A review by krayfish1
The Baron of Magister Valley by Steven Brust

4.0

I was delighted to see this because "Count of Monte Cristo, but by Paarfi of Roundwood" was a good hook. My memory of the original book was heavy on the convoluted revenge plans and light on the set-up, whereas this book was very heavy on the set-up and light on the revenge plans, which were a bit less convoluted. I was, however, delighted that

Spoiler

writing the book was Paarfi's way of getting revenge on a colleague who stole the title of chair of the history department from him. The revenge part being that he dug up that colleagues dirty past history and wrote a book (this book) about it.

The book is really good as a tribute to 19th century authors who go on digressions and write in really long sentences. It gets meta about the craft of story-telling, and the narrator keeps making asides/comparisons about his colleague he's really mad at.

It's a tad style over substance, but I enjoy the style, and I like having the style without the 19th century assumptions that women aren't involved in public life, and are doomed to stay home and suffer and get married to some random guy after their fiance gets arrested.