Customer Reviews

The Paths of the Dead

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you haven't read The Pheonix Guard and 500 Years After, don't read this one. Brust writes these books in an authorial voice which is, to say the very least, unusual. Paarfi, the narrator, is an overeducated windbag with literary pretentions. He can turn a single sentence into a 500 word treatise, sometimes in a single sentence, and he frequenty starts out such exercises with a disclaimer about brevity or his desire to spare the reader a tedious explaination of the thing he is about to explain. That said, his writing is full of ironic wry humor for the reader willing to dig for it and inclined to appreciate it.

If you have read the previous two books in the series, I don't really have to do too much reviewing here. There's more Paarfi, and it's still just as much fun to read him as it was in the last two books. I could give you the entire plot of the book in two paragraphs, but where's the fun in that? In short, Khaavren is depressed about how well he protected the Emperor in the last book, Khaavren's son seeks adventure, Pel and Tazendra are still having adventures, and Aerich awaits. It may be beneath the notice of a gentleman, however, prudence dictates that we mention Mica's continued presence, not to mention that of his beloved barstool.

Brust gives us a little insight into the origins of Morrolan, Teldra, and the Necromancer. Sethra the Younger and the Sorceress in Green show up as well. The suggestion is that we will see a lot more of these two in the next two books. In fact, this whole book seems like an extended set up for the next one. But that's all fine. I enjoyed it, and I'm sure that doing all this set up will allow for a more complext storyline in the next book.

If I may be permitted two more words, I found the re-emergence of the grudge bearing nemisis to be predictable, and I enjoyed the guide to how to write like Paarfi at the end of the book.

For the last ten years or so, _The Viscount of Adrilankha_ has been listed as a forthcoming book. Well, here it is, at least in part. In _The Paths of the Dead_ Steven Brust continues his amusing Dumas riff with a parallel to that esteemed author's _The Vicomte de Bragelonne_. Like that work, PotD is the first of a trilogy. Also like that work, PotD is, well, a pale shadow of its very entertaining predecessors.

Essentially, this book is the tale of the end of the Dragearan Interregnum (or the beginning thereof) and the oft mentioned story of how Zerika III traveled the Paths of the Dead to bring back the Orb and restore the Empire. If you don't know what that last sentence meant, you probably do not want to read this book because PotD takes for granted a certain familiarity with Brust's previous work in this particular world. Start with _The Phoenix Guards_ or something in the Vlad Taltos line.

I did not enjoy this book as much as I usually enjoy Brust's work, and especially the volumes in this series. Although the Dragaeran books are numerous and -- I suspect -- encompass a vast, single story, each volume until now has stood alone, telling a complete tale. PotD does not, not really. It does get Zerika through her task, but the vast cast of other characters are merely jockeyed about with very little sense that they have any connection to anything. I particularly could not fathom why Morrolan appeared in this book at all, as he didn't do anything. I would have preferred it if Brust had just left him out of it and brought him in in _The Lord of Castle Black_. I also felt that the coachman could have used more explanation to make him fit into this reality. As it was, he just seemed like an interesting concept from _The Gypsy_ that didn't quite fit.

I also have to admit that the Paarfi-speak is wearing a little thin with me. When you have a book where something is actually happening it's an amusing stylistic device. But so little happened in PotD that it felt as though the sole reason for the book was to continue the stylistic exercise; I was keenly aware that the language actually was used to stretch a very brief narrative into 400-odd pages. And I found the treatise on how to write like Paarfi a bit smug, like someone indulging in an in-joke. I've read 3 books in this style now, I don't really need to have the details pointed out to me.

All in all, I think I would have preferred it if Brust (and/or the publisher) had just waited and released _The Viscount of Adrilankha_ as one book, or all at one time. I'd waited ten years for it, I could have waited a couple more. And I don't feel that BRust's style (or Paarfi's) is really suited to a boundaryless story with no clear progression or end.

Brust fans will want to read this one, but if you aren't already a fan, don't start here!

Stephen Brust has two quite different sets of stories set in his Dragaerean world. The first and older set involves the tales of Vlad Taltos, assassin, crimelord and human - well, Easterner. He lives in a society dominated by tall, very long-lived, sorcerous Elves - well, Humans. Think of Raymond Chandler, but more imaginative and much better written. The second and more recent series is written as a conscious, deliberate homage to Alexander Dumas, most famously the author of "The Three Musketeers." This novel is the third book in that series, and is very much a sequel to "The Phoenix Guards" and "Five Hundred Years After." In this book, those two sets of stories finally begin to merge.

The novel opens with the Drageara and the Elves' empire in chaos. The events at the end of "Five Hundred Years After" have destroyed the empire, and in its place brought plagues, squabbling warlords, scheming sorcerors and invading Easterners. Into this stew Brust brings the story of the restoration of sorcery and the Empire, the end of the Interregnum and the prolix writing style of Paarfi of Roundwood, the fictional author of each of these historic romances.

Paarfi should be a Hungarian translation of Dumas. Except that Brust is more ironic and sometimes hysterically funny in his "translation" of Paarfi. Between the hyperformal courtesy of the characters and their circumlocutions, the narrative sometimes takes some wild tangents.

But the narrative thread is never lost, and if you appreciate sheer elegance in writing and wildly imaginative plotting, you will like this book. Old friends from both narrative lines appear, and a selection of new and equally wonderful characters.

This is the first book of a trilogy, and as is the case in any first book of a trilogy a fair amount of time is spent in introducing characters and laying out plot threads. Presumably the second and third books will tell us why Morrolan (well known to readers of the Taltos books) is involved, and the role Ibronka will play.

One of Brust's finest characteristics is his willingness to experiment. In some of the Taltos books, the experiments involved the narrative voice or view, for example. Combining the Dumas-themed romances with a trilogy is another such experiment. Brust is deft and delightful in this first book. I look forward to the next two.

Don't neglect the essay at the end on how to write like Paarfi. On each re-reading, it is more amusing. The essay, like the hysterical "interview" of Paarfi by Brust at the end of "Five Hundred Years After," is very nearly perfectly written.

If you love good writing, even if you have never heard of Duams, you will like this novel.

The best thing I can say about _The Paths of the Dead_ is that it made me want to go back and read _Taltos_, which I did. Man, that _Taltos_ sure was a good book.

Most of the problems with this book could be summed up by saying "Paarfi", but can we blame an imaginary construct? Okay, there are the two styles of the Dragaera books, the hard-boiled (mainly) first-person Vlad books and the historical, Dumas-inspired Khaavren romances. The later of which is attributed to a Dragearan author named Paarfi, and Brust lists himself as the translator and puts any blame on style, content, etc. on Paarfi. I can accept these differences and feel that they give two distinct flavors to the seperate series in the same universe. "Paarfi's" first two excursions _The Phoenix Guards_ and _500 Years After_ were wonderful, especially _500 Years After_ which gave us an account of one of the most mentioned historical figures from the Vlad books, as well as allowing us to meet the oft-mentioned Adron and Mario. If only _Paths of the Dead_ were anywhere near as good as it's predecessors.

If this book had been a Vlad book, without the flowery writing, it would have been about 50 pages. The writing style, while pleasant in the first two Khaavren, it seemed too much for too little in this one. Secondly, there was too much build up for too little pay off. There were characters who "warranted" their own chapters who were just being introduced in the third-to-last chapter. Zerika's trip in the Paths of the Dead was much less interesting than Vlad and Morollan's and much more poorly written. It seemed like her whole trip was written as it came to mind and went on long enough to fill up a chapter. Granted, this is supposed to be part of one book broken up into three parts, but it should be able to stand on its own.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the inconsistencies. This book contradicts what Morollan told Vlad in _Taltos_ about events regarding Zerika's regaining the orb. Since _Taltos_ is from Vlad's point of view, there is no reason for Vlad to lie about what Morollan said happened, and no reason for Morollan to lie to Vlad. Therefore, one can chalk it up to "Paarfi". However, if Paarfi has done the interviews that are mentioned in the book, then there should be no reason for this dicrepancy. Since the book was "written" during the reign of Norathar, the only assumption that can be made is that key players, about whom events are incorrect, are dead. That presents some interesting questions, but I don't think they were intentional.

