Working through the backlog of book reviews
Athyra by Steven Brust
I hadn't realized how much of my expectations of Steven Brust's Vlad novels were bound up in a consistent narrative style. Hell, I haven't even read one of the Vlad novels since May of last year, but I was still incredibly disoriented when I opened Athyra and found myself reading something in the third-person. Not just the third-person, but a work focusing on a character who wasn't Vlad. It took a couple chapters to get used to. It's not that there's anything off with Brust's writing here, I was just expecting something else to such a huge extent that my whole reading experience was thrown by the change.
But, right, the story itself. Athyra is the story of Savn, a young Teckla boy learning the art of healing in his small village, when the community is disrupted by two things happening almost simulaneously - the arrival of the Easterner Vlad Taltos, and the murder of a local man. The villagers think Vlad is involved in the murder, and Vlad, who knew the man once, thinks there's something going on that involves him, too. Young Savn isn't sure what to think, but he's fascinated by Vlad despite the attitude of the rest of the community. The two talk, despite having little in common, and Vlad teaches Savn some of his witchcraft, further cementing Savn's fascination with the strange Easterner, a fascination that rapidly becomes dangerous as the plot Vlad and Savn discover involves Savn's lord, the Baron, an old enemy of Vlad's. Savn is forced to do something unthinkable for a Teckla and question his loyalties, and, while Vlad isn't the constant presence he is in the novel, it's clear that he's forced to question a lot of his own attitudes, and the way he treats people.
It's not the sort of situation that can end well.
While Athyra wasn't what I expected from a Vlad novel, and it took me some time to get into it, when I finally got into the rhythm of the new narrative, and the plot itself, I really enjoyed it, in different ways than I usually enjoy Brust's work. The different point of view makes the novel feel more lowkey, the perspective is innocent, and that innocence sets the stage for a greater emotional impact in many ways than the wisecracking Vlad.
While Athyra doesn't really offer up any answers to the ongoing questions of the Vlad series, but by putting a Teckla character into the foreground, it settled some of the issues I'd had with previous books, particularly Teckla itself. In Savn the reader gets to learn that Teckla aren't just an ignorant peasant class. They're different from the Dragaerans Vlad usually interacts, with different concerns and different spheres of interest, but they have a rich culture, they have /personalities/ and their own concerns, families, traditions, the whole thing. And Savn is likeable - a curious youth who is passionately devoted to his calling, proud of it, feels stifled sometimes by his parents, alternately loves and is annoyed by his sister. Seeing Vlad interact with Savn helps me settle some fo the attitudes Vlad displayed in previous novels that made me dislike him, even though the reader doesn't really know what's going on in Vlad's head here. It's an excellent use of the fresh perspective Brust is employing here, and it makes it sort of official that Vlad in the normal books is a flawed narrator and that his opinion is not absolute.
Brust also uses Athyra as an excuse to introduce the undead. And Dragaeran vampires. It makes sense, in the context of the book and in the world Brust has built in previous novels. You can see how it would work. But I still wasn't really prepared for a word like 'vampire' to be dropped. I don't expect vampires to pop up in my fantasy novels. I'm not complaining, but, man, Athyra just went around startling me in a lot of little ways I wasn't prepared for.
So Athyra's a good novel. A different novel in the Vlad series. It doesn't feel as integral to the rest of the series as some of the others have, maybe because of how different it is in style and tone. It's hard to imagine a lot of it setting the stage for future Vlad novels, although maybe it is: the books where Vlad's ripped from his familiar environment, on the run, and out of contact with the people most dear to him. It's not as fun or flashy as the previous novels, but it's really interesting, introducing new concepts. It's a very world-building kind of book, exploring the areas of Dragaera that Brust hasn't really looked at in the past. And it's still a short and fast read, like the other Vlad books, and afternoon read.
But it's probably a terrible book to introduce a new reader to Brust' series, if only because it would set up the entirely wrong expectations.
