Brokedown Palace

Rating:
Summary: On my hand and my knees by the Riverside
Review: Brokedown Palace fits into the Taltos tales, some how, some way. IT's from the other side of the coin, the mortal rather than faerie side, at least in some ways, and it's written in an offbeat, quietly friendly way that gives even the bad guy an almost benign feeling.

I think it's Brust's second best. (His best would be To Reign in Hell, no doubt.)

Rating:
Summary: Brust takes fantasy in unexpected directions
Review: Brokedown Palace is not high fantasy. It is not the story of the Great and Noble (or the Simple and Humble) Overcoming Great Evil. It is, rather, about four brothers dealing with themselves and each other during some extraordinary events in their lives. But Brust integrates the magical and fantastic with the ordinary in surprising and unusual ways. The focus is always on the relationships of the characters, and Brust uses a brief, sketchy style to paint what is at heart a very complex portrait.

Set in the world of Brust's Vlad Taltos series - albeit in a completely different part - Brokedown Palace offers some tantalizing hints of how the pieces of these very different stories may fit together. I read Brokedown Palace before the Taltos books, and have found additional pleasure in re-reading it since then.

Rating:
Summary: Good choice for a different type of fantasy novel
Review: GENRE: Fantasy (mystery and meandering style)

OVERALL FEELING: Four brothers fight one another, as well as other magical antagonists, in a fantastic kingdom at the borders of a Faerie world.

MARKETING APPEAL: I'm not surprised this didn't sell particularly well; it was offbeat with good characters and some interesting ideas; good but not great; no high concept; mostly a slice of life or meandering story line.

SCORING: Superb (A), Excellent (A-), Very good (B+), Good (B) Fairly Good (B-) Above Average (C+), Mediocre (C ), Barely Passable (C-) Pretty Bad (D+), Dismal (D), Waste of Time (D-), Into the Trash (F)

DIALOGUE: B STRUCTURE: B- HISTORY SETTING: A- CHARACTERS: B EVIL SETUP/ANTAGONISTS: B EMOTIONAL IMPACT: B+ SURPRISES: B- FANTASTIC/MYTHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS: A PACING: B+ THE LITTLE THINGS: B+ OVERALL STYLE: A FLOW OF WORDS: A- CHOICE OF FOCUS: A TRANSITIONS/FLASHBACKS/POV: A COMPLEXITY OF WORDS/SYMBOLISM/THEMES: B+

OVERALL GRADE: B+

SYNOPSIS: Hungarian Folklore style fantasy story; breaks in between with legends of the lands which gives it texture; squabbling princes fight with each other and magical opponents of various sorts.

CONCEPT: This tale is interesting but not really high concept; there's no great goal for the hero to pursue; it's more of a meandering style and one has to get into it for the characters and settings.

PACING: It moved well in the first 2/3 of the story; lots of little conflicts; learning about the lands and the legends in between. But, at the end, certain parts with the whole plan began to gnaw at me. Not enough was happening and that may have been the problem. More time was spent as characters started to slight one another, but there was too much of a lull. At times, the story meandered so rising conflict was an issue. Of course, I liked the story so much and side stories that it wasn't really a problem. However, at the end, I wasn't as impressed so I began to feel that the story lagged too much.

OVERALL STRUCTURE: The structure of this story meanders . . . taking a slice of life here and a slice of life there. As I mentioned, there really isn't some great epic goal as one usually expects in fantasy stories. This is one of the reasons I liked it even though such things are hard to pull off. The narrator's voice into this story is great; it comes into the legends but is also used at certain points.

The palace is a symbol of the relationship between the brothers . . . as it crumbles so do the relationships between Miklos and Laszlo.

WHY IT WORKED FOR ME: For reasons stated above: this is the type of story that isn't heavy on pacing but is great on side steps and legends. Other reasons listed above. FLAWS: (1) Lack of a focused epic scope or some big goal which hurt the pacing; (2) not enough time on most characters which made empathy difficult, making them good but not great; (3) OVERALL STYLE: His narrative element is superb and catchy. Focus is weak in some ways as listed under flaws. No character is mainly evil or good; all are gray.

