arch(adj) marked by a deliberate and often forced playfulness, irony, or impudence.

precious(adj) excessively refined.

Why the tour through the dictionary? As I contemplated writing a review of this novel, I was forced to summon from deep within myself vocabulary that had long lain dormant. While the words above resounded within me, I was forced to double-check them, just to make sure that they could, in fact, mean what I thought they ought.

Thus, I bring you The Paths of the Dead, a prolonged exercise in twee, arch, and precious dialogue.

I had heard of Steven Brust, but had never read any of his novels. I've seen them in bookstores over the years, but was never attracted enough to them to give them a try. However, good word-of-mouth came my way over the merits of his Taltos series, so I thought I would see what the fuss was about. As is typical in most big chain bookstores, they only carry the most recent installments of a series. Looking over the Brust selection, I picked up The Paths of the Dead, and noticed a bit of a conundrum. On the cover, it is claimed to be "the long-awaited sequel to The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After." On the back, it is claimed to be Book One of The Viscount of Adrilankha. Inside the fly leaf, we find that The Viscount of Adrilankha is the third of the Khaavren Romances series, and is broken into three books, of which The Paths of the Dead is the first. Well, it looked like as good a jumping-on-point as I was going to find, so I bought it.

The conceit of this novel is that it is actually a novel within a novel. The Paths of the Dead is actually a historical novel written by Paarfi of Roundwood, a scholar from a later era of Brust's Dragaeran universe setting. We get an editor's prelude to the Glorious Mountain Press edition of the book, plus the author's own preface. The story is filled with asides by Paarfi to his readers, and followed by a guide to the rendition of Dragaeran into English, apparently written by a C. Sophronia Cleebers, who is also so kind as to explain a little bit about Steven Brust.

Now, as I am new to the Brust universe, and I presume that you may be too, I will provide a precis as to the setting and its notable traits. I am going to refer to the overall setting as the Dragaeran universe. The chief actors in this universe are a race of extremely long-lived humans which I am going to refer to as Dragaerans. The Dragaerans are further classifiable by House, of which there are about a dozen, named after beasts, some familiar some not. These include the Phoenix and Dragon, but also Dzur, Jhereg, Issola, and others. Some of these houses are associated with strong behavioral traits... aggression, loyalty, etc., while others are not so clearly stereotyped. These Dragaerans can apparently easily live to be hundreds of years old, and are not generally considered mature unless they are at least two or three centuries old. Some are over a thousand years old, and apparently two thousand years is not considered out of reach. They don't appear to have any other special abilities, and are identified physically only by something referred to as a 'noble's peak', which was never clearly described in this novel. I think it may refer to a widow's peak hairline. The Dragaeran character we are first introduced to was ignorant of his origins and didn't know he was different from normal humans until it was pointed out to him that he was past seventy and still looked like he was in his early twenties. Oh wait... yes, all of these characters did seem to be just that dim.

There are 'normal' humans in this setting, but they seem to be mostly irrelevant to it. They are considered 'Easterners' and generally regarded as ignorant.

There are gods in this setting, who dwell in a kind of afterlife called the Halls of Judgement. The Halls can be reached by following the Paths of the Dead, which generally only happens when you are dead. The Gods, however powerful they may be, don't interfere much in the mortal world because they are deathly afraid of some sort of enemy, the nature of which was not made clear in the novel. There is also some sort of Hell, which we know about because the Gods summon a demon from it and send it on a mission.

Magic exists in the setting, but is rare and only practiced at this point by a few people. In the past, apparently, the Dragaerans had created an artifact called the Orb, which among other unclear virtues allowed people to use magic more easily. Supposedly the Orb had been destroyed in a magical cataclysm in the capital city of the Dragaeran Empire, which also resulted in the formation of something called a Sea of Amorphia. Apparently, it now takes centuries of effort to learn how to use magic, but it can still be quite powerful when used. A single wizard we encounter early on was capable of destroying an entire force of bandits. The nature of magic is pretty unclear though.

This is the picture I put together from reading the book. It may be wrong, and it may well differ from your picture, should you read it.

Anyway, let's get to the story. We start out by meeting a character who soon becomed named Morrolan. He is a witch, and part of becoming a witch in this setting involves questing for a name. He is given his name by a mysterious and apparently immortal coachman whom we encounter again several decades on. Morrolan falls in with a priestess in a small Eastern town, and together they start building a cult following and training more witches for some prophecied purpose.

