[Dragaera] Jhegalla

[Scott Schultz]

>/Orca/, /Dragon/, and /Issola/ are my favorites so far, though. I
>didn't originally like Dragon but it grew on me, thematically, and
>perhaps /Jhegaala/ will do the same.

While I can appreciate _Jhegalla_ from a thematic point of view, I just 
don't enjoy torture and it seems like Vlad has already been subjected to 
enough of that in prior stories. While the unnecessariness of the whole 
thing is part of the plot, sort of, the fact that it wasn't necessary just 
made it sit poorly with me. I could never figure out why any of the 
principals didn't just ask Vlad flat out who he was and what he wanted.

I guess the whole gimmick of falling into a powder keg of intrigue and 
lighting a match just didn't work for me, when it wasn't ever clear that 
there WAS a powder keg of intrigue until almost the end of the story. Then 
Vlad's well-being seems to rest on the Duke being a semi-honorable man who 
realizes he's made a mistake and feels bad about it instead of just feeling 
like destroying the evidence and sweeping the whole thing under the table, 
and Vlad somehow realizes this and COUNTS on that behavior.

In fact, while he offers up some pretty flimsy hand-waving to justify why 
saving him was in the best interest of the people who had been ostensibly 
responsible for setting him up for torture in the first place, I never 
really bought into those justifications. It seemed to me that the interests 
of everyone involved would be best served if Vlad conveniently vanished and 
was never heard from again.

Other than that, while I wasn't expecting the "East through Vlad's eyes" to 
be anything like a rehash of _Brokedown Palace_, I guess I expected to at 
least get a glimpse at the contrast between the East and Faerie. In the end, 
there wasn't really any contrast. The story could have quite easily been set 
in the Empire or Greenaere/Elde Island with very little modification.

Meh. You can't please everyone and this is one of the few stories that 
didn't please me.