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The Gypsy
Cigany is the gypsy, stalking the city in a cloud of magic.
Stepovich is the seasoned cop, who keeps finding dead bodies in the gypsy's wake.
The Fair Lady is Queen of the Underworld, drawing them both into her murderous web...until only the gypsy's broken memories stand between Stepovich's beloved city and the Lady's dark designs.
Part crime novel, part magic, Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm's The Gypsy is "a powerful and memorable fantasy" ( Publishers Weekly ).
Stepovich is the seasoned cop, who keeps finding dead bodies in the gypsy's wake.
The Fair Lady is Queen of the Underworld, drawing them both into her murderous web...until only the gypsy's broken memories stand between Stepovich's beloved city and the Lady's dark designs.
Part crime novel, part magic, Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm's The Gypsy is "a powerful and memorable fantasy" ( Publishers Weekly ).
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
8 people are currently reading
477 people want to read
About the author
Steven Brust
99 books2,301 followersSteven Karl Zoltán Brust (born November 23, 1955) is an American fantasy and science fiction author of Hungarian descent. He was a member of the writers' group The Scribblies, which included Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly, Nate Bucklin, Kara Dalkey, and Patricia Wrede, and also belongs to the Pre-Joycean Fellowship.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/steven...
(Photo by David Dyer-Bennet)
http://us.macmillan.com/author/steven...
(Photo by David Dyer-Bennet)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
May 17, 2011
Definitely one for the urban fantasy fans.
Co-written by Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb) and Steven Brust, the book mixes Hungarian folkloric archetypes with a story of modern police and teens. I suspect that Lindholm wrote the folklore-inspired characters, because some of them, especially the title character, reminded me of her early book "Wizard of the Pigeons." There are a few references to tie this in to Brust's 'Taltos' series, which fans of his will likely appreciate.
Overall, though, this isn't a major work by either of these authors. It's all right, but I wanted a little more depth to it. The main villain didn't seem to have any motivation for her deeds other than that "well, she's Pure Evil," and her minions/henchmen were kinda stereotypical, like "the bullied child who turns bad due to his resentment," and "the girl who goes bad 'cause she wants to grow up too fast and be cool" It also could have done a bit more delving into actual Gypsy culture, rather than just dealing with figures of folklore.
I guess there's a companion musical album that goes with this book, which I haven't heard. The chapters all are headed with lyrics from the songs - and they all rhyme really annoyingly. Maybe they're great in their musical context, but many lyrics just do not work as written poetry.
Just thinking about urban fantasy in general.. I love the idea of myth and magic mixing with the modern world, the whole idea of gritty "faerie-punk." The Bordertown series did it particularly well. But very often, I find myself unsatisfied by many books in the genre, and I've been trying to put my finger on why. I think it's because these stories so often deal with the disenfranchised and/or troubled, and too often, one feels like it's coming from an outside, even preachy (or at least message-y) perspective. I didn't feel like the authors of this book really knew (or if they know, it didn't really come through) what it's like to live as a gypsy, always suspected of crimes. Or as a punk teen. Or as a 'reformed' prostitute. Or even as a cop.
I feel a little unfair, complaining here, because the book really isn't that bad, and I do like both of these authors - but I also really like believable, convincing characters, and stories that really let you understand someone from the inside out.
Co-written by Megan Lindholm (Robin Hobb) and Steven Brust, the book mixes Hungarian folkloric archetypes with a story of modern police and teens. I suspect that Lindholm wrote the folklore-inspired characters, because some of them, especially the title character, reminded me of her early book "Wizard of the Pigeons." There are a few references to tie this in to Brust's 'Taltos' series, which fans of his will likely appreciate.
Overall, though, this isn't a major work by either of these authors. It's all right, but I wanted a little more depth to it. The main villain didn't seem to have any motivation for her deeds other than that "well, she's Pure Evil," and her minions/henchmen were kinda stereotypical, like "the bullied child who turns bad due to his resentment," and "the girl who goes bad 'cause she wants to grow up too fast and be cool" It also could have done a bit more delving into actual Gypsy culture, rather than just dealing with figures of folklore.
I guess there's a companion musical album that goes with this book, which I haven't heard. The chapters all are headed with lyrics from the songs - and they all rhyme really annoyingly. Maybe they're great in their musical context, but many lyrics just do not work as written poetry.
Just thinking about urban fantasy in general.. I love the idea of myth and magic mixing with the modern world, the whole idea of gritty "faerie-punk." The Bordertown series did it particularly well. But very often, I find myself unsatisfied by many books in the genre, and I've been trying to put my finger on why. I think it's because these stories so often deal with the disenfranchised and/or troubled, and too often, one feels like it's coming from an outside, even preachy (or at least message-y) perspective. I didn't feel like the authors of this book really knew (or if they know, it didn't really come through) what it's like to live as a gypsy, always suspected of crimes. Or as a punk teen. Or as a 'reformed' prostitute. Or even as a cop.
