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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers,net.books
Subject: JHEREG by Stephen Brust
Message-ID: <1211@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Oct-85 01:11:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1211
Posted: Wed Oct  2 01:11:18 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 04:11:17 EDT
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                          JHEREG by Stephen Brust
                             Ace, 1983, $2.95.
                      A book review by Mark R. Leeper

                              (**Spoiler warning**)

     One of the great things about fantasy is its ability to drop you into
the middle of a fully realized world completely of the author's
construction.  If you are dropped into the middle of an alien world, you
will quickly discover that the best thing to have along is a great memory
for new names and foreign terms.  This is one of the reasons I do very
poorly when dropped into the middle of alien worlds: I can keep straight
maybe six characters in a novel without taking notes.  That's why of science
fiction, horror, and fantasy, fantasy is what I read the least.  The last
fantasy I really enjoyed was DAMIANO by R. A. MacAvoy.  It has just a few
characters and the supernatural beaties it deals with are unimaginative
things like angels and devils.  If you have a reasonably good memory, first,
I envy you, and second, expect a different reaction to JHEREG than I had.

     The basic story is not a bad one, though I am a little surprised that
it was able to make a whole novel.  In a world where magic works, a man who
is basically a cheap detective of the Sam Spade sort is given a single task
not too different from one he might be given in our world.  (I'm trying not
too reveal too much.)  The rest of the novel is how he discovers why he is
performing the task of revenge, why the object of his revenge is doing what
he is doing, what the complications are, and finally, how he accomplishes
his mission.  In and of itself the problem is not all that complex and
somehow the solution seems too simple.

     So the plot is not the strong suit of JHEREG.  Brust, however, has an
ear for witty repartee and for characterization.  Some of his dialogue is a
positive joy to read.  When the pacing is slow, the dialogue is what keeps
the reader going.

     Brust has created a world where different rules work.  Characters who
are killed may or may not come back, characters teleport at will--there are
a number of differences.  But the world is self-consistent and with some
substitutions not really very different from ours.

     Aside from the multiplicity of unfamiliar names--probably not a
drawback for most other readers--the story is fairly well-written.  I did,
however, all too often come up confused as to who was who in the book and
because of that, did not enjoy the book as much as I might have.  Rate the
book a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

					Mark R. Leeper
					...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper