I'm always so pleased with these novels! I love them, but let me be entirely clear. I love them more now that Vlad is back in town. He's a city boy at heart and I feel so much more comfortable when he's getting into trouble with the Jhreg on his home turf. 
 It's so fun to see him get interested in the laws at long last, too, but not more than I like seeing him get to know his little son. Things might not be getting all that much better with him and his ex-wife, but at least with a weapon of power and a whole society of long-lived nobles after him 24/7, he doesn't have all that much time to worry about what she thinks of him. 
 Or what his other friends think of him. Or why they're being set up by different factions of the empire or the Justice of it. Even the Empress is caught in a really hard spot. 
 The novel takes place in the latest time slot, thank goodness. :) I like a lot of the out-of time novels, but I'm very, very curious about everything that happened after his Weapon of Power was awoken. 
 But last, but not least, I do need to mention that Brust's deleted scenes at the end of this novel nearly stole the freaking show and had me giggling furiously the entire time. This man knows his shit. Of course, I already knew that. Still, it's nice to pit Vlad up against all those other tired fantasy tropes and skewer the living shit out of them directly rather than indirectly. :) So Delicious. :)