{"id":59,"date":"2005-03-02T20:30:30","date_gmt":"2005-03-03T01:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=59"},"modified":"2021-05-30T21:27:36","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:27:36","slug":"to-reign-in-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/59","title":{"rendered":"To Reign in Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

To Reign in Hell<\/em> (1984) Steven Brust<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Still on my Brust kick, the next book in line was To Reign in Hell<\/em>. <\/p>\n

To be honest, the best description I can give of the book, is the one on the back cover (I have the 2000 Orb reprint):<\/p>\n

The time is the Beginning.
\nThe place is Heaven.
\nThe story is the Revolt of the Angels–
\na war of magic, corruption and intrigue
\nthat could destroy the universe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, maybe not the destroy the universe bit, since most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the story of the fall of Satan, but the rest of it is about right.<\/p>\n

The reason I like this book so well is that–despite knowing the story and how things are going to turn out–I kept hoping that things were going to work out. I really wanted Satan to patch things up with Yaweh, even though I knew he wouldn’t. <\/p>\n

I also liked it because, as with all Steven Brust’s books, it’s amusing. Take the very first sentence:<\/p>\n

Snow, tenderly caught by eddying breezes, swirled and spun in to and out of bright, lustrous shapes that gleamed against the emerald-blazoned black drape of sky and sparkled there for a moment, hanging, before settling gently to the soft, green-tufted plain with all the sickly sweetness of an over-written sentence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I promise, the rest of the book isn’t written like that. But it does show his sense of humor throughout.<\/p>\n

Although the dialog isn’t quite as sharp as his later books, it’s still good, and the story is fantastic (for both definitions of the word.) If you are not yet a fan of Steven Burst, I would certainly recommend starting with this book. It’s a quick read, and to be honest simply wonderful.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, finishing this book leaves me with the problem of figuring out what I’m going to read next, because I read a whole lot faster than Steven Brust writes.
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To Reign in Hell (1984)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,291,41],"tags":[129],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-paper","category-reread","tag-steven-brust"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-X","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1549,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1549","url_meta":{"origin":59,"position":0},"title":"To Reign in Hell","author":"Michelle","date":"December 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"To Reign in Hell (1984) Steven Brust I have a lot of books. Having a lot of books means that I feel guilty about unread books, when I go back and re-read an old favorite. But sometimes, you just need the comfort of reaching for a loved author or book.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/Reign-in-Hell.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1562,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1562","url_meta":{"origin":59,"position":1},"title":"Phoenix Guards","author":"Michelle","date":"December 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Phoenix Guards (1991) Steven Brust Not feeling up to starting anything new (and hoping for a big pile of Christmas books) I decided to reread Steven Brust's Phoenix Guards I love that book.","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/389","url_meta":{"origin":59,"position":2},"title":"Phoenix Guards","author":"Michelle","date":"June 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Phoenix Guards (1991) Steven Brust In the mood for re-reading favorites, I just finished Phoenix Guards. Phoenix Guards is one of the books that falls into my \"pretty much perfect\" category.","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":390,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/390","url_meta":{"origin":59,"position":3},"title":"Five Hundred Years After","author":"Michelle","date":"June 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Five Hundred Years After (1994) Steven Brust Because I re-read Phoenix Guards, I had to follow it up with Five Hundred Years After But really, I'm not going to re-read any of the Vlad books until I get my copy of Dzur when it comes out in paperback in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1726,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1726","url_meta":{"origin":59,"position":4},"title":"Butcher Bird","author":"Michelle","date":"May 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Butcher Bird (2007) Richard Kadrey Spyder lives just on the edge of being a deviant. He's a tattoo artist and owns a shop with his childhood best friend, Lulu, who does piercings and body mods. He drinks and smokes and enjoys the company of women of questionable morals, but underneath\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Butcher-Bird.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":186,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/186","url_meta":{"origin":59,"position":5},"title":"Yendi","author":"Michelle","date":"February 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yendi (1984) Steven Brust Yendi is the second book in Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series, however, in the time line it comes before the first book, Jhereg. Instead of taking off from where Jhereg left off, we go back in time, to when Vlad met Cawti, his future wife. Yendi\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/02\/Yendi.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}