (of which this is the first book…).

As it turns out, all Dragaerans are titled nobility who belong to one of the twelve houses, which are all named after the animals found in the guide above. Different houses have different associations. The Jhereg are criminals who run gambling rings and brothels. The Dragons are soldiers and place a huge emphasis on honor. The Teckla are peasants and lowly regarded by the majority of characters. A cycle exists whereby each house has control of the empire for a certain period of time before conceding it to another, and the house in charge controls the source of the Dragaeran’s magic.

It’s obvious that Steven Brust took a lot of thought and care into building this world. From the fauna to the history, the details are astounding, but they can also be confusing and are not well explained. However, I’d guess that all sequential books will be easier reading since I’ve already adjusted to the world.

I didn’t feel any great connections to the characters, but they were passable. Going in, I was worried about the depictions of female characters – fantasy books of the early 80′s don’t have so great of a track record – but I had no reason to be worried. The gender divide of the book is roughly equal, and female characters play as important a role in the plot as male characters. When I read the author bio at the end, I realized that he’d named one of them after his daughter Aliera, which I find sweet.

I would only recommend this book to veterans of fantasy literature. The confusion of the first hundred pages was frustrating enough for me, and I’m familiar with strange fantasy names and settings. But if you can make it through the confusing beginning, the story proves worth it.
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LibraryThing member crazybatcow
Wow. I don't recall how this author came across my radar, but now that he has, I don't know how I had missed his writing for so many years!

It fits with my favorite reading "topics" perfectly:
a) a main character who has a moral compass, but where the morals aren't stogged down our throats
b)
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vigilante-style justice where the bad guys get what they deserve
c) a dark world where the norms of behavior might be altered, but where justice still wins
d) an author who provides a reasonable "mystery" and an interesting world without having to lecture us on its origins.

I have already bought the next book in the series.
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LibraryThing member stefferoo
Guess this is what you'd call an oldie but a goodie. I can't believe I hadn't heard of Steven Brust until a few weeks ago, but he was recommended to me by a gaming friend of mine, and then another good friend jumped into the Twitter conversation to second the recommendation. So, that's two
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shoutouts from a couple of people whose opinions I highly value, and that's when I knew I had to get my hands on this book, posthaste!

Jhereg is the beginning of a whole bunch of books set in Brust's Dragaera world. It is the first novel to be published in the Vlad Taltos series, even though its place is actually fourth or so in its timeline. It introduces us to Vladimir Taltos, an Easterner (human) working as a killer-for-hire in the House of Jhereg in a setting where his kind are barely tolerated by a race of long-lived, statuesque sorcerers called the Dragaerans (or, as my friend told me, just think of them as "elves"!) Being a Jhereg doesn't help either, since their faction is like the mafia of the Dragaeran world.

One day, a powerful Jhereg boss offers Vlad a lucrative contract to track down and assassinate a council member who stole millions of gold from the house. It is discovered, unfortunately, that this thief has fled to Castle Black, home of the Dragonlord Morrolan who is also Vlad's good friend. Now Vlad has to try and figure out a way to fulfill his contract without royally pissing off Morrolan, whose strict rule against the killing of anyone on his premises while they are under his protection is proving to be more than just a minor inconvenience.



At just 200-something pages, this was a very quick read. Despite the volume's relative thinness, however, there is a lot information crammed in here. You'll immediately get the sense of hugeness from the world of Dragaera, and I admit I spent much of the first half of this book feeling like I was missing something, because not everything about the setting is explained right away. There will be names of people, animals, factions, cultural traditions, events in history, etc. that are alluded to, but won't mean anything to you until you get further into the book (or even the series). Even now, I wish I had more room in this review to give examples of all the strange magical spells, weapons, creatures, lore and customs that are in this book, but there's just too damn much. The good news is, everything you need know in order to understand and follow the story will be there, and it will come in time.

I also really liked the writing style, the fast pace and the lightness of it. Normally when you get high fantasy featuring a world full of magic and so much history, along with noble sorcerers and lords and ladies and such and such, you'd expect the writing style and dialogue to be somewhat serious and austere. Not so much with this book, which includes instances of modern day habits or colloquialisms, and that played a part in making Jhereg easy to get into and reading it so much fun.

It's got a great story overall, involving a plot about an assassination, but which almost reads more like story about a heist. It has elements of mystery in it too, as Vlad likes to conduct investigations and figure out the solutions from the clues he finds. He as much as admits that he prefers the process of planning an assassination to the actual assassinating, and events in the story reflect that. It just struck me as interesting especially when compared to more recent fantasy novels about assassins, which tend to be darker and more action-oriented, and Jhereg was published before I was even born.

The series is still going on today, with book 14 expected to come out later this year. So glad I discovered these books, thanks to my friends. I've got a lot of books in my to-be-read pile, but since all the Vlad novels seem to be such quick reads, there might actually be hope of me finishing up to Tiassa before Hawk comes out. Maybe.
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LibraryThing member NineLarks
When a council member of the Jhereg's has stolen 9 million, Vlad Taltos is called in to take him down. But it's not going to be an easy task when he finds out that his target has taken refuge in one of an untouchable castle.
Trickery needs to be done, and he's on a clock.

