I enjoyed 1-5 Vlad Taltos series, by Brust. I really prefer The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. I have enjoyed Many Fantasy series, starting with Gormenghast books by Peake. Only ones I had problems getting into were the E.R. Eddison series. That said I will take another sip of this series.
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How many books? Which one should I start with? Is there a sequential list? I’m so confused after clicking the amazon lin (4 pages!!!). Jeeze!
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Sometimes I read them in release order, sometimes in chronological order :).
Start with Jhereg, then Yendi.
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As long as you’re OK with the putative hero being an assassin who works for organized crime much of his early life. He’s not amoral, nor a monster, and resurrection exists, but… shrug
It’s just 2 WAY different styles of writing. Brust is much more facile at dialogue flow, in my opinion, but Gene Wolfe is the master of the two at overall prose. Both are enjoyable.
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If it’s a proper assassination there is no chance for resurrection. That’s just one thing assassins have to think of: how to kill someone in a way that is permanent. Then you have the soul eating weapons, and Vlad has been known to use those as well.
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Public libraries seem to use the same algorithms.
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There are a LOT of Fantasy campaigns based loosely on RPG campaigns, some more tightly than others and quality is up to the reader: Brust’s Jhereg Series, Erikson’s Malazan book of the Fallen Series and Feist’s Rfitwar Saga are ones that are very clearly based directly on a campaign (D&D and GURPS, primarily). Even the Wild Cards anthology series (edited by some guy named George R. R. Martin) was based directly on an RPG game (in Superworld, iirc). A lot of series are indirectly based on games or informed by them, of course.
That’s not counting stuff like the many, MANY books directly inspired by or written in conjuction with RPGs/settings, like Weis and Hickman’s DragonLance series.
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D&D and some Empire of the Petal Throne. (And what a can of worms that is!)
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Read them in the order he wrote them in. He becomes a MUCH better writer as the series goes on.
- Jhereg (1983)
- Yendi (1984)
- Teckla (1987)
- Taltos (1988)
- Phoenix (1990)
- Athyra (1993)
- Orca (1996)
- Dragon (1998)
- Issola (2001)
- Dzur (2006)
- Jhegaala (2008)
- Iorich (2010)
- Tiassa (2011)
- Hawk (2014)
- Vallista (2017)
Besides, to read them chronologically, you would have to start one book and then put it down to read another. (I’m looking at you, Tiassa.) You are so lucky to get to read them for the first time! Enjoy!
p.s. Paarfi is awesome, you should read the Khaavren (fixed) Romances, too.
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How, nearly?
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The only reservation this author can offer with respect to reading the Khaavren Romances (related by Brust on behalf of that scholar Paarfi of Roundwood) is that the writing style is infectious.
It’s all fun and games until the first time you cry out “The Horse! I think I have been asking for nothing else for a week!” in a meeting.
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I’m going the other way. Thanks to OGH I was moved to buy Tiassa for my kindle app. The trouble is , I’m not sure exactly how far I got in the series. Ho hum.
Actually, most assassinations in the books are specified to not be permanent. Consider it a REALLY stiff “warning”.
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“Khaavren”. It’s “The Royal Blades” series, IIRC. “Tiassa” is a crossover between the two series, by the way.
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There is NO evidence Brust based any of his series on RPGs. Rather, he uses Hungarian fantasy tropes,
Other than what a member or two of his gaming group said on Fidonet back in the day.
From what he, himself, has said at gaming conventions, it was on the other way 'round. So shrug.
This was the very first book series that got me addicted to reading in high school. One day when one of his new books was being released I attended a book signing and met Steven Brust for the first time, only to be shocked that it really wasn’t. I had chatted and bantered with him on numerous occasions over the years at the local Renaissance festival, for which he regularly performed in a band. It was a pleasant surprise.
My favorite thing about that series is that each book mostly stand on it own as a story. While they might interconnect a bit, each one is self contained.
The Khavern Romances are in essence a fantasy retelling “Three Musketeers” with in the world of the Vlad. Its rather amusing. Look at the book titles.
“The Phoenix Guards”
“500 Years After”
“The Viscount of Adrilankha” (so long it needs to broken up into 3 books)
Compare to:
“Three Musketeers”
“Twenty Years After”
“The Vicomte of Bragelonne” (so long it needs to broken up into 3 books)
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Zero evidence? It comes directly from Stephen Brust himself. The original setting was ‘Piara’, and his setting was an alternate from that. He had an interview in Dragon Magazine with the AD&D stats for Vlad (who was his character). Some of his players have posted to USENET about it, as well.
"Jhereg is compiled from what was once Vereg. I’d created Piarrans who
had a prehensile tentacle, then unnamed, from the base of the skull
down to just above the hips that was their psychic organ. Steve’s two
biggest changes to turn Vereg into Jhereg were that he reduced the
psychic powers of the Dragaerans to something reasonable for his world
and eliminated their tentacle, which is now called a lirai since
they’d have their own word for an organ that important. I had the
intent of turning the core mythos into a shared backstory ala
Lovecraft – and retained right of deciding what was canon. When he
wrote Vereg and turned his character Vlad’s adventures into a cracking
good book at a time I was completely blocked (and constantly sick, not
that I took that into account), we came to a friendly agreement.Dragaera is a genuine parallel alternate world. We agreed that at the
time of the separation. Steve would make enough changes to make his
world his own but use some shared characters, especially on the mythic
level like Nightslayer and Sethra and Zivra. I would consider my
versions of same to be another world and probably make some changes
along the way in the process. Boy, did I ever do that. I lost the
original Cycle and reconstructed a bunch of times. It’s only hit final
form now. I had to add one last House that took the place of a much
weaker House and write a short story about it to get the Piarran Cycle
perfect. So in a way, neither of us is writing Version 1.0, because
that would have to be compiled out of Steve’s notes and mine. I lived
an adventurous life and paper didn’t last. "
