First read 02/2025

This book picks up where Hawk left off. Vlad had managed to get the Right Hand of the Jhereg off his back, but also ended up targeted by the Left Hand. I'd sighed, thinking that this meant things would continue in the same vein when we got the next instalment in the timeline, but I'm delighted to have been proven wrong.

Vlad continues to survive primarily through the power of networking, with Sara hiding him in a theatre (naturally a place with strong magical protections). To maintain his safety, the show must go on! It's pure fanservice to surround Vlad with regular people with no idea who he is, then watch him call in favours from the high and mighty. This also means that in addition to his usual slow, oblique plotting for nefarious purposes, we get to see him accomplishing things throughout the book, thereby providing a long overdue fix to a common pacing problem.

As the theatre company prepares for opening night, there's a lot going on, and Lyorn mirrors this frantic atmosphere by keeping a lot of balls in the air at once. In addition to Vlad trying to solve his own problem, Kragar's problem, and all the theatre's problems, the narration periodically jumps away from Vlad to a number of background characters. Sometimes this simply advances the plot by giving us access to events Vlad doesn't know about, but it also ratchets up overall series tension by showing us the background machinations of Sethra Lavode and various other powerful people. The end of the series is coming, Lyorn cries! It's going to be big! Important people are quietly panicking! Vlad learns that,

being a demon, he may start to have dreams and visions of the past, or other places, though they may not be accurate.

It's never stated that these interludes are Vlad's dreams, and if they were you'd expect him to react to them, but it's an interesting thought to play with.

In addition to this, the play musical that the theatre company is putting on is about a historical war crime and the subsequent battle between the censorious state and those who would see it discussed openly (including the production of a play that was suppressed at the time). Very meta! Each chapter opens with the lyrics of one of the songs, modelled on real songs. The first are from The Pirates of Penzance and The Sound of Music, so naturally I thought the others would be from musicals too. They're not. A spoiler free list can be found here (avoid the comments, though). Many of the songs, particularly towards the beginning of the book, are mostly about theatre life, and they're not funny enough to go on for as long as they do. About halfway through each chapter, however, we get an excerpt from a history book Vlad is reading about the events. This is fairly interesting in its own right, but when paired with the songs that also describe these events, there's a very compelling tension between the history and the dramatization of events.

When Vlad's nefarious plotting eventually comes to a head, it's delightful; probably one of his most elegant schemes yet. What really nailed it for me, though, was that final twist. The book is setting up for the end of the series, and it appears to do this by moving around powerful characters in the background, but at the end it becomes apparent that its real purpose has been to prepare Vlad to step into the role that has been ordained for him. It's a high point in a character journey that's been stretched out over seventeen books. Wonderful.

My Vlad Taltos reviews
Athyra
Orca
Dragon
Issola
Dzur
Jhegaala
Iorich
Tiassa
Hawk
Vallista
Tsalmoth