Next we are introduced to Duke Skinter, a noble of the House of the Dragon. In the aftermath of the fall of the Empire post-cataclysm, a lot of outlying lords have been left to simply try to hold their territory against bandits and interlopers. Skinter is fairly successful at this, and with the help of his sister and other notable Dragaerans, begins to conquer and hold territory in a bid to forge a new Empire.

Moving on, we now meet the Society of the Porker Poker, a club of young Dragaeran nobles in Adrilankha, a significant surviving city of the Empire. Most notable are the characters Piro, the Viscount of Adrilankha and son of Khaavren, the Count of Adrilankha and someone who was probably an important character in the first two novels of the Khaavren romances; and Zivra, of whom if I told you more I would reveal important plot information. Let her remain a mystery for now.

Another major actor in this story whom we don't actually meet until near the end is Sethra Lavode, an apparently immortal sorceress whose goal is to recover the Orb, restore the House of the Phoenix (which most thought wiped out by the Cataclysm) and rebuild the Empire.

Minor actors include the sorceress Orlaan, who has spent centuries mastering magic and is apparently focused on some sort of vengeance, although at this point it is not entirely clear who she wants vengeance on or why; and Ibronka, the daughter of a noblewoman near Duke Skinter's nascent Empire who has been sent to Adrilankha for her safety. There are also bandits and spies running around for various reasons.

Now that we've introduced everyone, let's have some action! Sethra Lavode sends for Zivra. Zivra goes. Morrolan gets upset, talks with his goddess, and gets sent West on a quest for a sword or something. Skinter sends out his spy to round up support for his own Empire. Sethra Lavode sends for Piro. Piro and his companions ride out to go see Sethra, narrowly avoiding meeting Morrolan, but attracting the attention of Orlaan. A Dzurlord named Sennya mislikes Skinter's plans, and sends her daughter Ibronka west to Adrilankha, during which trip she avoids meeting any of the other people I've mentioned. Piro and friends meet Sethra, she introduces them to the newly-found last heir to the Phoenix Throne, and they take a trip out to the gateway to the Paths of the Dead, so the heir can have a chat with the Gods about the disposition of the Orb. The end.

Well, uhm. Hmm. Didn't seem like there was all that much to it, huh? Yeah. Err.

Imagine spreading that out cross 400 pages. Imagine that to spread it like that, you pad it out with dialogue. Dialogue in which characters say things like this:

Notwithstanding the odd speech, which meant only that the speaker was, like so many others, not native to the region, the traveler replied politely, saying, "I thank you for your advice, and will avail myself of it the next time our good hostess passes by." "You are most welcome," said the other, still not moving. "Might I inquire as to your name?" "You may, indeed, inquire, but, alas, I cannot tell you." "How, you cannot tell me?" "I'm afraid that I cannot."

The conversation goes on. And on. But I won't relate the rest of it. Now, as this is the only example of this dialogue which you have seen, you may not find it particulary annoying. You may in fact find it quaint, or humorous. I did, for a while. But then it went on, and on. Everyone in the novel talks like this. All the time. In any circumstance. About any subject. About halfway through, I had to put the book down for a week. I just wanted to reach through the pages, throttle the characters, and scream into their faces, "Get to the flippin' point already!" Seriously, these characters are denser than lead. I suspect Brust thought he was being cute, but there are hundreds of pages wasted on dead air where the characters prattle on about obvious things that a better author would have handled in a single sentence. Sentences with perhaps only one or two commas at most.

Forgive me. I imply, above, that Brust is not a good author. He may in fact be a decent author. I think the setup for this story has a lot of possibilities. I'm interested in the ultimate outcome of The Viscount of Adrilankha, although at this point not interested enough to pony up $16 for the next two novels. It's just that the whole thing comes across as self-indulgent. Brust is playing to his fanbase here, people who I assume like bloated page counts, slow pacing, and twee dialogue. The title of this book is The Paths of the Dead. We finally get to explore these Paths in the very last chapter, alongside the Phoenix Heir. And Brust manages to make the Paths seem tedious. Even his character reacts to walking the Paths as though they were an annoyance rather than a mythic undertaking. There is something self-referential about the book, a winking acknowledgement of the silliness of the fantasy premise. But, what then do you write about if you don't take your own work seriously? Brust seems to have replaced a love of good storytelling with the love of his own authorial voice, being cutesy. We deserve better.