I would say, without question, that this is the worst of the Dragaeran books. If you haven't read ANY of the others, it may stand on its own, I don't know. But the biggest let down for someone who has read all of the others is that it is nowhere-as-good as its predecessors.

First off, I would strongly advise reading the two earlier books - even though this is advertised as Book 1 of "The Viscount of Adrilankha," it is not, in fact, the first book in the series. You should read "The Phoenix Guards" and "Five Hundred Years After" first. I'll wait while you click to buy those... OK, you're back. (I should mention that there are fan websites for this series, which I have not viewed; it is possible that there are people who give you far more in the way of hints and spoilers than this reviewer will. I myself prefer to avoid spoilers so that I can have the joy of looking for all the inside jokes and solving all the puzzles without help, and only looking for other people's interpretations after I have gone as far as possible on my own.)

Now a little bit about the series. The first book made me talk funny for several days, and my spousal unit is STILL talking funny on occasion, even though it's been a year since we discovered "The Phoenix Guards." "Five Hundred Years Later" was not quite as funny - but it contains a great deal of plot you won't want to miss. This book gets back to being hysterically funny, and it leaves the reader thinking in long paragraphs which contain sentences which have several nested clauses within them. So, sort of like some other famous series, the first and third book (where this is the third) are better than the 2nd; you read the 2nd as a bridge between the two.

Now, this book in particular. In this book, Brust acknowledges the deep debt he has to Tolkein. What, you say? You pretend that there is some connection between Tolkein's fantasy and Brust's, beyond that of the general category of fantasy? Well, yes, I do myself the honor of making that claim. There has been a great deal of imitation of Tolkein over the past 40 years, featuring elves and whatnot that have funny names and go on quests for magical objects, and most of it, in my opinion, stinks. Brust's books, however, take the same basic elements but make something creatively new while acknowledging "the mother of all modern fantasy." For example, in this book, we finally learn what the Easterners - you know, those short-lived people like us - call the Dragaerans: elfs. We find this out through a very funny scene in which Morrolan discovers that he is an elf, and wanders through several pages doing the Dragaeran equivalent of smacking his head: I'm an *elf*?!? *I'm* an elf?!? And we, of course, also smack our heads, because while we knew that Dragaerans were different, we didn't think of applying this term to them, but now that we hear it, we go, of course! Long-lived, tall and slender, trying to be kind to short and short-lived people, even though they don't mix much? Of course they're elves!

Next, we have a blatant tribute to LOTR, in which our mixed party of elfs and humans enters an enchanted mountain by way of an invisible door into that mountain...

By the way, it is absolutely necessary that you read all of the acknowledgments, introductions, and so on, especially the essay at the end, "Some Notes Toward Two Analyses of Auctorial Method and Voice." This is known, for short, as "How to write like Paarfi." Here, there is more fun. One of my favorite lines is the one about the play "Redwreath and Goldstar Have Travelled to Deathsgate." It is possible, if you are not of my generation, that you don't know what this refers to, and I will only give you one hint: translate the names Redwreath and Goldstar into German. (Or Dutch, and I suspect Danish and Swedish are similar.)

There are also, throughout the book, many subtle references to some of the great classics of fantasy, and if you are a younger reader who has not read them all, I would suggest picking up some copies of, amongst others, Fritz Leiber's works. (A sentence from the short story, "The Holy Grail":
"The great magician (there was something hysterical about the way Mouse insisted on that "great," for to the world Glavas Rho was but a hedge-wizard, no better than a Mingol necromancer with his second-sighted spotted dog or a conjurer beggar of Quarmall) - the great magician and his dwelling were alike protected by strong enchantments no impious outsider cound breach - not even (the heart of Mouse skipped a beat) the lord paramount of these forests, Duke Janarrl, who hated all magic, but white worse than black."
And that's by no means the longest sentence in there! Furthermore, the city in Leiber's stories is named Lankhmar, clearly an antecedent of Adrilankha.) While much of Leiber's work may seem old-fashioned - much of it was written about 40 years ago) - it contains the seeds of much of the same kind of humor and sword-and-sorcery that Brust uses.

