Jhereg

Stephen Brust's Jhereg jumped to the top of the TBR queue because of Cory Doctorow's strong recommendation. It didn't hit any sweet spots for me: it was a quick ~230 pages of fantasy, told in first-person by an assassin, in a fantasy world with sorcery and witchcraft and Dragaerans (descriptions render these more human than the name would suggest). There were action sequences and preparation scenes and scheming and thousand-year internecine feuds. No plot twists were surprising, although the narration chose at many points to casually reveal things that shifted the entire world-building operation (for example, at one point --- and this is not much of a spoiler --- it is revealed that death is not particularly permanent, and in fact is just a way of sending a snippy message to your enemies).

I might read the next book in the series, but it's low-priority. There's a new Jasper Fforde book out! And I still haven't read the sequel to Hild!

This post's theme word is gegg (v intr / noun), "to play a hoax or practical joke; a trick or practical joke." In a world where magic is a daily practice, there is a breadth of possible geggs.