Vlad Taltos

Vlad Táltos (pronounced Taltosh) is the central character of a series of novels written by Steven Brust and set on the planet Dragaera. Vlad was first introduced in the 1983 novel Jhereg as a mobster and witch in the Dragaeran metropolis of Adrilankha. "Táltos" is a Hungarian word for a supernatural person. Vlad is always accompanied by his familiar, Loiosh, a wisecracking flying reptile called a jhereg.

The Character

Appearance

As an Easterner in species, Vlad's appearance corresponds with real-world humans, in contrast to the tall, elf-like Dragaerans. He is approximately six feet in height, with a very fit build. Unlike Dragaerans, Vlad has a hairy chest and can grow facial hair. He usually wears a mustache as a symbol of defiance. Vlad typically wears fine nobleman clothing in black and grey, the colors of house Jhereg. When fully armed, he carries a rapier at his side, a magical chain called Spellbreaker wrapped around his forearm, and a number of weapons hidden about his person.

Personality

Vlad is intelligent, headstrong, and witty, prone to wisecracking even in the most dangerous situations. Hotheaded and often reckless, Vlad speaks his mind bluntly to almost everyone, regardless of rank or species. Though he often displays a cavalier attitude, Vlad prefers to plan his actions and is very pragmatic about avoiding danger. His personality has largely rubbed off on Loiosh, who frequently banters with Vlad through their psychic link. Though Vlad has several Dragaeran friends, he hates Dragaerans as a species and feels no remorse for killing them. Conversely, Vlad takes pride in his Easterner heritage, but rarely associates with other Easterners and feels little sympathy for their plight.

History

Vlad grew up working in his father's restaurant in Adrilankha, the capital city of the Dragaeran Empire. As an Easterner, Vlad was a second class citizen and frequently bullied by Dragaeran youths. Vlad's father nearly bankrupted himself by buying a baronetcy from House Jhereg in hopes of gaining acceptance from Dragaeran society. His tried to teach Vlad to turn his back on his Eastern heritage and embrace Dragaeran culture, but Vlad despised the Dragaerans. Instead, he studied with his grandfather, whom he called Noish-pa, to learn the Eastern arts of fencing and witchcraft. With his Noish-pa's help, Vlad acquired his familiar, a jhereg he called Loiosh, and raised him from a hatchling. After his father's death, Vlad ran the resturaunt for a short time before entering the criminal world of House Jhereg as a low-level enforcer.

Despite being an Easterner, Vlad worked his way up the Jhereg hierarchy. He graduated to performing assassinations and proved very talented at the task, using his witchcraft, fencing skill, and familiar as assets. He eventually earned his own territory and divided his time between overseeing his operations there and continuing to take freelance assassination jobs. Through the course of his adventures, Vlad acquired a powerful artifact he called Spellbreaker, which has the ability to disrupt any magic that it contacts. Vlad also made several extremely powerful friends of House Dragon, including Duke Morrolan e'Drien, who hired Vlad as a security advisor, and Aliera, a one-time Dragon hier to the throne. In addition, Vlad personally knows the Empress of the Empire. Vlad also met and married a fellow Easterner assassin named Cawti.

The Series

The series of novels featuring Vlad as a protagonist has no official name.

The Books

There are currently ten novels in the series. In publication order, the books are:

1. Jhereg (1983)
2. Yendi (1984)
3. Teckla (1987)
4. Taltos (1988)
5. Phoenix (1990)
6. Athyra (1993)
7. Orca (1996)
8. Dragon (1998)
9. Issola (2001)
10. Dzur (2006)

Nine books are titled after one of the Great Houses of the Dragaeran Empire and each feature that house as a primary element to its plot. The other book, Taltos, deals primarily with Vlad's personal development. Each book has seventeen chapters, not including any prologues, interludes, or epilogues. The number seventeen is holy to Dragaerans and is a recurring number throughout the series.^[1] The first two books use quotes from each chapter as chapter headings, but subsequent books use various motiffs at the beginning of each chapter.

The novels are written out of chronological order. In the prologue to The Book of Jhereg, Brust states that he intends the books to be able to stand alone and be read in any order, but admits that this goal is less plausible in later books. It is impossible to arrange the novels in a perfect chronological sequence because several books feature plotlines that overlap or sandwich events of other books. However, Brust has given a rough chronological order: Taltos, Yendi, Dragon, Jhereg, Teckla, Phoenix, Athyra, Orca, Issola, Dzur.

Brust plans to extend the series to nineteen novels: eight more for the remaining Great Houses and one titled The Last Contract.^[2]

Style

The primary focus of the books is in action, intrigue, and mystery. In the earlier books, Vlad is generally given a difficult and dangerous problem to solve, usually an assassination or a threat to his powerbase. As the series progresses, Vlad's problems become more personal and emotional. He often receives limited closure by the end of later novels.^[3]

In most books, Vlad narrates his adventures. Brust has received praise for his rich use of dialogue to establish character. Vlad narrates his adventures in a witty and conversational tone. He frequently addresses his audience directly and comments on the progress of his story. At times he assumes that the listener knows various aspects about Dragaera, while at other times he explains common details about the world. In the later books of the series, Vlad's narration is explained as being part of a deal he worked out with a "fool" who paid him to speak his life stories into a metal box, promising that no one would ever hear them. Who the "fool" is and where he comes from is left vague.^[4]

Athyra and Orca are the only books, so far, to feature perspectives of other characters.

Influences

Brust has described his influences for the Vlad books as:

"A world created in honor of Fritz Leiber

Fantasy tropes created in honor of Michael Moorcock

A narrative style in honor of Dashiell Hammett

A general aesthetic in honor of Roger Zelazny".^[5]

Continuity

The Vlad series of novels are set in the same world as Brust's other major series, the Khaavren Romances. The Vlad series takes place several hundred years after the Khaavren books, but due to the long lives of Dragaerans, many characters appear in both series. Some events from the Khaavren Romances play a critical role in the plots of several Vlad novels, including Adron's Disaster and the disappearance of Aliera, which form the basis for Taltos.

The books feature many oblique allusions to past events in Vlad's life outside of the current plot. Brust frequently inserts these as simple asides without any planning on how or whether they will be explained in future books. While writing, he frequently rereads past books to find these details and use them as plot elements for his current book.^[6]

There are some discrepancies and contradictions between the various books set in Dragaera, however some of these are intentionally the result of the unreliable perspectives of the narrators. For example, Vlad describes the Countess of Whitecrest as a Lyorn, however this same mistake is a plot point in Five Hundred Years Later.

References

1. ^ http://www.speakeasy.org/~mamandel/Cracks-and-Shards/seventeen.html#origin
2. ^ http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue224/interview.html
3. ^ http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue224/interview.html
4. ^ http://www.speakeasy.org/~mamandel/Cracks-and-Shards/cracks.html
5. ^ http://www.speakeasy.org/~mamandel/Cracks-and-Shards/jokes.html
6. ^ http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue224/interview.html

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