I feel a little unfair, complaining here, because the book really isn't that bad, and I do like both of these authors - but I also really like believable, convincing characters, and stories that really let you understand someone from the inside out.
October 14, 2024
I really struggled to get into this one because of it's extremely disjunct narrative style. Most of the chapters were broken into short or super short passages (often 2 pages or less), which left me as a reader struggling to find any narrative momentum. There were some really clever ideas of a world within a world in this urban fantasy, but I never felt a connection to the story, the world, or the characters. I did like how the elements converged at the end, but overall was a bit of a middling reading experience for me. 2.5/5
October 23, 2014
It's a pretty good fantasy-mystery with a bit of horror. It didn't grab me on one read the way some of his others have, although I'm not sure why. I should re-read it & see if I change my mind, but as I recall, I just didn't identify much with the hero.
March 28, 2011
I wavered between really liking this one, and really just hoping it'd end. On the whole, I liked the parts I liked way more than I disliked the parts that I disliked, so I'd still count this as a worthwhile read.
This is an urban fantasy tale of Good versus Evil set against/above/within the backdrop of Hungarian folklore. The characters are compelling and the multiple story arcs are intricately woven into a single, grand tapestry by the end. The mystery unfolds at a pace that is neither too revealing too early nor frustratingly vague for too long which is a difficult balance to achieve. The puzzle pieces to the main maneuverings of the fairy tale are foreshadowed and then fulfilled in such a clever fashion that I couldn't help but think one author would add the foreshadowing and then challenge the other to get all of the characters from point A to point B and then in turn add his/her own foreshadowing as part of an escalating game of wits. It's sort of like the characters of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" if they had been written with lollipops and sunshine instead of depression and sadness.
The bad: the flow of the book is beyond frustrating to me. It's only around 250 pages long, but the story progresses in such a stutter-step fashion with such constantly shifting focus that it feels twice as long. There are multiple planes of reality coexisting throughout the tale, and very little explanation is given to the non-familiar magical reality. It's almost as if there is a presupposition on the parts of the authors that all readers will be intimately familiar with Hungarian folklore and that context clues and childhood memories will be enough to carry us through some of the more explicitly Hungarian sections. There's also a more than acceptable number of instances of characters getting out of situations simply because they suddenly remember a special power that they have forgotten they possess until that particular moment. It actually works better in the context of the story than I'm making it sound here, but the fact that it happens so often still bugs me.
Barely related sidenote: this marks the last of Brust's published books that I hadn't yet read (although Tiassa will be released in a week which means I'll be behind yet again) and I still rank him far and away my favorite author ever. I don't love everything he's written, but I respect that he constantly changes his style as a challenge to himself to try to tell stories in different and interesting ways. It's understandable that not all of those experiments will resonate with me, but his success rate is astounding. Here's to hoping there are many, many more works in the future.
This is an urban fantasy tale of Good versus Evil set against/above/within the backdrop of Hungarian folklore. The characters are compelling and the multiple story arcs are intricately woven into a single, grand tapestry by the end. The mystery unfolds at a pace that is neither too revealing too early nor frustratingly vague for too long which is a difficult balance to achieve. The puzzle pieces to the main maneuverings of the fairy tale are foreshadowed and then fulfilled in such a clever fashion that I couldn't help but think one author would add the foreshadowing and then challenge the other to get all of the characters from point A to point B and then in turn add his/her own foreshadowing as part of an escalating game of wits. It's sort of like the characters of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" if they had been written with lollipops and sunshine instead of depression and sadness.
The bad: the flow of the book is beyond frustrating to me. It's only around 250 pages long, but the story progresses in such a stutter-step fashion with such constantly shifting focus that it feels twice as long. There are multiple planes of reality coexisting throughout the tale, and very little explanation is given to the non-familiar magical reality. It's almost as if there is a presupposition on the parts of the authors that all readers will be intimately familiar with Hungarian folklore and that context clues and childhood memories will be enough to carry us through some of the more explicitly Hungarian sections. There's also a more than acceptable number of instances of characters getting out of situations simply because they suddenly remember a special power that they have forgotten they possess until that particular moment. It actually works better in the context of the story than I'm making it sound here, but the fact that it happens so often still bugs me.
Barely related sidenote: this marks the last of Brust's published books that I hadn't yet read (although Tiassa will be released in a week which means I'll be behind yet again) and I still rank him far and away my favorite author ever. I don't love everything he's written, but I respect that he constantly changes his style as a challenge to himself to try to tell stories in different and interesting ways. It's understandable that not all of those experiments will resonate with me, but his success rate is astounding. Here's to hoping there are many, many more works in the future.
