This book breaks away from the regular timeline of the cycle, and sends Vlad back in the past to a key battle. Given the long lifetimes of the Dragaerans involved, and the various family ties, a lot of what goes on turns out to be related.
Typical Vlad stuff, snappy, sarcastic and fast moving. ( )

Back on Track: Depending on how you look at it, this is either the second, or the third, or the eighth book on Brust's Vlad Taltos Adventures. (I like to go by publishing order, which means this is the Eighth book.)
The first few books in the series were fascinating little facets of a complex world, told through Vlad's eyes and with his smarmy wit and sharp humor apparent in every tale. The tales told in 'Phoenix', 'Athyra', and 'Orca', however, took on a dark, brooding, introspective bent, and much of the protagonist's charm is missing as he wrestles with personal demons.
Dragon, however, brings back the fun-loving style that fans of earlier books will like, as the hero, Vlad Taltos, recounts a tale of what it's like to be a soldier, which, in his words, is 'the last place a self respecting assasin should be.' The story details many of the early aspects of Vlad's life, filling in details of how he developed many of the relationships with the recurring characters that readers have come to know.
I really liked this one, and could fill up pages discussing it, but you will enjoy it more if I shut up and let you read it for yourself. Definitely worth it.

Wow, I had no idea how much Aliera owes Vlad. He's done so much for her, it's really pretty crazy. The descriptions of the war made me feel like Vlad was there for weeks or maybe even months. Finding out it was only a couple of days was sort of surreal. It was nice to finally know how Aliera ended up with Pathfinder. But, I have to admit the whole thing was a little disappointing. There were no twists or mysteries revealed, it was so straight forward. ( )

In which Vlad finds himself going to war.

Out of the many books that I have read that include some sort of war in a fantasy book environment, with the main characters as foot soldiers, this book I think describes it best.

It can be a bit confusing since it tends to jump around a bit in time, from future, present, and past, or maybe its not confusing and I just can't read books like this when needing more sleep. ( )

A bit of a pickup over the last two. It fills in some backstory and advances the current plot microscopically. ( )