A review by chukg
The Baron of Magister Valley by Steven Brust

5.0

So great. Brust is always good but I have a bit of a soft spot for the Paarfi books and this one seems to be mostly self-contained. (I mean, it's set in Dragaera and has historical references and all, but no other main characters appear in on-screen roles. ) Tons of long digressions and a deeply intrusive narrator decrying authorial mistakes of others that he would certainly never make (often in the middle of actually making those same mistakes), plus some cool magic and a revenge tale. (I still prefer the Vlad books a bit but these are really fun and Vlad is usually a bit darker overall.)