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A review by ashleylm
Yendi by Steven Brust
3.0
These are (thus far) very enjoyable books, but with enough irksome qualities to keep my score below a 4. Others have chimed in on its good points, so I'll mainly stick to my quibbles.
The lively supporting cast that I met in #1 Jhereg seem to lack characterization compared to my introduction to them--they are names, rather than personalities.
There is also a mass of new people (mainly henchmen) that were impossible to keep straight, nor did it matter (my default mode is to assume if the author names them, it's important to remember who they are, which is not the case here).
I'm irked that the many characters who kill people for a living constantly refer to this job as 'working' with single quotes, even in dialogue, when no one can hear single quotes. It makes it seem as if everyone's embarrassed about their job, which makes no sense when discussing killing others and how exactly it was or would be done, or was already done to you (revivification's a thing).
The whole attitude to killing is strange, and bothered me in the first one--it's either an inconvenience (because you get revivified shortly after), or a permanent death (because you didn't), and it makes for really awkward reading half the time but is inescapable because this quirk in his world-building is the major distinguishing quality of the setting and was much-belabored in book one.
Quibbles aside, it's a fun quick read, and perhaps was a weaker moment in the series. I'll find out soon enough.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
The lively supporting cast that I met in #1 Jhereg seem to lack characterization compared to my introduction to them--they are names, rather than personalities.
There is also a mass of new people (mainly henchmen) that were impossible to keep straight, nor did it matter (my default mode is to assume if the author names them, it's important to remember who they are, which is not the case here).
I'm irked that the many characters who kill people for a living constantly refer to this job as 'working' with single quotes, even in dialogue, when no one can hear single quotes. It makes it seem as if everyone's embarrassed about their job, which makes no sense when discussing killing others and how exactly it was or would be done, or was already done to you (revivification's a thing).
The whole attitude to killing is strange, and bothered me in the first one--it's either an inconvenience (because you get revivified shortly after), or a permanent death (because you didn't), and it makes for really awkward reading half the time but is inescapable because this quirk in his world-building is the major distinguishing quality of the setting and was much-belabored in book one.
Quibbles aside, it's a fun quick read, and perhaps was a weaker moment in the series. I'll find out soon enough.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).