I enjoyed this book in the
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sense that it was a very quick, easy, and fun read. It didn't have much substance besides introducing a new world with its specific quirks and rules. But discovering a world is always fun.

This is a particularly fun world because it holds both favorite tropes and new ideas alike. There are factions, each with their own specific trait. I love this sort of stuff because it gives rise to all sorts of underhanded politics and undercurrents.
Also, death is viewed in a particularly different way. Very interesting (more on this later).

I have a lot of problems with the book though- not massive ones, but enough to give me the impression that this book wasn't up to par.
First, the side characters. For goodness sakes, his familiar is basically a servant that is told to shut up every other time he is talked to. And the poor creature used to call him Mommy. Or his wife. Or Daymar. All of them are just convenient and powerful characters with no depth to help him execute his oh so brilliant plans.

Second. The massive reveal. I literally was chanting to myself, no not revenge. Don't make the reason revenge. Not something that stupid. Surely this guy Meller who hoodwinked three Houses has a grander scheme than just that! But.... Nope. Wow. I am not impressed. It was not a brilliant plan. It was an obvious one.

Third. Not amused at the reveal of Vlad's heritage. It seemed like a twist that was there just to give you a shock but didn't actually have a point. Maybe it's setting up the scene for future books, but here it was rather like... Okay. Cool. There's another reason you're special. It makes me regret it a little because I always prefer the main character to win or succeed based on his or her own merits, rather than a prophecy or genetics.

I think that's the basis of the story. It tries to be impressive with schemes and plots, but the actuality of it all is quite mundane. Perhaps I would have enjoyed this book far more when I first started reading fantasy novels. Maybe I am just jaded by tropes and cannot see the brilliance of the story. Who knows.

But my absolute favorite part of this world is the death perspective. Wow. I've never seen it treated so cavalier. Absolutely fantastic. Makes assassins seem more plausible than other worlds because death can just be a warning, no biggie. Brilliant.

I also loved his wit. There are some moments I just had to stop and grin and how clever some of the lines were. My favorite might have been:

“She smiled at me. We were all friends here. Morrolan carried Blackwand, which slew a thousand at the Wall of Barrit’s Tomb. Aliera carried Pathfinder, which they say served a power higher than the Empire. Sethra carried Iceflame, which embodied within it the power of the Dzur Mountain. I carried myself rather well, thank you.”

I am not that entranced by this book. Sure it was fun and quick and there are parts that I really loved, but I don't need to learn more about him or this world. I probably won't pick up the sequels unless bored out of my mind.
2.5 stars rounded up. I liked it.
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LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck
When I originally read this when it came out 30 years ago, it was a 4-star book for me. Fantasy with dragons the way Hammett might have written it, with politics, violence, rival gangs, upper vs lower class tensions, and a main character, Vlad Taltos, who moves between the two levels. It remains a
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fun read and the start of a long series, but I can now see flaws of a first novel, namely a few too many info dumps about the long history of Dragaera, characters such as a wife that pop up almost out of nowhere a quarter of the way into the book, and some major revelations about Vlad's relationship with that history that mean a lot to Vlad, but nothing at all to the reader. These would have been much more impactful after several more volumes in the series, when both the world and Vlad were more established.

You could do a lot worse for a couple days reading.
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LibraryThing member ConalO
A nice fun quick fantasy tale with lots of action and magic throughout the story. I like the world building and the characters introduced in this tale and hope to read more of this author.

4 Stars for a fun read.
LibraryThing member jrg1316
A great start to a great series. Vlad Taltos is a wise-cracking, back-talking assassin for the Great House of the Jhereg, and he is a very entertaining character. He's also surrounded by a great cast of characters, including the honorable to a fault Morrolan, the hot-headed heir to the throne
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Aliera, and the incredibly powerful undead sorceress Sethra. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Vulco1
The book was ok. Quick paced and the writing was fine. Some good comedy. Not sure what was missing for me but maybe it was the plot wasn't super original and there's not much more in here than what was on the book summary.

I think the further adventures of Vlad may be more interesting.

If you want
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something similar, check out the Acts of Caine books.
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LibraryThing member multiplexer
This book has first-book-itis. Bad pacing, bad dialogue, bad outtakes, a shift from third person to third person omniscient with abandon. It had sort of an interesting idea about this high level mobster/Baron messing with more high level people and pulling off a heist to kill a guy who couldn't be
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killed.

It has a nice fight in the end but it spends almost 200 pages trying to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. The book is mostly "BEHOLD MY WORLD! IS IT NOT WORLDLY?" But in the end, if it would have focused more on the assassination and less on Behold my Awesome Cosmically Powered Elves, I would have enjoyed it more.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1983-04-01

Physical description

239 p.; 7 inches

ISBN

0441385516 / 9780441385515
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