After Lyorn, there are two books left in the Vlad Taltos series, and you can really tell. This is a book that is tying up loose ends in an effort to rush headlong toward a finale. But, and here’s the good news: it’s also a book that’s about something besides tying up loose ends.

In the words of General Rieekan, “A death mark’s not an easy thing to live with.” So Vlad has decided to lay low at a theater (because of sorcery-related reasons) to plan his next move. Which quickly turns into a series of musical numbers and side quests, but the former are unobtrusive to the reader (if that’s not your thing) and the latter are quickly rendered apparent to be the actual point of the book. I’ll explain myself below the spoiler cut, not because it is especially a spoiler for more than the book’s themes, but for brevity, because I’m about to overstay my welcome.

So there’s this book I read to my kids, Little Blue Truck. In this book, the eponymous vehicle is friendly to a bunch of farm animals as he drives along on his day. Later, a dump truck drives by and isn’t friendly, because he’s too busy doing dump truck things. Then he gets stuck in a mudhole. The little blue truck, being friendly, tries to help but also gets stuck. Then all the farm animals that ignored the dump truck come to help the blue truck, and soon everyone is free, and the dump truck therefore learns an important lesson about being friendly.

My point here is, Vlad’s horsetrading back and forth with the various members of the theater troupe puts me in mind of that book. I do nice things for you, you do nice things for me, and soon our socialist (communist? I forget Brust’s specific proclivities here) paradise will be fulfilled!

It’s a simplistic reading of the book, but it tracks. And in any case, each step Vlad takes closer to being an empathetic being, the better. (I’m still living in fear of my Teckla reread.)