Almost a year and a half later, I'm still bugged about this book.
To me, it was as if Steven Brust forgot how to write a Vlad book. To put it different way, it reads like a first draft, rather than a final draft. It made me not want to read another. And then there's this...
As a constantly intruding bonus, there was something very annoying about this book; at the beginning of every chapter was a short piece on this restaurant the Vlad loves. Brust had as his consultant for this, a professional chef. Unfortunately, what we ended up here with is a fancy, 1990s American restaurant PLACED into this fantasy novel's setting. Talk about stupid, ridiculous, clashing, non-historical, etc. Neither the author or chef have ANY knowledge whatsoever about the history of food (like restaurants didn't exist two hundred years ago), green salads (a very recent thing, believe it or not), etc., etc. It hurt my brain and my eyes. I've never seen anything so wrong and out of place in the 1000+ fantasy novels I've read.
Mr. Brust violated the rule of Don't Write About Something You Don't Know Anything About. Especially, to start every chapter! |
Dzur (Vlad) Books In Print, Audio Books.