Teckla

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/teckla/

Teckla is the third novel in Steven Brust???s series about Vlad Taltos, a human assassin who lives in the empire of Dragaera which is populated mostly by a species of long-lived tall humanoids who were genetically engineered by sorcerers and divide themselves into clans depending on their specific traits. In the first VLAD TALTOS novel, Jhereg, we met Vlad, an Easterner whose father bought the family into the nobility of the lowly house of Jhereg. Vlad, like many of the Jhereg, is a crime boss and controls a portion of the city of Adrilankha. In the second book, Yendi, we learned how Vlad met his wife Cawti when she was sent to assassinate him. He died but was revivified by his minions and married Cawti.

The Teckla of the title of this third book are the peasant clan of Dragaera. For generations they???ve been the down-trodden masses. But now they have a charismatic leader who is stirring them up and fomenting revolution. The Easterners have joined them and so has Cawti, Vlad???s ultra-competent wife. The revolution is causing some difficulties for Herth, one of the other Jhereg bosses and Vlad learns that Herth plans to murder the leaders of the revolution, including Cawti. Vlad is being pulled in multiple directions. He wants to please and protect his wife, and his heritage is Easterner, but he???s now a noble in one of the Dragaeran houses. What is a cold-hearted crime lord assassin to do? Kill people, of course.

For such a short book, there???s plenty of plot in Teckla ??? assassinations, investigations, revolutionary rallies, break-ins, kidnapping, torture, rescues. To emphasize the action, Brust titles each chapter with a snippet from the laundry list that Vlad Taltos must have compiled at the end of the adventure ??? ???Chapter 3: And repair cut in right cuff,??? ???Chapter 4: One pair gray trousers: remove blood stain from upper right leg.??? These cute chapter titles foreshadow the events in the chapter.

But the main focus of Teckla is Vlad???s insecurities about his own profession and lifestyle and his relationship with Cawti. Cawti wants to live her own life, but she???s heading into trouble. Vlad just wants to protect her, but she doesn???t want his protection. Vlad also doesn???t want to cause more tension between himself and the other nobility of Dragaera. The couple find themselves being pulled in opposite directions and starting to wonder how well they actually know and love each other.

I like the VLAD TALTOS series mainly because I like Vlad Taltos. I like his competence, his breezy but philosophical style, his thoughtful analysis of himself and others, and the amusing way he looks at life. In Teckla, Vlad is mostly feeling insecure and depressed, which is unusual for him (or so it seems to me after reading the previous two books). I enjoyed how he began to question his place in Dragaera and his thoughts about social status, the government???s role in society, the worship of causes and ideas, and the need for revolution. But because of his failing marriage, Vlad does a lot of brooding in this book. While it makes him feel human and sensitive (which is kind of nice for an assassin, I suppose), it???s not the Vlad Taltos we know and love and, frankly, it gets tiresome, and even annoying, after a while. I hope that Vlad will be back to himself in the next novel, Taltos.

I???m listening to Bernard Setaro Clark???s excellent narration of Audible Frontier???s audio version.

My rating: 3.7

This is the 3rd book of the Vlad Taltos series and follows pretty closely after the second time-wise. For some reason, this is one of my least favorite Taltos books.

The story, without giving away too much of the entirety of the plot and/or spoilers involves Vlad caught in a tight spot, which is fairly typical. In this case, he's stuck in the middle of a 2 way power struggle. Only in this case it's not just from a professional standpoint - he's stuck from a personal standpoint as well as his wife, Cawti has become involved on one side.

Of course, in typical Brustian style, Vlad gets stuck deeply in a jam and is able to figure out a plan that is ultimately still pretty satisfying from this reader's standpoint (YMMV).

Spoilers follow:

No, really, read with caution if you don't want to get to the heart of this one.

This book is, I think, supposed to be very introspective. Vlad is put in a place where Cawti and everyone else in the book is asking him to choose sides. Easterner vs Dragerean. Peasantry vs nobility. Love vs business. Family vs aspirations.

That's all fine and it definitely comes through. The problem is that I don't think Brust was successful at making me care. Cawti goes from being Vlad's heart to someone who has essentially chosen revolution over Vlad. She has essentially gone through all the same decision-making process as Vlad and the end result is she didn't choose Vlad. And she's mad at him about it. And somehow as a reader, we're supposed to be gut-wrenched about that? This is the thing that I find hardest to swallow. It's a sucker punch, both to Vlad and the reader. The whole novel the tension and angst between those two just made me angry at her for putting him in that position. And so quickly. It speaks pretty poorly of how emotionally committed Cawti is to Vlad. Others may find this to be fantastically done, but I didn't enjoy or get anything out of that.

The rest of the conflict issues made more sense. Vlad's internal struggle between being an Easterner and his newly-learned preincarnation history makes sense. And his war with Herth and even with the Easterner organization. The way he handles all of that seems very true to character. As does his decision not to choose a side in the end.

Overall, it's an essential story in the series. But not one of my favorites. Still a 3.7, which isn't bad. Have to round up and give 4 stars, though.