Lyorn – Steven Brust

“Lyorn” doesn’t stand alone. If you haven’t read most of the Vlad Taltos novels that have come out over the last four decades, you won’t much enjoy book #17, and it won’t make much sense to you. This book is for die-hards who have been reading the series for that long, and really want to know how the last few books come out.

For me, this book book failed its most important test: It wasn’t fun. The book is short, but it took several sittings.

It’s clever, very clever. Vlad is hiding out in a theatre that is putting on a controversial play. A long time ago a Lyorn emperor suppressed news of a massacre. Then someone wrote a play about it - and the emperor suppressed the play. Then someone wrote a play about the play (the second play is the controversial play in question) and house Lyorn is attempting to suppress it. So there’s a lawsuit about a play about a lawsuit about a play…

So we open with the problem that someone is trying to assassinate Vlad, but Brust stirs in several additional components that only-sort-of mesh with that problem. The theater itself is rife with problems that Vlad is asked to solve. Vlad is keeping himself amused by reading the history of the original massacre and play - and we get quite a few excerpts, even though the history sheds little light on the rest of the story. It’s a musical, and Brust starts each chapter with a song whose lyrics pertain to the play and whose music is obviously that of various well-known show tunes. There’s a plot to destroy the mystical foundations of the empire in which the story is placed, and we are treated to a bit of exposition on the subject.

So…

• Extremely clever.
• Resolution depends on help from many characters the reader is expected to recognize from earlier books in the series.
• The writing and plotting are executed with considerable skill.
• It’s the opposite of a page-turner: The story was not engaging.