Brust's writing style is as fun, flippant, and witty as ever, with more choice lines than before. As in Jhereg, Brust gives more hints (though fewer than in the last book) about the fascinating world that Vlad Taltos inhabits, including some coy remarks about Dzur Mountain. And, although I was somewhat suspicious of Brust's ability to deal with emotional matters, he writes deftly (if somewhat quickly) about the blossoming relationship between Cawti and Vlad. Not great literature here, but sufficient for the purposes of this book.
Unfortunately, Yendi's plot is much less captivating than Jhereg's, for two reasons. First, the plot is simply more convoluted: although I basically read the book across two extended sittings, I had trouble following all the names and events that Brust introduced. Second, even more so than Jhereg, which was hardly innocent on this point, Yendi brings in a lot of information for which I was given no fair warning. In particular, I felt that the central revelation of the mystery came out of nowhere.
I realize now that Jhereg really did have this problem also; I suppose that the freshness of Vlad Taltos's world, as well as the somewhat lower frequency of these random elements, made the previous book much easier to take than this one.
There are also a couple of more minor problems with Yendi. Much more so than in Jhereg, the non-Vlad characters in Yendi--even the uber-powerful ones like Morrolan and Aliera--seem to serve as Vlad's lackeys, running off to do errands for him just as willingly as Kragar, Vlad's lieutenant. And Vlad spends a great portion of this book sitting around thinking through the labyrinthine plot. So, while the mystery is more involved, it's much less fun to work through it than it was in Jhereg.
As you might have guessed, I found Jhereg a much superior novel. Still, Yendi is hardly dissatisfying, and it goes by so quickly that it would be a shame for new Brust fans (like myself) not to give it a try.
Copyright © 2001 Steven Wu 