The Book of Jhereg

The Book of Jhereg: Contains the Complete Text of Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla (Vlad Taltos) Steven Brust Date: 01 August, 1999   —   $10.88   —   Book product page Rating:

Fiction, Fantasy
This book is a compendium of Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla, the first three published books featuring Vlad Taltos.

So now I must wonder how I managed to miss Brust all of these years. I've seen these books described as "swashbuckling", though that is a description that better fits the author himself (featured on the ninth page of the final segment of the World's End graphic novel [Sandman].) I would rather liken them to mystery novels, even though they are not presented as such; Taltos has all the abilities of a good detective, as well as a mean hand with a dagger (or several.)

Vlad lives as a sort of second-class citizen, a standard human (more or less) in a city of Dragaera, tall semi-elvish types with long lifespans and powerful sorcery. His father bought a title with the Jhereg, the one branch of the Dragaeran race that will accept anybody. However, a lifetime of taunts and beatings led him to develop his career as a sort of mob boss and assassin— the second job not always permanent, as people can often be revivified after death. That way, he gets to beat up and kill Dragaerans and get paid for it as well.

However, since all he knows are Dragaeran (most "Easterners" live in a slum, and Vlad's not interested in slums), he actually has a few friends who are Dragaeran, which would seem strange were it not for the fact that it's fairly evident that Vlad has not really thought things through. In both Jhereg and Teckla (Yendi is set a bit earlier chronologically) he is forced to face some of his preconceptions; though he shies away from doing so, it is obvious that it's only a matter of time before he must.

All three books are very fast-paced and take place in a short period of time; I would highly recommend purchasing the omnibus so that you can continue on once you've got a taste for the tale of Vlad.

*P.S. Damn you, Borders, for not having the sequels available when I needed my fix.

Gravity Dreams

Gravity Dreams L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Date: 15 July, 2000   —   $6.99   —   Book product page Rating:

Fiction, Science Fiction

This book is set somewhat earlier than the Parafaith War, when space travel is more of a continuum than an instantaneous jump. Tyndel is a member of a low-tech community, teaching a vaguely Eastern style of thought that discourages questions. However, he is infected with nanites, becoming what his people call a demon, and he flees towards the high-tech country to the north. They save him, but nothing is free: Tyndel is perfectly suited to become one of the rare pilots in space, edging around dagers along the paths.

Of course, as with many Modesitt protagonists, he's none too happy about his lot, but once he gets over himself he becomes quite entertaining. And then, of course, there is the anomaly in space, the one that many pilots have been lost near. The one that now seems to be talking to him...

The Parafaith War

The Parafaith War L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Date: 15 February, 1997   —   $7.19   —   Book product page Rating:

Fiction, Science Fiction

Trystin has a problem. On the one side, his home federation Eco-Tech is carefully restraining population while working on making dead planets habitable. On the other side are the Revenants, people of a faith that mandates expansion. Trystin can see that they are human, but he has to stop them from taking over the planets of the Eco-tech.

To make things worse, this is not just a war of views; the Revenants are largely of a different genetic stock than the Eco-Techs, and Trystin looks like a Revenant. So even as he works to provide security for his homeland, he is looked upon with deep suspicion. And then he is tapped as a spy, and given a mission that is sure to kill him, while doing, as he thinks, very little good... unless he can figure out an alternative.

This is one of Modesitt's better books, in part because Trystin is genuinely trying to do the right thing while not feeling that the world is unfair. He's also a lot more hopeful than many of Modesitt's protagonists; though the future looks bleak, he's convinced that if he's careful, he can have a positive effect on both sides. This book also convinces me that Modesitt has one major universe that he plays around in for both science fiction and fantasy: one can see the hints of a future war that leads to the people of the Recluce series. (It is not merely that one side or the other becomes the chaos and the order groups; it is obvious that there is a lot of crossover between the two groups before the war of the angels.)

True North: A Memoir

True North : A Memoir Jill Ker Conway Date: 15 August, 1995   —   $9.75   —   Book product page Rating:

Nonfiction, Memoir

This sequel to Road From Coorain continues Ker Conway's journey. She writes of meeting her husband and of becoming a professor; she details how she learned to convey her interest in her studies to her students, and how that led to a professorial role in a new university. She is astonished to find herself offered a new, high position in the university, because despite her studies into the role of women in history, she has forgotten to consider her own merits. However, she is nonetheless surprised when her appointment makes her the center of attention as "the first."

