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A review by ostrava
Jhereg by Steven Brust
3.0
Mixed feelings. Mostly positive, but my rating feels like a favor more than anything else.
First of all, it was hard to figure out what kind of setting the novel had. Apparently, it's industrial... Renaissance? More specifically the Reformation period? But not really, because everything felt very modern, so I thought this was borderline sci-fi? And there are like, jungles around this planet, but it's more european in nature? I don't know, it's very weird. I guess it doesn't matter, but it was very distracting.
You know what's not confusing? Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. Now, I will admit Jhereg is better than either of the two novels in Dresden I've read so far, but the clarity of both the plot and the worldbuilding is missing here, although I'm sure future installments could make up for it. Both series are also surprisingly similar. There is the insert-fantasy of the author, it's all pulpy and very straightforward... however, Vlad has more depth than Harry, and the originality of Brust is more remarkable.
Not everything was of my liking of course. The "fantasy" is barely present in the tale, the dragons may as well not have been a thing, so-so writing, shallow info-dumping, especially at the first half of the story...but oh well. It's a good book and I'm satisfied. Nonetheless, I feel neither a "call" to read more installments (right now at least), nor did I feel any special connection to the story. If nothing else, I've already found my 80s pulp fiction to kill the time in the future, now that Elric has proven to not be of my liking. Also, there weren't any weird mysoginy or poorly aged politics in the book, for an old series, that's always a plus.
First of all, it was hard to figure out what kind of setting the novel had. Apparently, it's industrial... Renaissance? More specifically the Reformation period? But not really, because everything felt very modern, so I thought this was borderline sci-fi? And there are like, jungles around this planet, but it's more european in nature? I don't know, it's very weird. I guess it doesn't matter, but it was very distracting.
You know what's not confusing? Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. Now, I will admit Jhereg is better than either of the two novels in Dresden I've read so far, but the clarity of both the plot and the worldbuilding is missing here, although I'm sure future installments could make up for it. Both series are also surprisingly similar. There is the insert-fantasy of the author, it's all pulpy and very straightforward... however, Vlad has more depth than Harry, and the originality of Brust is more remarkable.
Not everything was of my liking of course. The "fantasy" is barely present in the tale, the dragons may as well not have been a thing, so-so writing, shallow info-dumping, especially at the first half of the story...but oh well. It's a good book and I'm satisfied. Nonetheless, I feel neither a "call" to read more installments (right now at least), nor did I feel any special connection to the story. If nothing else, I've already found my 80s pulp fiction to kill the time in the future, now that Elric has proven to not be of my liking. Also, there weren't any weird mysoginy or poorly aged politics in the book, for an old series, that's always a plus.