{"id":4713,"date":"2018-03-17T18:20:25","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T22:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=4713"},"modified":"2018-05-01T12:40:16","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:40:16","slug":"good-guys-by-steven-brust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/good-guys-by-steven-brust\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Guys\u00a0by\u00a0Steven\u00a0Brust"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Tor Books Hardcover
\nISBN\/ITEM#: 9780765396372
\nDate: 06 March 2018 List Price $25.99
\n<\/span>Author’s Website<\/a>\u00a0 . SFRevu Post<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Steven Brust\u2019s new novel pits a team of investigators working for a secret foundation against a killer targeting sorcerers who also happen to be pretty terrible people. It\u2019s the foundation\u2019s mission to keep magic out of the public awareness and maybe keep the world safe from its effects, but if someone wants to rid the world of scum, and the good guys must stop them, who\u2019s in the right? Tightly plotted with engaging characters and the solid prose Brust\u2019s fans expect of him, Good Guys<\/strong> is a great addition to his canon.<\/em><\/p>\n

A PI, a ninja, and a sorcerer walk into a bar. Hmm. OK, Donovan\u2019s not a PI because he screwed up once and wouldn\u2019t be able to get a license.\u00a0 Also because he got shot up by a cop for Jaywalking While Black and is legally dead. Susan\u2019s not actually a ninja, because she\u2019s not, but odds are that she could whip a ninja\u2019s ass in a fair fight\u2026except that there\u2019s no reason she\u2019d stoop to a fair fight. And the sorcerer? No, Marci is definitely a sorcerer. They haven\u2019t walked into a bar yet either, but considering the trouble they face on a regular basis, it might not be a bad idea.<\/p>\n

Donovan and his team work for a foundation whose mission is to keep magic under wraps, so it doesn\u2019t cause too much chaos. The Foundation split off from the Mystici, a much older organization that doesn\u2019t have the same convictions about chaos or the public good, even though they fund the Foundation. So there\u2019s some common ground, even if they don\u2019t see eye to eye.<\/p>\n

When Donovan\u2019s team is activated, they take off for whatever manifestation of magic needs to be shut down, assembling from their separate locations across the country by train, plane, automobile, or slipstream, which is the magical equivalent of teleportation.\u00a0 Slipstream is enough of an effort for the sorcerers that make it happen that Accounting is always on Donovan\u2019s case about profligate expenses. Not that he cares. In fact he may take a perverse pleasure in not caring. Maybe he\u2019s just getting even for his meager pay: minimum wage plus lodging. That\u2019s how they know they\u2019re the good guys; the bad guys make a heck of a lot more money.<\/p>\n

The problem at hand isn\u2019t a public show of the impossible, like that flying ship over Memphis, but a series of murders that look mundane, mostly, but have disturbing a commonality, namely that all of the victims are sorcerers in the Mystici, and they\u2019re all serious assholes. Somebody is taking out really bad people who have magical powers and our team has the ambivalent mission of trying to find out who, and why, and stopping them. The question of who is and what defines, a good guy<\/em>, is at the heart of the story, and the answers are hard come by.<\/p>\n

Good Guys<\/strong> is a cross between a PI and classic secret agency novel, and it\u2019s better than most of either, with a refreshingly contemporary air. Brust has assembled a cast of engaging characters that would serve him well in sequels, and whether this remains a standalone or not, Good Guys<\/strong> is a great read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tor Books Hardcover ISBN\/ITEM#: 9780765396372 Date: 06 March 2018 List Price $25.99 Author’s Website\u00a0 . SFRevu Post Steven Brust\u2019s new novel pits a team of investigators working for a secret foundation against a killer targeting sorcerers who also happen to be pretty terrible people. It\u2019s the foundation\u2019s mission to keep magic out of the public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4713"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4775,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713\/revisions\/4775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}