In short: if you hate wordplay and adventure, you'll hate this book; everyone else, however, should enjoy it hugely!!

This is my first online review for any book and I chose to do a review for this book specifically because I could not fathom the poor reviews others have posted. Are they reading the same book?

Well... perhaps the poor reviews are understandable given that POTD is not meant to stand on its own and depends very much on the "greater myth" being developed between this series and the Vlad Taltos series.

These points have been touched on in other reviews but I will emphasize them again here:

First, POTD does NOT stand on its own. One reviewer said reading POTD alone would be like reading "The Fellowship of the Ring" and expecting a complete self-contained story. I disagree - POTD is more like "The Two Towers", it's neither at the beginning nor at the end. Either way, POTD should not be your first choice as either an introduction to Brust, nor a reacquaintence after a lengthy abstinence. You just miss too much.

Secondly, both the Khaavren Romances (of which POTD is the third) and the Vlad Taltos series are both set in the same world and together tell a much larger epic story. I would add that POTD is the first book in the Khaavren series that really makes this apparent. If you've read the Vlad Taltos books then you will recognize names and events mentioned in "The Phoenix Guards" and "500 Years After" and go "a-ha", but in POTD you are just plain missing out if you haven't read the other series. For instance, the whole conversation between the "gods" makes almost no meaningful sense unless if you've read the Taltos books. I'd seriously recommend reading all the way up to Issola before starting POTD.

As far as the writing style goes, some may not like it but I happen to love it. Brust never ceases to leave me breathless with his writing "agility". He is quite simply the best writer of "conversation" I've yet encountered and the Paarfi style is a lot of fun. Wordy, yes, but not verbose. You have to read it to understand what I mean.

So to summarize, don't read POTD unless and until you've read both "The Phoenix Guards" and "500 Hundred Years After" AND you've also read the Taltos series. You will seriously kill the enjoyment of the book if you do otherwise plus you will miss out on too many of the "inside" jokes. For instance, the whole "elf" thing is not new as the subtitle to chapter 7 should have made clear. If that chapter's revelation tickled you then you'll be even more delighted to know that the Easterners are referred to as "dwarfs" in one of the Taltos books. So there you go, elfs and dwarfs and they all think they're human. Make of it what you will.

Excellent books.

The full VofA series (Paths of the Dead, Lord of Castle Black, and Sethra Lavode) has now been published. So I am submitting a new review.

There is one thing you must know about this book: it is incomplete. If you buy this thinking it is one book of a trilogy, you will find it disappointing. The pace is slow, dozens of characters are introduced and then ignored, and almost all of the plot threads are left hanging. Worst of all, there is hardly any Brustian sharp and painful character growth.

But ... if you get the whole VofA series and read it as though it is one novel, you will probably not mind any of this. Because all the flaws have to do with this book being nothing but the setup for the payoff that comes later. And if you actually get the payoff by reading the other books, that works.

No one would read "The Fellowship Of The Ring" and attempt to treat it as a work in isolation from rest of The Lord Of The Rings. The same should be true of this book.

This part of the full novel deals mainly with the Interregnum, the new empress, and (as described) the Paths of the Dead.

I enjoyed reading this book. But....

I have read all off Brust's other novels, and liked (or more than liked) all of them except Freedom And Necessity. For a fan, this was a fun bit of fluff. We get to see some of our favorite characters again, and get introduced to a few new ones. And if you like Parfi, you get more of him. If you don't like Parfi, you get more of him anyway.

But this book entirely lacks the emotional depth of a Vlad novel, to say nothing of a work like Agyar. For someone who does not know the characters involved, the book would be an exercise in frustration. There's no subtext here, just text.

We do get some moments of Brust-like wit and style, but without an exciting story or a deeper structure it becomes a cake which is all frosting and no cake.

