21 April, 2004
Orca, Steven Brust (290 pp, MMPB, 1996)
Moving right along, to book seven in the Vlad Taltos series. (Wow, if it wasn't for a couple of comic books, the front page of this booklog would be 100% Vlad!) Orca takes place a year after Athyra. Vlad's on the road with Savn, and they end up in Northport, a small harbor city. Vlad's looking for somebody to help Savn with the problem he developed in the course of Athyra, and after a long search, has found a likely prospect in Hwdf'rjaanci, a Dragaeran woman living in an ugly blue house outside of Northport. The lady has been threatened with eviction from her land, and Vlad has agreed to help resolve her real estate issue in return for her helping Savn. Of course, this is not as easy as it seems, there's some confusion over who actually owns the land, which is connected to a string of failed businesses, which is connected to a covered-up murder, which is connected to a massive Enron-like financial scandal with the potential to undermine the fiscal security of the entire Empire. (It really is presciently Enron-like. I wonder if they got the idea from Brust's book?)
This is the first time I've reread this book, and I found it the least enjoyable of the Vlad books thus far. Mostly, I think, due to the overly-complicated framing device, whereby Brust cranks the "unreliable narrator" schtick up to 11. Follow this carefully: the story is, for the most part, narrated by Vlad's friend Kiera (who's helping him out with his investigation), who is telling the story to Vlad's ex-wife Cawti. On top of that, some parts are told in Vlad's voice, which is him telling things to Kiera, as related by Kiera to Cawti. Then, there are the short bits of Cawti-Kiera conversation interspersed throughout. On top of it all, the text of the book (as narrated by Kiera) can't possibly be the exact words she's telling Cawti, because it includes things which Kiera would never tell Cawti, and because Kiera's story continues in the book after her conversation with Cawti ends. Confused yet? I sure was, and trying to follow it all detracted from my enjoyment of the story.
I suppose no discussion of the book would be complete without mention of the super-huge revelation about Kiera. It throws a whole new light on her actions in this and previous books, and a lot of things make a lot more sense in that light. (Caution: spoiler below. Highlight to read, ignore if you haven't read this book.)
There's just one thing: Kiera's narration strikes me as way too mundane for somebody who's, well, you know. Which would make sense if those parts were what she was actually saying to Cawti, but in that case the content wouldn't make sense. So, I'm a bit dissatisfied about that, too.
(Other books in the Vlad Taltos series)