FAVORITE METAPHOR: Think of the Cellars as feet, and the sandstone pillars emerging from them as legs. The east and west wings (the latter of which collapsed many years ago) are arms. The hallways are veins and arteries; the Great Hall on the third story is the heart. The high, central tower, where only the King is permitted, is the head. Can we stretch our analogy even further? The kitchen on the second story is the belly, and the dining room below it is the digestive system. Nestled among these organs is the room that, only two years ago, was occuped by Miklos, the missing prince of Fenario.

FAVORITE ACTION PASSAGE: She made gentle sounds into his ear as she helped him to remove his garments, then they lay together on her cloak. Slowly, she taught him the games of love, and he taught her of an innocence she had never known. The reeds swayed above them, but there was no wind to stir them.

FAVORITE DESCRIPTIVE PASSAGE: First, consider the River.

Now, remembering this, Miklos decided that the River ought to rise from its banks and sweep his wounded, broken body away, out of sight to the east. But it wouldn't. Miklos was twenty-one years old, and dying.

Next, the Palace:

Now, observe the interior:

And the City:

Consider a tiny crack in wood that had once been bright and polished, but was now dull and neglected. Something appeared through the crack. What was it? Maybe a leaf. Maybe the first shooting of a new seed, straining for the light in a lightless room, from the dark of a soil that wasn't fertile before it became dull and neglected. Perhaps a weed that will exist for a time, then sink to death and decay, as the Palace itself foes.

Rating:
Summary: Good choice for a different type of fantasy novel
Review: GENRE: Fantasy (mystery and meandering style)

OVERALL FEELING: Four brothers fight one another, as well as other magical antagonists, in a fantastic kingdom at the borders of a Faerie world.

MARKETING APPEAL: I'm not surprised this didn't sell particularly well; it was offbeat with good characters and some interesting ideas; good but not great; no high concept; mostly a slice of life or meandering story line.

SCORING: Superb (A), Excellent (A-), Very good (B+), Good (B) Fairly Good (B-) Above Average (C+), Mediocre (C ), Barely Passable (C-) Pretty Bad (D+), Dismal (D), Waste of Time (D-), Into the Trash (F)

DIALOGUE: B STRUCTURE: B- HISTORY SETTING: A- CHARACTERS: B EVIL SETUP/ANTAGONISTS: B EMOTIONAL IMPACT: B+ SURPRISES: B- FANTASTIC/MYTHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS: A PACING: B+ THE LITTLE THINGS: B+ OVERALL STYLE: A FLOW OF WORDS: A- CHOICE OF FOCUS: A TRANSITIONS/FLASHBACKS/POV: A COMPLEXITY OF WORDS/SYMBOLISM/THEMES: B+

OVERALL GRADE: B+

SYNOPSIS: Hungarian Folklore style fantasy story; breaks in between with legends of the lands which gives it texture; squabbling princes fight with each other and magical opponents of various sorts.

CONCEPT: This tale is interesting but not really high concept; there's no great goal for the hero to pursue; it's more of a meandering style and one has to get into it for the characters and settings.

PACING: It moved well in the first 2/3 of the story; lots of little conflicts; learning about the lands and the legends in between. But, at the end, certain parts with the whole plan began to gnaw at me. Not enough was happening and that may have been the problem. More time was spent as characters started to slight one another, but there was too much of a lull. At times, the story meandered so rising conflict was an issue. Of course, I liked the story so much and side stories that it wasn't really a problem. However, at the end, I wasn't as impressed so I began to feel that the story lagged too much.

OVERALL STRUCTURE: The structure of this story meanders . . . taking a slice of life here and a slice of life there. As I mentioned, there really isn't some great epic goal as one usually expects in fantasy stories. This is one of the reasons I liked it even though such things are hard to pull off. The narrator's voice into this story is great; it comes into the legends but is also used at certain points.

