Dragon [Hardcover]

Steven Brust (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

The author of such successful fantasy novels as The Phoenix Guards (Tor, 1991), Five Hundred Years After (Tor, 1994), and Freedom and Necessity (with Emma Bull, Tor, 1997), Steven Brust has established himself as a solid hardcover presence in swashbuckling, colorful fantasy.

But before these hardcovers, Brust had already established himself as a bestselling author of mass-market originals from Ace Books, with the seven novels of the wildly popular Vlad Taltos series. Now Tor Books is pleased to bring Brust's most popular series to hardcover, with a new novel of Vlad Taltos ... even better, a novel covering a mysterious episode in Vlad's life story which the series' innumerable fans have long been eagerly awaiting.

Vlad knows his trade: he kills people for a living. That skill got him his foothold in House Jhereg, running the rackets for a chunk of Adrilankha. You'd think that killing people would be excellent preparation for full-scale war, and Vlad thinks so, too. But on the spot, when he finds himself in the real trenches of a real war between rival Dragonlords, Vlad learns just how wrong he is.

Here are all the favorite characters of the popular Vlad Taltos series: Vlad's wisecracking reptile familiar Loiosh, the inscrutable Dragonlord Morrolan, and of course the ever-fascinating Sethra Lavode. Here are politics, treachery, sorcery, and -- always important in a Vlad Taltos novel -- food. Here are crackling wit, action, and storytelling zest. The publication of Dragon will be a fantasy event.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Vlad Taltos is not your average sword-and-sorcery hero. He runs a territory for the criminal House Jhereg. He's a witch with a flying reptilian familiar as smart and sarcastic as any sidekick in literature. He's also a master assassin in Adrilankha, the capital of the Dragaeran Empire. (Dragaerans are tall, very long-lived elves; Vlad is an Easterner, or human.)

Steven Brust is not your average fantasy writer. Like his mentor, Roger Zelazny, he enjoys playing with time. Although Dragon is the eighth book about Vlad to be published, most of it takes place between Taltos, the first book chronologically, and Yendi; interludes and an epilogue occur after Yendi, but before Jhereg. Dragon tells the story of the oft-mentioned Battle of Barritt's Tomb, and how Vlad enlisted in a Dragon army (Dragons are the warrior Dragaerans) and learned that war is nothing like assassination.

Vlad is quick to let readers know the score. "I'll let you stay confused a little longer, and if you don't trust me to clear everything up, then you can go hang. I've been paid." Trust him. Dragon stands alone, but don't miss the others (after Jhereg come Teckla, Phoenix, Athyra, and Orca). It's a fast-moving, satisfying series. --Nona Vero

From Publishers Weekly

"So there I was, in a full-scale battle; that is, in a place where no self-respecting assassin ought to be." Dashing Vlad Taltos, the swashbuckling hero of Brust's popular Taltos fantasy series, makes his hardcover debut after seven mass market appearances (Athyra, etc.), with an early episode in his adventures. Vlad's cleverness and skill as an assassin have earned him a place in House Jhereg. They've also drawn to him some interesting friends and enemies, as well as acquaintances who can be called a little of both. At the request of Lord Morrolan, a powerful figure in House of the Dragon, Vlad traces the theft of an ancient artifact, a Morganti greatsword, to a rival Dragonlord, the Count of Fornia. Although Fornia's motivation in the crime seems transparent?he wants to start a war over the accusation of theft?Morrolan obligingly agrees to fight. And when Fornia sends a couple of bruisers to tell Vlad to stay out of the matter, the assassin's outrage leads him to join Morrolan's forces. While Morrolan and his military strategist coolly plan each phase of the conflict, Vlad gets a close-up look at the ugliness of war. It doesn't take him long to decide that the physical fighting is a cover for a more subtle battle, and that the Morganti greatsword is the key. As always, Brust invests Vlad with the panache of a Dumas musketeer and the colloquial voice of one of Roger Zelazny's Amber heroes. This is a rousing adventure with enough humor, action and sneaky plot twists to please newcomers as well as longtime series fans.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312866925
• ISBN-13: 978-0312866921
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,559,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and raised in a family of Hungarian labor organizers, Steven Brust worked as a musician and a computer programmer before coming to prominence as a writer in 1983 with Jhereg, the first of his novels about Vlad Taltos, a human professional assassin in a world dominated by long-lived, magically-empowered human-like "Dragaerans." Over the next several years, several more "Taltos" novels followed, interspersed with other work, including To Reign in Hell, a fantasy re-working of Milton's war in Heaven; The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, a contemporary fantasy based on Hungarian folktales; and a science fiction novel, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille. The most recent "Taltos" novels are Dragon and Issola. In 1991, with The Phoenix Guards, Brust began another series, set a thousand years earlier than the Taltos books; its sequels are Five Hundred Years After and the three volumes of "The Viscount of Adrilankha": The Paths of the Dead, The Lord of Castle Black, and Sethra Lavode.While writing, Brust has continued to work as a musician, playing drums for the legendary band Cats Laughing and recording an album of his own work, A Rose for Iconoclastes. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where he pursues an ongoing interest in stochastics.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A guide to where to start with Vlad and other books...., November 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dragon (Hardcover)

First off, this is another great Vlad Taltos story from Steven Brust. However, if you haven't read any yet, you should really start elsewhere; perhaps Jhereg or Taltos. As mentioned above, this is perhaps the third story chronologically; Taltos describes the earliest events of Vlad's life that Brust has written about so far, and the events in Taltos immediately precede the main narrative of Dragon, but Jhereg was the first actually published, so start with either of those depending on whether you want to follow Brust's development or Vlad's.... We've thrust this series upon several friends, all of whom ended up quite pleased by said thrusting, and they all survived regardless of which book they read first. :)

I feel like I should tell you the things I really like about Brust's writing in general, and the Taltos series in particular. But after typing and deleting many, many sentences, I find I'm failing. My career as a book-reviewer may be as short-lived as a Jhereg who turns informer for the Phoenix Guard.