One of the things notable about Ker Conway's life is the de facto feminism— she does her best to equalize pay scales and hire women as a means of doing things fairly, not to undo old wrongs. Her solutions are equitable— such as a means of truly determining a female professor's worth— and her discoveries interesting, such as the fact that when she places an ad for a professorial position, there are women applicants, though there are none when a male places the ad. Nowadays, when feminism has won many of the goals Ker Conway sought, it is important to look at how hard it was only a short time ago.

But in the end, I'll just say that it's interesting, and you should read it. Really.

The Road From Coorain

The Road from Coorain Jill Ker Conway Date: 11 August, 1990   —   $9.00   —   Book product page Rating:

Nonfiction, Memoir

Jill Ker grew up in the lonliest style imaginable, sheep farming in grassland Australia. When her father dies near the end of a years-long killing drought, her family moves to Sydney and she begins her education, a path that will lead her to trying to fathom the cultural and educational shackles placed on colonial mindsets. That path takes her to England and Canada and America, allowing her to contrast the experiences of different English-speaking lands.

This book provides an amazing amount of perspective for a short volume. Ker Conway's lyrical descriptions of the landscape provide a vivid backdrop for the revelations she experiences, including the fact that the Australia of her time was severely hampered by an inferiority complex and by trying to live up to British ideals, while the English knew that they could use Australia as political capital with little negative impact at home— not to mention the entrenched racism. She notes how the Puritan ideals of New England hampered the natural enjoyment of life that college students at Harvard deserved, and how Canadian students suffered from a need to differentiate themselves from the powerful country to the south.

Most of all, she is shocked by the barriers she has to overcome as a woman; as she says, she had been unconsciously assuming the male role in her internal story. This leads her to an interest in the female role in history, and into prominence in her field (academia) as a pioneering woman.

She writes with a clear-eyed interest that engages the reader, and while she definitely has her low points, her conclusions are well worth examining.

A Brother's Journey: Surviving a Childhood of Abuse

A Brother's Journey : Surviving a Childhood of Abuse Richard Pelzer Date: 05 January, 2005   —   $14.93   —   Book product page Rating:

Nonfiction, Memoir/Abuse

The name Pelzer should seem familiar. Dave Pelzer was the author (and subject) of the book A Child Called It, a horrifying tale of child abuse (one of the worst in California history.) He details his life in that book and its sequels, and the extraordinary part about the whole business is how well he turned out. (Dave Pelzer now works with troubled children and teenagers, and is, incidentally, a very funny man.)

However, though he was removed from his mother's control, he was only one of five boys— and he suspected that the abuse would continue on one of his siblings. This is the story of that sibling, up until the age of sixteen— not when he escaped his mother's control, but when he made a decision to change his life. There is room for a sequel, the book of rebuilding, but at least we know he is in a stable marriage with children, and that this book is one of the latter steps in coming to term with his past.

This is most definitely not a book for the faint of heart. The tortures within— limited to one child— actually happened, and though it seems incredible that it went on for years after one child was already removed, this was during a time when abuse was still below the radar, when people were afraid to get involved. The fact that not one, but two brothers survived the abuse while still being alive and sane (especially since the abuse seems to be the outgrowth of mental illness in their mother) is incredible. But don't read this book if you can't take graphic depictions of abuse, because people can be incredibly depraved and still not be stopped.

Hôtel Transylvania

Hôtel Transylvania Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Date: 1979   —   $6.29   —   Book product page Rating:

Fiction, Horror

Maybe it's because I'm jaded. Maybe it's because I've watched too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer to find this breaking any new ground. (Yes, I understand that this predates BtVS by a large margin.) But though this vampire tale is well-written, and came out near enough to Interview With the Vampire to be part of a minor movement to re-examine the role of the vampire, I'm just not that interested anymore.

However, if you like Anne Rice's Vampire books, but have yet to read these, you will almost certainly enjoy them. The most ineresting part, of course, is that Yarbro has based her vampire on a real person, Saint-Germain, and if accounts are correct, I'd like to learn about him.