The Book of Athyra: Contains the Complete Text of Athyra and Orca (Paperback)

This book seems far more personal than its immediate predecessors, particularly Phoenix - the political viewpoint in that book has been ratcheted down, and instead the themes are more immediate, while perhaps similar: deception, integrity, the morality of death, and so on. There are moments when the dialogue resembles a philosophical debate on these issues, but it tends to be directed in interesting enough ways that one doesn't really notice.

However, if you've picked it up just for the vaguely Bond-esque action, a aution; this is far more of a 'talky' book than some of its predecessors. That said, the ending is intense, and I haven't really put it down since I picked it up; the characters continue to have Brusts great talent played across them, each reacting with at least some semblance of believable motive and personality. Personally I found the final villains slightly caricatured, but your mileage may vary) Athyra then is a book of thought and philosophy, intrigue and magic - much like the Athyra themselves in fact. And it was certainly well worth the wait.

Orca is a similar tale in that it deals far more with intrigue than the art of assassination - but then, this is well within the scope of the development of Vlad's character. Orca returns to the first person narrative of the other books, though it does alternate between our usual associate and Kiera the Thief - as with Athyra, the different perspective is nicely entailed in the structure of the prose itself. Unfortunately, Orca does suffer from some drawbacks; its plotting, if interesting, seems overly convoluted, being concerned mainly with Orca and finance; it can on occasion become a stutter of the semi-arcane, and even lapses into sheer incomprehensibility at times. The reliance on an end of book exposition to explain the myriad threads is both necessary, and by its necessity, a weakness. However the most worrying thing here is that Orca is certainly not a stand alone book, as most of the others have been - it is difficult to imagine it being comprehensible without at least some knowledge of the Dragaeran world.

Allowing for these flaws however, it remains an accomplished text, containing more of the old dry wit than was evidenced by Athyra, linked with the usual tight (if over-complex) plot and splendid characters, including a few old friends. Certainly worth a read if you enjoyed the rest of the series; otherwise I'd recommend starting with Jhereg.

On balance then, the collection is perhaps the weakest of the three so far in that it is overreliant on past tales and is thus less accessible. However it does also contain some of the more intriguing plot, and the chance to finally read Athyra makes up for much. In balance, much like the advice given above for Orca, if you're new to Brust, buy the Book of Jhereg. If you want to go deeper into the world, this is an extremely interesting and involving place to look into.