Latecomer: “Jhereg” by Steven Brust (Ace, 1983)

The first Vlad Taltos novel

There are many ways a young man with quick wits and a quick sword can advance in the world. Vlad Taltos chose the route of the assassin. To his other qualifications he added two things: The first was a smattering of witchcraft – badly thought of on Dragaera, but only a fool refuses a weapon…

The second was his constant companion, a young jhereg, its leathery wings and poisonous teeth always at Vlad’s command, its alien mind psionically linked with his own.

A good number of authors and friends had recommended Steven Brust, many listing him as an inspiration and early fantasy-favourite. I had hoped to get this read for the 28th anniversary of its publication (first week of April), but other things pushed it out of the way. Nevertheless, having now read it, I am very grateful for the recommendation.

Upcoming: “Latecomer” Reviews on CR

As some readers may already know, I’ve not been reading fantasy or science fiction for very long. Because of this, most of my SF/F reviews have been of newly or recently released titles.

In 2011, this will change.

I’m not going to stop reading and reviewing new titles (far from it – there are just too many exciting novels published this year to forgo), but I am going to do something I’ve been meaning to do for some time now – that is, catch up on the ‘classic’, ‘great’, and established fantasy titles and series. The reviews will all be prefixed as “Latecomer”, so should be easy to find as and when they start arriving.

I haven’t got them all picked out, yet, but here is a first selection of titles I’ll be reading (please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments):

James Barclay, Dawnthief (Gollancz)

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones (Voyager)

Tad Williams, Shadowmarch & The Dragonbone Chair (Orbit)

Neal Asher, Gridlinked (Tor)

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Empire in Black and Gold (Tor)

Joe Abercombie, The Blade Itself (Gollancz)

Robin Hobb, Assassin’s Apprentice (Voyager)

Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire (Gollancz)

Tom Lloyd, Stormcaller (Gollancz)

Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World (Orbit)

Steven Brust, The Book of Jhereg (Ace)

Whether or not I get to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series will depend on how much I like the latter’s The Way of Kings, which I have already bought for my Kindle.

So, there’s the selection I’ve come up with for the moment. I’m sure there are others, and there’s no set order in which I’m going to read them, and there’s no guarantee that I will end up in the mood for them, but they’re all series I’ve been meaning to read for some time, and I just don’t want to keep putting them off for much longer. If I had to put money on it, I’d say James Barclay and Joe Abercrombie are the certainties, with Tom Lloyd and Adrian Tchaikovsky the two most likely after them.

Anyway, watch this space…