June 5, 2008
From the first time I read about this collaboration, I had to have it. When I did eventually get my hands on it, I wasn't disappointed. I found it somewhat confusing in places, I think, but a good, absorbing read.
November 23, 2021
I bought and read the new paperback when it came out around 1993 because it was by Brust. I reread it because of Megan Lindholm, aka Robin Hobb. I found it forgettable the first time but with interesting elements this time. It's an urban fantasy using Hungarian elements. Since I have trouble with names this book was terribly confusing. Three brothers each with an animal, human, and Hungarian name, two linked to musical instruments, one to a knife. Of course they don't all appear together or with a list anywhere and have no clear history. Three police officers with two names and an animal totem also confused me but less. Finally, one villain with two names and 3 nonhuman servants with single names that were straightforward, two human servants, fairly distinct- a killer and a teenage girl. The action jumps around a lot, the plot is vague until the last pages. The main plot is interesting but again you have to wait until the last pages. There is also a coachman who is the link to all the characters except he is vaguely there half the story, about as helpful to the story as the shadow of a cloud overhead.
I'd like to think Brust was always experimenting rather than sticking it to his publisher over a contract dispute. The book uses lyrics from Brust circa 1989 when he was in bands in Minneapolis. Unfortunately not songs I know. Double unfortunately I was in Minneapolis in 1989 and 1990 but didn't know about him being there. Author bios on book covers in the eighties were very sparse.
I'd like to think Brust was always experimenting rather than sticking it to his publisher over a contract dispute. The book uses lyrics from Brust circa 1989 when he was in bands in Minneapolis. Unfortunately not songs I know. Double unfortunately I was in Minneapolis in 1989 and 1990 but didn't know about him being there. Author bios on book covers in the eighties were very sparse.
July 23, 2025
This is a kaleidoscopic novel, part detective story and part myth and magic, partially written by Robin Hobb (my favorite author). That said, it's actually closer to experimental fiction: a hallucinatory collage rapidly jumping between separate povs with sections that shift, morph, and sometimes have the logic of dreams.
Unfortunately, there may be a great book here--but I picked this book up too late in life, as I just don't enjoy this kind of storytelling anymore. The book may in fact be great, and especially of interest to people interested in literary or experimental approaches to genre storytelling... but it made my eyes glaze over. However, this may say more about me than about the novel.
Unfortunately, there may be a great book here--but I picked this book up too late in life, as I just don't enjoy this kind of storytelling anymore. The book may in fact be great, and especially of interest to people interested in literary or experimental approaches to genre storytelling... but it made my eyes glaze over. However, this may say more about me than about the novel.
May 3, 2019
This was a great read. I'm really surprised it doesn't have a much better rating from readers. Perhaps the masses don't like to be challenged in their reading choices. This book was a bit confusing for a while with a lot of different characters (many having multiple names) and a bunch of different story lines going on but that's what i loved about it. Everything came together at the end and i found it to be an intelligent, satisfying novel. Good stuff, well done.
July 28, 2017
Normally I devour books, and Steven Brust is one of my favorite authors. But...this one was a slog. It is a semi-captivating story involving gypsies in and out of the real timeline, but it jumps back and forth more than a Quentin Tarantino film. The resolution was mostly satisfying, but the journey through the book was confusing and tough.
September 29, 2017
DNF'ed a bit over half way, but I give it an overall 3 stars. The characters were okay (I did really like the policeman and his daughter), the setting was actually really interesting, but something about the plot was just totally unengaging. After having put it down I had absolutely no interest in picking it up again.
October 19, 2017
Was a slow read. Hard to identify positively with the characters as they were made real and unreal at the turning of a page. Time, place and story were mutating as you progressed through the book. Each character had several identities that were not clear as to which were which. And powers/abilities were not set for any except the villain.
December 5, 2018
Gave up on this one. Love Robin Hobb and love Inheritance short stories by Megan Lindholm and the not so short ones in that collection by Robin Hobb. Really I just badly need more Robin Hobb and I've run out. Wah! I'm thinking, by the way, that this author needs a third pen name to explain her "self" that created Soldier Son trilogy. Am I right?!
February 20, 2019
I love the way Steven and Megan tell a our tale over a modern fairy tale on top of retelling a fairy tale...and make it work. Some pacing issues and I’m a bit iffy on Daniels choice, but overall a solid enjoyable read.
November 3, 2019
Tough to start but well worth pushing through the first 80 pages to get into the flow of it. Well written and atmospheric. Not character-driven but rather an examination of the ongoing clash between our 'real' world and the lands of fantasy. As such it conveys its reality very well.
