Ten Points for Style

Maijstral #1-3

by Walter Jon Williams

The Drake Magistral series. 1. The Crown Jewels (1987) + 2. House of Shards (1988) + 3. Rock of Ages (1995) in one big book.

The Crown Jewels: In this light-hearted romp through a decadent interstellar empire, an aristocratic thief is commissioned to steal a jeweled box. Everyone wants the box. And the person who has it is in for a whole lot of trouble. By the author of Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind.

House of Shards: Drake Maijstral, the most daring Allowed Burglar in the galaxy, is now setting his sights on the Eltdown Shard, a spectacular necklace embodying the flame of a dying star. Through the media vids, the audience watches him--in an intricate plot designed to both steal the necklace and foil his major rival.

Rock of Ages: The saga of Drake Maijstral, introduced in The Crown Jewels, continues. Drake is the number one rated Allowed Burglar in the Human Constellation, a vast-galaxy spanning confederation that exists side-by-side with the ancient Khosali Empire--but nearly everyone he meets seems to want to challenge him to a duel to the death.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

638 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Walter Jon Williams has published twenty novels and short fiction collections. Most are science fiction or fantasy -Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire to name just a few - a few are historical adventures, and the most recent, The Rift, is a disaster novel in which "I just basically pound a part of the planet down to bedrock." And that's just the opening chapters. Walter holds a fourth-degree black belt in Kenpo Karate, and also enjoys sailing and scuba diving. He lives in New Mexico with his wife, Kathy Hedges.

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic sfnal comedy of manners. I never know how others will react to humor, but I think these are great. Note that this is the omnibus edition of all three short Maijstral novels. Maijstral is an impoverished aristo turned Allowed Burglar in the Khosali Empire, a mannered society ruled - or
at least with standards set - by faintly canine aliens.

Here's a sample:
Drake has bested Duke Joseph Bob of Tejas in a duel, scared off a challenge from Capt. Milo Hay, and put off yet another challenge by Prince Hunac of Yucatan. He's planning the media spin for all this
with Duchess Roberta Altunin, his second and inamorata:

"You must tell the media of your plans for a religious retreat."
"I will. I'm a hereditary prince-bishop after all - I'll spend the whole night praying for peace."
"I keep forgetting you're a bishop. You're not very ecclesiastical."
Maijstral composed his face into an expression of piety. "I prefer to keep my devotions private, thank you."
"Well, I'm a hereditary abbess, so I suppose I should not criticize."
"Really? Which order?"
"The Reformed Traditional Hospice Order of the Blessed Spatula."
"Oh. The Spatulates. . . I wondered why they worshiped a bit of kitchen equipment."
"They take it out of the vault once a year and make a holy omelette with it . . . The ceremony is quite moving."
"I'm sure."
"My piece was a bit leathery when I tasted it, though."

-- and on and on, skipping lightly from one silly episode to another, never losing momentum or control. I lost count of the number oftimes I laughed out loud.

Most highly recommended, if the sample tickles your fancy. I found the Maijstral stories comparable to Wodehouse at his best - high praise indeed.

[David H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an omnibus of three novels, The Crown Jewels (1987), House of Shards (1988), and Rock of Ages (1995). All three are fairly short novels, and I'd call them science fiction comedy of manners. The plots of all three are fairly fun and usually twisty, and I thought everything escalated nicely through the three books, being both episodic and also with a throughline in Paavo Kuusinen (though I can't imagine following this series in real time and having to wait 7 years for the third!). The main characters are also quite fun to follow, even when they're being ridiculous.

It's also quite amusing throughout, especially as the breakaway Human Constellation is rediscovering some of the its previously suppressed culture (like Shakespeare), but still keeping room for the real classics of humanity like Elvis Presley and Wild West films (the Khosali sure have interesting perspectives on what's important). That said, Williams does some truly clever things, and I loved in the first book how we get this wonderfully complicated partner-switching formal dance that introduces all the players, and then Williams reuses the exact same dance in the ending climax to handle the complicated handoff that Maijstral has engineered. Just beautiful.

Having read Williams's later Praxis series (starting with The Praxis), I'm also struck by some of the similarities between the two interstellar empires (the Khosali Protectorate and the Shaa Empire), with lots of social rigidity and interesting but messy polities. Definitely themes Williams seems to like!

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pure fun. Good beach book.

[Lowed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Witty, funny, and sometimes dark. This book is actually good. It may lack the components for a really good scifi lit, but this one was still one hell of a ride!