Vallista

by Steven Brust

Vlad Taltos is an Easterner-an underprivileged human in an Empire of tall, powerful, long-lived Dragaerans. He made a career for himself in House Jhereg, the Dragaeran clan in charge of the Empire's organized crime. But the day came when the Jhereg wanted Vlad dead, and he's been on the run ever since. He has plenty of friends among the Dragaeran highborn, including an undead wizard and a god or two. But as long as the Jhereg have a price on his head, Vlad's life is...messy. Meanwhile, for years, Vlad's path has been repeatedly crossed by Devera, a small Dragaeran girl of indeterminate powers who turns up at the oddest moments in his life. Now Devera has appeared again-to lead Vlad into a mysterious, seemingly empty manor overlooking the Great Sea. Inside this structure are corridors that double back on themselves, rooms that look out over other worlds, and-just maybe-answers to some of Vlad's long-asked questions about his world and his place in it. If only Devera can be persuaded to stop disappearing in the middle of his conversations with her.

• ISBN13: 9780765324450
• Publish Date: 17 October 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 4 April 2022
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tor Books
• Format: Paperback
• Language: English

Reviews

[Metaphorosis Reviews]

3 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
When Devera suddenly appears with a request, Vlad finds himself drawn into a puzzle - a house that cannot exist, but does, across hundreds of years, and that can't be escaped.

Review
I said in my review of the preceding book that I’d missed the one before that, but probably hadn’t missed much. I had in mind book #13, Iorich, but having now read Hawk and Vallista in quick succession, it sure seems like they got published in reverse order. A building that plays a key role in Hawk is described as one he’s seen before. Then a building that sure seems very similar is at the core of Vallista, and we’re told he’s visiting it for the first time.

Vallista is (in a not very interesting way) all about time travel and its complications, so maybe this is Brust playing a joke. Or maybe it’s a different building. Or … after having meandered around a lot in this series, and as it approaches what I presume will be the final book #17, Vlad suddenly and without much reason or context learns a lot of things about the world at the end of this book, and maybe Brust or his publisher Tor felt this book fit better later in the series, since Hawk doesn’t deal with any of it.

At any rate, I found it a bit disorienting. And that feeling remains, because this is essentially a locked door/puzzle story in which Vlad explores a complex house that crosses lots of boundaries, seemingly at random. Toward the end, I had the feeling that Brust was paying homage to old Adventure/Zork/Colossal Cave-style text adventures, as he retraces his steps through the randomly connected spaces. Before that point, I honestly thought he’d just come up with clever chapter titles that reference other books/works, and built a story around those. The long and short of it is that none of it makes that much sense, and Vlad just wanders around wisecracking and threatening people, with long-suffering Loiosh and Rocza tagging along. Until the end, when Vlad suddenly gets brutally judgmental.

It’s decently readable on a page-by-page basis, but not one that will stick on your memory long, because there’s just not that much to it aside from the world-changing revelations crammed into one short scene.