[7QS]≡ PDF Iorich Vlad Steven Brust 9780765312082 Books

Iorich Vlad Steven Brust 9780765312082 Books

Download As PDF : Iorich Vlad Steven Brust 9780765312082 Books

Iorich Vlad Steven Brust 9780765312082 Books

First let me make this clear: if you're a fan of Vlad, you'll like this book. It always fun to return to Vlad's world and hear him interacting with Loiosh and his old friends.

But....

While this book is better than Jhegaala, it simply isn't at the level of the earlier works of the series. The stakes don't seem very high for Vlad, there's little action and nearly no magic and much of the book is him grasping for clues that seem barely significant even after they're revealed. Instead of "holy cow, THAT's what they were hiding!?" it's more like "err, that's all?"

The end of the book clearly sets up the next volume and the stakes will be much higher for Vlad. Let's hope that reignites the series. Brust needs to give these excellent characters more to do!

Iorich is like a family reunion with relatives that you truly love to spend time with but leaving the reunion with no interesting anecdotes. A pleasant time but not memorable.


Tags : Iorich (Vlad) [Steven Brust] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. House Jhereg, Dragaera's organized crime syndicate, is still hunting Vlad Taltos. There's a big price on his head on Draegara City. Then he hears disturbing news. Aliera--longtime friend,Steven Brust,Iorich (Vlad),Tor Books,0765312085,Fantasy fiction.,Taltos, Vlad (Fictional character);Fiction.,Taltos, Vlad (Fictitious character);Fiction.,AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,Fantasy,Fantasy - Epic,Fantasy fiction,Fiction,Fiction - Fantasy,Fiction Fantasy Epic,Fiction-Fantasy,GENERAL,General Adult,Taltos, Vlad (Fictitious character),United States

Iorich Vlad Steven Brust 9780765312082 Books Reviews

Spoilers might be ahead...

Another fun adventure in the life of Vladimir Taltos. While the novel doesn't advance us into what's going to happen to Vlad, we do get him back into the city. He's trying to help friends left and right, dodge the Jhereg, see his (ex) wife, and learn about how politics and the law operate. And I can't forget, his biggest dilemma - keeping Loiosh and Rocza fed and happy!

It's always a pleasure reading about Vlad, but I was hoping for a bit more. This doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book, but there are a lot of questions still unanswered and I hope Mr. Brust will begin answering them in the next novel.

My biggest question, yet answered What's going on with Lady Teldra?

If you love Vlad, then this is a must have. It's definitely a fun continuation of the Dragaera novels. There's plenty of time spent with classic characters we haven't seen in the last few novels, along with a couple of new distinct figures.

If you're new to this series of stories and want to know if you'd enjoy them, you will if you enjoy well written characters, intricate plots that'll sometimes leave your head spinning, and a bit of humor mixed with your adventure. These novels compliment my triumvirate of favorite characters Harry Dresden, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, and Vladimir Taltos.
Steven Brust produces books with glacial speed, so it always feels like forever and a fortnight since Vlad's last outing. But finally, finally, we catch up with what our sarcastic ex-assassin has been up to. The start of the book finds our guy mucking around in some backwoods town when he overhears that his Dragonlord friend Aliera e'Kieron had been arrested in Adrilankha for practicing forbidden Elder Sorcery.

Now, even though around eight years had elapsed, Vlad is still being relentlessly hunted by Jhereg assassins, because betrayal doesn't sit well with anyone, but even less so with the Jhereg crime syndicate. Vlad Taltos is human, comparatively weak and short and short-lived when compared to the seven-feet-tall Dragaerans whose lives span hundreds of years. Ironically (or not) Dragaerans tend to consider themselves the true humans.

Logic dictates that Vlad stay away, that it's too dangerous for him to help out his friend. Vlad, a pragmatic sort of cat, knows this. Three days later, he wanders back into the sprawling city of Adrilankha.

A couple of things immediately don't jibe. First, it's an open secret that Aliera had been wielding pre-Empire magic. So why arrest her now? And Vlad wonders why Aliera's powerful friends - Morollan, Sethra Lavode, and the Empress Zerika - haven't gotten off their duffs to come to her defense. If you're at all familiar with how Steven Brust tells a story, then you're aware that there's always something simmering beneath the surface. There's a dangerous conspiracy to suss out, a smattering of that old time uprising, a few reunions, and, naturally, heaps of caustic dialogue. But Brust focuses quite a bit on the dizzying intricacies revolving around the Dragaeran legal system and the minutiae involving the customs and behavior rigorously adhered to by the Dragaerans. It could've been tiresome stuff, and the mystery itself comes off as cryptic. But this is Steven Brust, who probably writes his stories by a sputtering campfire as his broken-down gypsy wagon sags on the edge of the clearing.

