Teckla
Steven Brust
389 pages
published in 1991

Teckla is the third book in the Vlad Taltos series of very readable fantasy novels starring a cynical human assassin in a world ruled by elves (or Dragaerans as Brust calls them). The first two were light adventure stories, in which the fact that the hero of the series was actually, you know, not at all that nice a man, was overcome by the sheer attraction of Vlad himself, cynical smartass that he is. In this book however things start to change, as "Vlad grows a conscience" as some wag called it.

A short recap for those who don't know the series: it is said in a world divided between the long lived Dragaerans (not quite elves, but close) and Easterners or humans, The Dragaerans are divided into seventeen Houses, of which the Jhereg form the criminal class and the Teckla are the little people, the peasants and the people doing the menial low prestige jobs. Vlad is a member of the Organisation, the Jhereg mafia, an assassin and crime boss. His wife Cawti used to be an assassin as well, but has recently traded it in for something much more dangerous: revolutionary.

She's fallen in with a mixed group of Easterners and Teckla, who are attempting to use the unrealised power of these groups to improve their circumstances. Not only that, they want to eventually overthrow the entire Dragaeran system, in which each House in turn rules the Empire. Vlad knows this is impossible, as the Teckla are only able to take power at the end of a Great Circle, not at the start of one and he earnestly tries to convince Cawti from this truth, just as she tries to convince him of the truth of revolution. Needless to say, this does their marriage little good.

Despite his cynicism, Vlad does get somewhat involved with the revolutionaries, when the Jhereg crimelord in power over the Easterner's ghetto takes umbrage at them attacking his pimps and gambling places. Vlad's only real concern is the safety of Cawti, who he still loves despite their differences, but because of this he ends up in a full scale crime war...

When I first started reading this series, the world of Drageara seemed like a typical fantasy world, based on the usual misunderstanding of medieval feudal Europe, an unchanching world where everybody knew their place and stayed in it, bar the occacional lucky farmboy who turns out to be a prince and where the emphasis is on the aristocracy and the "small folk" are only there as background noise. Even before Teckla however it had become clear Brust had put slightly more thought into his creation than that and here the hidden realities of his creation are put out in the open.

The other thing Brust shines some much needed light on is of course Vlad's possession: assassin and minor crimelord. Until now, the charm of Vlad's personality, as well as the fact that we've mostly seen him kill nasty people has kept the truth of his profession in the background. Yet in real life, we would thing of Vlad as a thug, a not very nice man at all. It's here that Vlad, who despite everything is fundamentally a decent man, starts learning this truth for himself again. Both developments put together make for an interesting twist. It is quite possible that Brust could've kept up writing Vlad's adventures as a lighthearted fantasy series for basically forever, that he didn't is why he is such a good writer.

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Steven Brust, Teckla, fantasy, book review