The palace is a symbol of the relationship between the brothers . . . as it crumbles so do the relationships between Miklos and Laszlo.

WHY IT WORKED FOR ME: For reasons stated above: this is the type of story that isn't heavy on pacing but is great on side steps and legends. Other reasons listed above. FLAWS: (1) Lack of a focused epic scope or some big goal which hurt the pacing; (2) not enough time on most characters which made empathy difficult, making them good but not great; (3) OVERALL STYLE: His narrative element is superb and catchy. Focus is weak in some ways as listed under flaws. No character is mainly evil or good; all are gray.

FAVORITE METAPHOR: Think of the Cellars as feet, and the sandstone pillars emerging from them as legs. The east and west wings (the latter of which collapsed many years ago) are arms. The hallways are veins and arteries; the Great Hall on the third story is the heart. The high, central tower, where only the King is permitted, is the head. Can we stretch our analogy even further? The kitchen on the second story is the belly, and the dining room below it is the digestive system. Nestled among these organs is the room that, only two years ago, was occuped by Miklos, the missing prince of Fenario.

FAVORITE ACTION PASSAGE: She made gentle sounds into his ear as she helped him to remove his garments, then they lay together on her cloak. Slowly, she taught him the games of love, and he taught her of an innocence she had never known. The reeds swayed above them, but there was no wind to stir them.

FAVORITE DESCRIPTIVE PASSAGE: First, consider the River.

Now, remembering this, Miklos decided that the River ought to rise from its banks and sweep his wounded, broken body away, out of sight to the east. But it wouldn't. Miklos was twenty-one years old, and dying.

Next, the Palace:

Now, observe the interior:

And the City:

Consider a tiny crack in wood that had once been bright and polished, but was now dull and neglected. Something appeared through the crack. What was it? Maybe a leaf. Maybe the first shooting of a new seed, straining for the light in a lightless room, from the dark of a soil that wasn't fertile before it became dull and neglected. Perhaps a weed that will exist for a time, then sink to death and decay, as the Palace itself foes.

Rating:
Summary: Good Background for the Vlad the Assassin books
Review: Not to bad.... Great back ground story to the Vlad books. (I hope he writes more of those.)

Ghost Wolf

Rating:
Summary: One of Brust's best
Review: Steven Brust had outdone himself. Brokedown Palace is a book written in the style of a Hungarian folk tale, with all of the dark, gothic mystery, and none of the Disney-esque cuteness. This is not a children's fairy tale. The characters are complex, and the plot is both powerful and subtle. Devoted readers of Brust may notice the veiled references to the world of his Taltos series; the connection makes a fantastic book even more enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Look at the Deadication
Review: That is not a misspelling of dedication, the book is Deadicated to the members and lyric writers of the Grateful Dead in the mid-80's. All the "legends" are created from various Grateful Dead songs. For example, the boy trying to win the Princess meets the Demon Goddess in three guises, one twice his age, one twice his height, and one twice his weight. That's a reference to the song "I Need a Miracle". The wolf sleeping by the stream where the woodcutter's son finds the silver mine is a reference to the song "Cassidy". There is no Dead album called "Brokedown Palace" it's a song from the "American Beauty" album.

"River gonna take me, sing me sweet and sleepy..."

Rating:
Summary: A fairy tale, a soap opera, a legend.
Review: This is a wonderful tale of the mystical powers of Faerie, the power of love, and the acceptance of fate. It is a rich allegorical soup, with a martyred magical horse, an only slightly evil wizard, a gentle giant, and no absolutely good or bad guys. It is absolutely wonderful

Rating:
Summary: A remarkable book - A "Fairy Tale" in the old sense
Review: This is my favorite Brust book (and I like Brust). This book clearly fits into the Vlad series, SOMEHOW, but also has a great deal to do with the album containing its namesake song... You can find nearly all (if not all) of the songs alluded to, and yes, it pretty much starts "on its hands and knees by the riverside".