While I'm here, I just have to express my slack-jawed shock at how wildly inaccurate and sloppy the Kirkus "review" is. Almost every fact about the plot they list is either flat wrong or significantly, plot-changingly inaccurate! I think whoever wrote it just flipped through the pages. I could nail each example, but I don't approve of spoilers. Hey, Amazon, how about exercising a little Q/C here and yanking that piece of ***? (Although calling Sethra the "finest general ALIVE" did make me laugh...)

In summary, if you like Vlad Taltos, this is another great story of his early career and involvement with Morrolan and various Dragonlord plots and powerplays. If you haven't read any Vlad stories, perhaps order Jhereg, Taltos, and Dragon; you may well read all three in a single weekend and then read them again the next weekend!

And to make up for my inability to describe what I like about Brust, I'll give you a guide to further reading. If you want even more Dragaeran stories, and/or you're a fan of Dumas (The Three Musketeers), you should really read "The Phoenix Guards" and "Five Hundred Years After", which are set something like a millenia before Vlad's life. They're a whole-hearted tribute to and celebration of Dumas' story; and they really demonstrate what an enthusiastic fan Brust is, and what a writer that good can do when paying homage to a favorite of his.

For non-Dragaeran stories by Brust, you should really check out The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, which is a great retelling of a fairy tale, intertwined with a modern story about wrestling with art. Brust's own admitted "Best" book is Agyar, though he points out that's a different thing from his favorite book. I'm also a big fan of Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill (Brust's only sci-fi book so far); Gypsy (co-written with Megan Lindholm, aka Robin Hobb--whose Assassin trilogy is, in my wife's and my opinions, the finest fantasy trilogy since Lord of the Rings); and Freedom and Necessity, co-written with Emma Bull.

If you like Brust, you may also want to check out Spider Robinson (try Deathkiller/Lifehouse or the Stardancer trilogy), Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm (either the Assassin trilogy or Cloven Hooves) or Emma Bull (how about Finder?). I'm sure Brust would also HIGHLY recommend Roger Zelazny, though I'm not sure where to start with him.

And to stray even farther from Brust, I'll throw in Jonathan Lethem's Gun with Occasional Music and Jonathan Carroll's Outside the Dog Museum.

Sorry if I'm "off-topic", but hey, this is exactly the sort of conversation you would have with Steven if you started talking about his books. He tells you about OTHER books he really loves. Come to think of it, this is the sort of conversation I have with my friends who ask me about what I'm reading. Best thing that I could hope for is that you find a book you'll enjoy that you might never have found otherwise.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vlad's in the army now, September 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dragon (Hardcover)

In this, the most recent addition to the Taltos series, Brust takes us back to Vlad's youth to reveal the story of the battle of Baritt's Tomb, which is mentioned in many of the other books. It is set after the events of Taltos, with occasional segues into the time just after Yendi. Vlad accepts a commission from his new friend Duke Morrolan, which is ostensibly to defend the wizard Baritt's hoard of sorcerous weapons. As so often happens, he finds himself dragged into an affair that is far too big for him to handle, involving a feudal dispute (read:war) between arrogant Dragonlords and the foundations of a plan by the mysterious Serioli that may shake the foundations of Dragaera itself. The action is intense, with vividly and beautifully rendered battle scenes. Dragon's dialogue is easily the wittiest and most amusing of the entire series, especially in the interchanges between Vlad and his jhereg familiar Loiosh. In summary, this is the finest of Brust's recent entries in the Taltos saga, and should not be missed under any circumstances.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dragon: A Prequel Of Sorts, May 26, 2000

By 

Joe White (Layton, Utah United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dragon (Hardcover)

Tired of epic fantasy? Irritated by authors who imitate Tolkien over and over? Want something new and different?

Put this in your glass and drink it.

Vlad Taltos is not your typical fantasy hero. He ain't no farm boy with a destiny to fulfill nor is he an apprentice to a mighty wizard blah, blah, blah. Vlad Taltos is an assassin and mob boss and most of the Vlad Taltos novels are told from his point of view.

Dragon is the eighth Vlad Taltos novel (but the second one chronologically). In this one, Vlad joins the military, fights in a famous battle and nearly gets killed a few times -- all in the name of revenge. There is no destiny here, no prophecy that must be filled, this novel is about simple revenge, greed and not so honorable honor.

This is epic fantasy turned upside-down and spanked on it's bottom. And it is great! Steven Brust certainly puts the likes of Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan to shame because Brust presents us with new and unique fantasy. It's epic fantasy with a sarcastic wit and very fallible characters.

Hey, Dragon and all the Vlad Taltos novels are good books. Pick 'em up.