This book is great, and is such a change of pace from other fantasy books. If you like Alexander Dumas, or Stephen Brust's other two romances, you will love this book. If you do not like thought provoking conversation and very little fighting with a plot revolved around multiple levels of intrigue, this book may not be for you.

The main source of enjoyment to be found in this book by me is the narrator of this story, a historian named Parfi. Some of my favorites of his in this novel are the chapter heading, "How the author, Forced Against His Will to Write of the Viscount's Travels, Attempts, for the Sake of the Reader, To Make Travel Interesting," and the sentance, "... a small, stuffy basement, which would have been damp, smelly, close, and dark, were it not, in fact, well-lit, which prevented it from being dark."

So to sum up, if you hate run on sentances and prefer characters to get to the point, do NOT buy this book. But if you are looking for a change of pace that just puts a smile on your face and keeps it there, this book is what you have been looking for, although I would suggest reading "The Phoenix Guards," and "500 Years After," first, as they are gems in their own right, and the information held within them will help one to understand some of the subtleties held within this book, although this book stands on its own. See, i have been reading this book for hours straight, and i am now beginning to write in run on sentances. I love this book!!

The Paths of the Dead is the first volume of the new The Viscount of Adrilankha trilogy, which itself is a sort of sequel to the earlier The Phoenix Guard and Five Hundred Years After, those volumes in turn being homages to the Three Musketeers work of Dumas.

The current novel, as with the other two above-mentioned works, takes place in the Draegera of the past, at least relative to Brust's other ongoing series, the Vlad Taltos saga. The first two books related events leading up to Adron's Disaster, and the new trilogy promises to deal with the Interregnum after the death of the Emperor, the loss of the Orb, and the fall of the Empire. Since Draegerans (who call themselves humans but, to us, are the elves, as named by the Easterners, who we would understand as being a bunch of quarrelsome and less advanced Hungarians) can easily live to be a thousand years old or more, barring disease or mishap, we get to see some familiar figures from the Taltos series, such as Morrolan and Sethra Lavode, the mysterious undead Enchantress of Dzur Mountain.

In any case, the volume to hand sets in motion the quest to recover the Orb from the Paths of the Dead, the afterworld ruled over by a pantheon of assorted and not-quite-omnipotent nor omniscient deities. We meet again with Khaavren, Pel, Aerich, and Tazendra (essentially D'Artagnan, Aramis, Porthos, and...uh...the other guy--Athos?), and are introduced as well to Piro, Khaavren's son, and a bunch of other members of the new generation who will be leading the effort to re-establish the Empire.

Most of the fun is in the dialogue, which is meant to be a tip of the hat to the style found in the work of Dumas. A typical exchange might go like this:

"If I might make so bold, I believe that you have conceived a plan."
"Well, and if I have?"
"You would do me the utmost honor if you were to condescend to share it with me."
"Bah, it is but a trivial notion."
"And yet, you can perceive that I have the keenest interest in hearing it."
"Then I shall share it with you."
"And you would be right to do so."
"Very well, you wish, then, to hear of my notion?"
"Shards! I have been asking for nothing else this past hour!"

And so on. Also amusing is the imperturbable aplomb with which all of the characters, regardless of rank and degree, meet all challenges and encounters. Even as one side regards the other prior to the battle, all participants display nothing but the utmost courtesy and have but seemingly little regard for the coming bloodshed and violence. This is only one aspect of Draegeran sensibilities. Being so long-lived, they think nothing of basically walking out the door to undertake a journey of several years, and it might be fifty or a hundred years between visits from friends.

I've enjoyed Brust's work (other than the terrible Freedom and Necessity, an epistolary novel he banged out with Emma Bull) for years now. I haven't read it since 1984, but I recall that his To Reign in Hell, his take on Milton, was really great, and it's finally back in print. And the Taltos series is pretty good, if somewhat intricate by now, since it's up to something like ten volumes.

Good stuff, and I await the paperback arrival of the next volume. Be aware, though, that a passing familiarity with other Brust works would be helpful, along with a high tolerance for Dumas.