The 35th novel written by Steven Brust and the seventeenth in the Vlad Taltos series. The book was published in 2024 by Tor Books, and is told from Vlad's point of view.
Musical References[]
The framing device for this story includes parodies at the start of each chapter of a real-world musical number with lyrics altered to fit the musical produced in the story. The original tunes for each chapter are as follows:
- Prologue - "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General", from "The Pirates of Penzance" by Gilbert & Sullivan
- 1. "My Favorite Things", from "The Sound of Music" by Rogers and Hammerstein
- 2. "Cabaret" from "Cabaret" by Kander & Ebb
- 3. "Sunrise, Sunset" from "Fiddler on the Roof" by Bock & Harnick
- 4. "Seventy-Six Trombones" from "The Music Man" by Meredith Wilson
- 5. "Gee! Officer Krupke" from "West Side Story" by Sondheim & Bernstein
- 6. "Save the City" from "Rogers: The Musical" by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman
- 7. "Hello, Dolly!" from "Hello, Dolly!" by Herman & Stewart
- 8. "Pinball Wizard" from "Tommy" by Pete Townshend
- 9. "Going Through the Motions" from "Once More, with Feeling" ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer" season 6, ep 7) by Joss Whedon
- 10. "Shall We Dance?" from "The King and I" by Rogers and Hammerstein
- 11. "A Bushel and a Peck" from "Guys and Dolls" by Frank Loesser
- 12. "Hot Patootie-Bless My Soul" from "The Rocky Horror Show" by Richard O'Brien
- 13. "What Comes Next?" from "Hamilton" by Lin-Manuel Miranda
- 14. "If I Only Had a Brain" from "The Wizard of Oz" (1939 film) by Harold Arlen & Yip Harburg
- 15. "The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring" from "The Mikado" by Gilbert & Sullivan
- 16. "There's No Business Like Show Business" from "Annie Get Your Gun" by Irving Berlin
- 17. "Age of Aquarius" from "Hair" by Galt MacDermot & Gerome Ragni and James Rado
- Epilogue - "Call the Understudy (I Can't Go On Tonight)" from "Slings and Arrows" (TV Series) by Greg Morrison
Other[]
in Chapter 10, Vlad answers some mockery from Loiosh with " 'Shut up,' I explained."
Compare the most famous quotation from Ring Lardner, which is in The Young Immigrunts (1920), Chapter 10:
"Are we lost daddy I arsked tenderly.
"Shut up he explained."