Jhegaala, by Steven Brust

I was joyed to see a new book by Brust; I have really enjoyed his other pieces, and looked forward to this one. I have to admit, I was at first a bit confused about where this story in the Vlad timeline, but it became a little obvious once we learned he was carrying Spellbreaker. A little.

I really like the way Brust writes. I like Taltos as a character, especially. As mentioned previously, Vlad is a swash-buckling sort of guy. I also like the intrigue the Brust builds into his story and players. One thing that struck me about Jhegaal was that there was not a lot of ton of action involving the super-powers, or even the warlocks, sorcerror/wizzard types ("elves" or Dragaeran). This was mostly about the Easterners, Vlad's homebodies. And Brust does a great job painting this folk as being more alien to Vlad, which sets the scene for a great little mystery/drama.

One thing that is a little jarring to a reader like me is the months-turned-years wait between reading of the various stories. I am glad I got to read the Amber in one monster volume; reading about Vlad in piece-meal, amidst a lot of other sci-fi (not to mention Real Life) contributes to me forgetting about the Phoenix stone and other artefacts that Vlad has picked up on his brief but illustrous journey. To that end, I can easily see Vlad being a D&D character, for better or worse. When does that come to the PC? =)