Yendi, by Steven Brust

Yendi
Steven Brust
Ace: 1984

Rather than picking up in Yendi where he left off in Jhereg, Steven Brust’s second Vlad Taltos novel takes the reader back to a time in which Vlad was still increasing the amount of territory he would control as a capo in the House of Jhereg.

Yendi tells two stories. First is the conflict between Vlad and Laris, a neighboring crime lord encroaching on Vlad’s territory. This conflict flamed into a street war which attracted the notice of the city’s ruling elite. The second story is of the meeting of Vlad and Cawti, the woman who would later be his wife. A good portion of Yendi details some of Vlad's background that was not covered in Jhereg, though this is something likely to continue throughout the series.

On his website, Brust has this to say about Yendi.

My least favorite book. It was such a relief to get back to Vlad after struggling with To Reign In Hell that I didn't pay enough attention to what I was doing--I just wrote a straight-ahead story with nothing much else to it. That's fine, in my opinion, if it's a Really Good Story. But Yendi is only an okay story. I'd love to be able write this one over.

Not very positive, and while I can appreciate the author’s perspective that he did not accomplish what he wanted to with the novel and his prerogative for feeling so, what Brust is overlooking here is that for the reader, Yendi is still a damn entertaining novel. If this is the Vlad Taltos novel which Brust feels is his weakest, the rest of them should be damn fine indeed. Yendi may be a straightforward novel which didn’t achieve Brust’s aims, but the fact is, Yendi was a pleasure to read. Readers will enjoy this second trip into the world of the Dragaera and the wise-cracking (yet serious) assassin Vlad Taltos. Vlad is smart (unsurprisingly, so is the author) and this comes across on the page. Violence is the trade of Vlad Taltos, and he will resort to it when needed, but first he wants and needs to figure out what is going on. It is that game of trying to stay one step ahead (or to catch up) that is the true pleasure for the reader of the Vlad Taltos novels, and in that, Brust was quite successful.


Other Reviews
Jhereg

Jhereg, by Steven Brust

Jhereg
Steven Brust
Ace: 1983


Vlad Taltos is an assassin in the city of Adrilankha. He is a human in a land ruled by Dragaerans who have lives spanning thousands (upon thousands) of years. Vlad is a skilled assassin who has succeeded by virtue of skill, hard work, and with the good fortune of having some powerful friends. Besides being an assassin, Vlad also operates as mid-level mob boss in Adrilankha.

The primary storyline of Jhereg regards Vlad’s acceptance of a contract to kill a Dragaeran named Mellar, a member of the ruling Council of the Jhereg crime organization of which Vlad is ultimately a member. Mellar managed to steal the entire treasury of the Council and disappear. Vlad’s contract is not simply to kill Mellar, but to do so in a expeditious manner. Too many delays and word will get out that the Council can be hit, and that word may be enough to bring down the whole organization.

The rest of the novel works like many an urban secondary world detective novel, only here the successful conclusion of the case will result in the death of the target, rather than the resolution of a mystery. Of course, Jhereg predates Glen Cook’s Garrett PI novels by half a decade, not to mention later works from Alex Bledsoe. I mention Cook and Bledsoe because they are very much in the vein of Jhereg and they are the easiest comparisons to what sort of novel Jhereg is.

With that said, Steven Brust did it first and he is very much his own man here.

Jhereg was my first real experience reading the fiction of Steven Brust (his Firefly fanfic novel nothwithstanding). I had seen the man twice at the Fourth Street Fantasy convention and was impressed by Brust in person, and plenty of people there spoke highly of his fiction, but somehow over the last two years I still delayed reading Jhereg. It’s one of those novels you put off reading for no good reason and then realize when you’re done that you were a damn fool for waiting because it’s really that good.
Jhereg really is that good.

The novel opens slowly, with a bit of history of the character, and Brust takes his time setting up the central conflict. The initial impression is that Brust is clever with dialogue, but the reader will expect to be merely satisfied by the end of the novel. But here’s the trick Steven Brust pulls off. The longer you stay with Jhereg the better it gets. The world becomes deeper and richer, the characters more compelling. Vlad Taltos becomes an old friend who you don’t mess with. Brust lures the reader in chapter after chapter. Before you know it, you’re hooked and you don’t want to put Jhereg down for fear you might miss what’s in the next chapter, and the next.

There is really no better way to be introduced to Steven Brust. This is the first of twelve novels featuring Vlad Taltos and if Jhereg is any indication (it should be), once you read one, you’ll want to read the rest.

If you haven’t read Brust before, you should. Fans of Glen Cook and Alex Blesdoe owe it to themselves to find the early Vlad Taltos novels and give them a shot (the first three are also collected in the omnibus edition The Book Jhereg).