IORICH is the twelfth in the Vlad Taltos series, and while I could wish for more action the book still kept me up very late until I'd finished it. IORICH comes dangerously close to being a legal thriller as Vlad's investigations lead him to the House of Iorich, of which expertise lies in the law and the justice system. (Question Why doesn't a shark eat an Iorich swimming in the ocean Answer Professional courtesy. Bring on the lawyer jokes.) We meet Perisil, an Iorich lawyer demonstrating that there are Dragaerans other than Vlad's friends who dabble in ironic humor. Vlad hires Perisil's services as Aliera's advocate. But first Vlad has to get Aliera to agree to an advocate. As mentioned, there are things going on beneath the surface.

The pace is deliberate. Vlad doesn't much spring into action, but he remains a very engaging narrator and an irreverent voice. But it's just so gratifying to find him back in Adrilankha and trading snarky remarks with his old cohorts, shady characters like the floating psychic Daymar and the chameleon-like Kragan, on whom he finally gets sweet, sweet payback. Morollan turns up for a mo, as does the eternal (or at least ridiculously long-lived) Sethra Lavode. Kiera the Thief steals in, and she's as cool a character as ever. And, as ever, Rocza and the sardonic Loiosh are, heh, familiar presences, and they've been the main reason Vlad has stayed alive while on the run. But what I was anticipating the most was Vlad's reunion with his estranged wife Cawti and his interactions with Vlad Norathar, his bright young son. Brust doesn't like to go the predictable route, so I'm not so surprised that, in this matter, Brust leaves things ambivalent, that he doesn't spell out what Vlad was feeling as he chilled with his family in one of those rare times. So, it's not exactly closure with Cawti, rather a sense of further things yet to come. I'm still rooting for a reconciliation, should that nasty matter with the Jhereg ever be resolved.

Steven Brust's nonconformist style allows his protagonist to make and then dismiss passing comments, and these serve to frustrate and intrigue his readers. Longtime readers of this series know that Brust likes to jump around, doesn't always tell his stories in chronological order. Vlad persists in referencing events which I'm not sure Brust had even written about yet (Vlad's taking on a Dragaerean lover, what's up with that?). It keeps me coming back for more.

By the way, keep on reading after the story's done because, as a bonus, Brust has fun spoofing various fantasy tropes in a "deleted scenes" feature.
Been following Vlad since Jhereg was initially published. Been with Brust for the whole ride, and his other books as well. I really like the Vlad series, I think he's created a universe of incredible richness, subtly, and depth. He does a fantastic job of fleshing out the characters, and they grow on you like family.

One of the funnest things with the Vlad series has always been the puzzle, the complexity of the problem, and the flash of brilliance and scope of the climax. This book lacks that, as others have already said. The end was almost a letdown, premature, before it even had a chance to start. Like a big firecracker that got wet.

The buildup was good though, answering a few more questions, introducing a few more (I love when Brust has the characters thinking of something briefly that may or may not be in context, and they think "But that's another story," since I always wonder then if that's a hint of a forthcoming book). This is another patch in the quilt he's been creating for years, some good insight that's worth reading definitely, but just not on par with some of the funner books in the series.

If you're a fan of the Vlad series there's no choice, you need to read it, but come into it knowing it's a lower key book.
First let me make this clear if you're a fan of Vlad, you'll like this book. It always fun to return to Vlad's world and hear him interacting with Loiosh and his old friends.

But....

While this book is better than Jhegaala, it simply isn't at the level of the earlier works of the series. The stakes don't seem very high for Vlad, there's little action and nearly no magic and much of the book is him grasping for clues that seem barely significant even after they're revealed. Instead of "holy cow, THAT's what they were hiding!?" it's more like "err, that's all?"

The end of the book clearly sets up the next volume and the stakes will be much higher for Vlad. Let's hope that reignites the series. Brust needs to give these excellent characters more to do!

Iorich is like a family reunion with relatives that you truly love to spend time with but leaving the reunion with no interesting anecdotes. A pleasant time but not memorable.