... Vampires! Honestly!
I hadn't realized how much of my expectations of Steven Brust's Vlad novels were bound up in a consistent narrative style. Hell, I haven't even read one of the Vlad novels since May of last year, but I was still incredibly disoriented when I opened Athyra and found myself reading something in the third-person. Not just the third-person, but a work focusing on a character who wasn't Vlad. It took a couple chapters to get used to. It's not that there's anything off with Brust's writing here, I was just expecting something else to such a huge extent that my whole reading experience was thrown by the change.
But, right, the story itself. Athyra is the story of Savn, a young Teckla boy learning the art of healing in his small village, when the community is disrupted by two things happening almost simulaneously - the arrival of the Easterner Vlad Taltos, and the murder of a local man. The villagers think Vlad is involved in the murder, and Vlad, who knew the man once, thinks there's something going on that involves him, too. Young Savn isn't sure what to think, but he's fascinated by Vlad despite the attitude of the rest of the community. The two talk, despite having little in common, and Vlad teaches Savn some of his witchcraft, further cementing Savn's fascination with the strange Easterner, a fascination that rapidly becomes dangerous as the plot Vlad and Savn discover involves Savn's lord, the Baron, an old enemy of Vlad's. Savn is forced to do something unthinkable for a Teckla and question his loyalties, and, while Vlad isn't the constant presence he is in the novel, it's clear that he's forced to question a lot of his own attitudes, and the way he treats people.
It's not the sort of situation that can end well.
While Athyra wasn't what I expected from a Vlad novel, and it took me some time to get into it, when I finally got into the rhythm of the new narrative, and the plot itself, I really enjoyed it, in different ways than I usually enjoy Brust's work. The different point of view makes the novel feel more lowkey, the perspective is innocent, and that innocence sets the stage for a greater emotional impact in many ways than the wisecracking Vlad.
While Athyra doesn't really offer up any answers to the ongoing questions of the Vlad series, but by putting a Teckla character into the foreground, it settled some of the issues I'd had with previous books, particularly Teckla itself. In Savn the reader gets to learn that Teckla aren't just an ignorant peasant class. They're different from the Dragaerans Vlad usually interacts, with different concerns and different spheres of interest, but they have a rich culture, they have /personalities/ and their own concerns, families, traditions, the whole thing. And Savn is likeable - a curious youth who is passionately devoted to his calling, proud of it, feels stifled sometimes by his parents, alternately loves and is annoyed by his sister. Seeing Vlad interact with Savn helps me settle some fo the attitudes Vlad displayed in previous novels that made me dislike him, even though the reader doesn't really know what's going on in Vlad's head here. It's an excellent use of the fresh perspective Brust is employing here, and it makes it sort of official that Vlad in the normal books is a flawed narrator and that his opinion is not absolute.
Brust also uses Athyra as an excuse to introduce the undead. And Dragaeran vampires. It makes sense, in the context of the book and in the world Brust has built in previous novels. You can see how it would work. But I still wasn't really prepared for a word like 'vampire' to be dropped. I don't expect vampires to pop up in my fantasy novels. I'm not complaining, but, man, Athyra just went around startling me in a lot of little ways I wasn't prepared for.
So Athyra's a good novel. A different novel in the Vlad series. It doesn't feel as integral to the rest of the series as some of the others have, maybe because of how different it is in style and tone. It's hard to imagine a lot of it setting the stage for future Vlad novels, although maybe it is: the books where Vlad's ripped from his familiar environment, on the run, and out of contact with the people most dear to him. It's not as fun or flashy as the previous novels, but it's really interesting, introducing new concepts. It's a very world-building kind of book, exploring the areas of Dragaera that Brust hasn't really looked at in the past. And it's still a short and fast read, like the other Vlad books, and afternoon read.
But it's probably a terrible book to introduce a new reader to Brust' series, if only because it would set up the entirely wrong expectations.
... Vampires! Honestly!