[wolf_2099]

Any fans here? It seems to me it's love him or hate him for the most part but who knows.

I highly enjoy his books, and find them pretty entertaining. Short and sweet.

The new Vlad Taltoes book is released tomorrow,Jhegaala.
I'm looking forward to it as soon as I finish TtH.

Brust was the guy who got me reading fantasy again, and from him to Erikson, them Erikson to GRRM.

So, loves him, hate him? Thoughts on his books? Anyone else looking forward to the new one?

(There is so very little about him on the net, it's like Glen Cook.)

[Christopher]

wolf_2099;346392 said:

Any fans here? It seems to me it's love him or hate him for the most part but who knows.

I highly enjoy his books, and find them pretty entertaining. Short and sweet.
...

So, loves him, hate him? Thoughts on his books? Anyone else looking forward to the new one?

(There is so very little about him on the net, it's like Glen Cook.)

The only book of his I've read is 'To Reign in Hell' but I thought that was great. Is the rest of his stuff anything like that book stylewise?

[MrXIII]

To Reign in hell was an interesting book, I've had one of the Taltos books sitting in my too read piles for over 4 years... keeps getting stuff put on top of it.

[Use Of Weapons]

I love Brust! To Reign in Hell is fantastic, but stylistically unlike his other work. His other work falls mainly into two camps:

1. Taltos
2. Paarfi

The Taltos books are all based around the adventures of Vlad Taltos, an 'Easterner' (human) in the land of Dragearans (extremely long lived, high magic powered people organised into families with specific traits). Vlad is an assassin, and quite a down-to-earth one, with a low, sardonic sense of humour. All the books are from his PoV, and very entertaining they are too.

The Paarfi books are completely different stylistically, though set in the same world and dealing for the most part with the same characters. They are written in the style of Alexandre Dumas. Paarfi is the ostensible author of each, and each book includes an introduction from him protesting at the treatment of his historical works, or from a reviewer commenting on his style in highly disparaging tones. Here are some examples:

Chapter 11 of The Phoenix Guards is called "In Which the Plot, Behaving in Much the Manner Of a Soup to which Corn Starch Has been Added, Begins, at Last, to Thicken."

Chapter 31 of The Phoenix Guards is one "In Which The Reader Will, No Doubt, Be As Surprised As Our Heroes to Learn That All is Not Over."

Also from The Phoenix Guards:
"I have more than a care," said Khaavren. "I have a fine piece of skin which is wrapped around all of those charming organs that allow my breath to flow, my blood to pump, and my mind to think. I will, therefore, do my utmost to see that my epidermis finishes this conflict in the same condition in which it began it."

The Paarfi books (called the 'Khaavren Romances') deal mostly with Dragaerans, and are set some 5000 years before the Taltos books. Nevertheless, many of the characters make appearances and are main actors in the Taltos books (which are named for the Houses of the Dragaeran Nobility).

http://en.wikipedia...._Brust#Dragaera

[acesn8s]

I'm more of a Kha'avren fan than a Taltos fan. I may have to reread the Vlad books before picking up his new book.

[Coco with marshmallows]

yeah, read pretty much all of brust'sstuff untill a couple of years ago.

it can actually be wuite hard to find his work though, at least in the shops.

suppose i could amazon it, but i like going into a bookshop to buy books.

Luddite that I am.

[carnage4u]

i enjoyed almost all the Taltos books.. Only the one book told from a different main character and the second to newest I didnt enjoy. The rest of the series I found a fun quick read.

[wolf_2099]

I find his voice the same in all his books, but the writing style differs greatly. The Khaavren Romances style was lifted from Dumas, the Taltoes books are written in a funny 1st person, pessemistic humor, so on. (been a while since I've read his other novels)

I agree his stuff is hard to find in store, I got lucky and came across his first collection of Taltoes books in the store, and then had to order the rest off the net. oddly, over time I have found the original novels very very easy to find in used book stores.

I find him a very enjoyable light fair, and the books are short enough the can make for a nice afternoon if light reading outside.

The new book has shipped for me and am looking forward to polishing off TtH (you know, only 800 pages togo) and reading it.

[Ursus]

I'm a big fan of the Taltos series. As others have mentioned its a real enjoyable relatively easy read.

[wolf_2099]

So how many of you are trying to hunt down his new book? Do they actually get them in bookstores near you? Or will you wait for the paperback?

[Ursus]

It wont involve much hunting for my part. All the major swedish webshops got all of his works and if i wanted to flip a few pages and smell it before buying it the genre-specialized Science Fiction Bokhandeln (doubt i need to translate that) have a shop in the city i live in. Damn i love Sweden. Hell even the bigger non-specialized stores have all of his books.

[Use Of Weapons]

I've not even looked for Jhegaala yet. Will most likely get it from Amazon, though I got Issola from Forbidden Planet, IIRC.

[Topper]

I thoroughly enjoy the Taltos series but no so much the Khaavren Romances they are too florid and I was not particularly interested in any of the characters, though I have only read the first book.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Spoilers Vallista

Spoiler

So, Verra chose Vlad (his reincarnation-line, more like, as she originally chose one of his distant ancestors) to break the Jenoine's simulation/social experiment. His job seems to be to break the wheel, so to speak, and move society forward.

Also, Sethra is OLD, which we already knew, but now we get a reference point — they're shown as being around prior to the Dragaeran empire

Also, chapter 8 is caller "Withering Depths". That's gotta be a play on Wuthering Heights, right?

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 13 August 2019 - 07:29 PM

[amphibian]

Absolutely a reference to that. I think he had fun with the big house setup.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

amphibian, on 13 August 2019 - 08:22 PM, said:

Absolutely a reference to that. I think he had fun with the big house setup.

According to the Lyorn Records wiki (https://dragaera.fan...#Chapter_titles), all of the chapter titles are literary references. Cool!

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 18 August 2019 - 03:42 PM