March 14, 2019
I love books by Brust and Lindholm, but this one just came off as bland and longwinded.
April 24, 2009
Dans ce roman, on suit différents personnages qui, depuis une petite ville américaine bien typique, vont tenter de sauver notre moooonde. Comme je l’ai déja écrit, le début de ce roman, trop confus, trop onirique, trop morcelé, a failli avoir raison de ma motivation.
Et pourtant, en termes de lecture, je suis pour le moins obstiné. Je me suis donc accroché. Coup de bol pour moi, la suite est un peu meilleure que le début. Ca reste confus, difficile à suivre, mais c’est un peu plus clair que les cinquante premières pages qu’on pourrait placer dans le panthéon des pages les plus imbitables.
Donc, c’est un roman difficile à suivre. Malheureusement, c’est tout ce que j’ai pu en retenir. Pas d’intrigue bien ficelée (encore que …), pas de grandes envolées lyriques. Juste un peu de musique, pas mal de fantastique, une bande de gitans. Et hélas, ça ne suffit pas à sauver ce bouquin du titre de truc minable, qui ne valait même pas la peine d’être emprunté à la bibliothèque.
Donc, si vous devez lire un truc, reprenez plutôt une tranche de Kirinyaga que cette chose à peine digne d’être lue.
Et pourtant, en termes de lecture, je suis pour le moins obstiné. Je me suis donc accroché. Coup de bol pour moi, la suite est un peu meilleure que le début. Ca reste confus, difficile à suivre, mais c’est un peu plus clair que les cinquante premières pages qu’on pourrait placer dans le panthéon des pages les plus imbitables.
Donc, c’est un roman difficile à suivre. Malheureusement, c’est tout ce que j’ai pu en retenir. Pas d’intrigue bien ficelée (encore que …), pas de grandes envolées lyriques. Juste un peu de musique, pas mal de fantastique, une bande de gitans. Et hélas, ça ne suffit pas à sauver ce bouquin du titre de truc minable, qui ne valait même pas la peine d’être emprunté à la bibliothèque.
Donc, si vous devez lire un truc, reprenez plutôt une tranche de Kirinyaga que cette chose à peine digne d’être lue.
April 11, 2012
Wow, a Hobb/Lindholm book I didn't like! What is this madness?
I'm not familiar with Steven Brust so I can't comment on his influence in this collaboration, but I have to say that this is far from what I've grown to expect from Lindholm. I kept inspecting the text, desperate to pinpoint her voice and finding nothing. The weakest point of this book for me were the characters - which was jarring, considering Lindholm's greatest strength are her characters. Points of view switched around rapidly, never lingering long enough for me to really get a feel for most of the characters. The few female characters were the only ones that ever piqued my interest, but their appearances were few and far between.
As far as the plot goes, let's be honest: I have no idea what the hell happened. View points shifted frequently, the writing was vague, and the climax left me feeling like I'd been locked in a box and tossed around by school children. Maybe I'm stupid. I really wish I didn't just read 330 pages of fiction without grasping a bit of it, but there you have it.
It's a miracle I made it through the whole thing.
I'm not familiar with Steven Brust so I can't comment on his influence in this collaboration, but I have to say that this is far from what I've grown to expect from Lindholm. I kept inspecting the text, desperate to pinpoint her voice and finding nothing. The weakest point of this book for me were the characters - which was jarring, considering Lindholm's greatest strength are her characters. Points of view switched around rapidly, never lingering long enough for me to really get a feel for most of the characters. The few female characters were the only ones that ever piqued my interest, but their appearances were few and far between.
As far as the plot goes, let's be honest: I have no idea what the hell happened. View points shifted frequently, the writing was vague, and the climax left me feeling like I'd been locked in a box and tossed around by school children. Maybe I'm stupid. I really wish I didn't just read 330 pages of fiction without grasping a bit of it, but there you have it.
It's a miracle I made it through the whole thing.
December 4, 2010
...The Gypsy (1992) is an Urban Fantasy novel from before the hijacking of the sub genre by perky, vampire-slaying, werewolf-dating, power-girls. It is set in the late 1980s and it mixes Hungarian folklore (which I assume to be part of Brust's input) with a small town US setting. From what I can tell, it received some very mixed reviews over the years. I guess it is not an easy book to like. I'm not sure about Brust but it is very different from the other novels that Megan Lindholm wrote for one thing. It is also a multi-layered novel, demanding that the reader pay close attention to what is going on. Both for the police procedural and the fantasy part of the book. Personally I think it is a very interesting piece of writing but al lot of people will probably decide it is not their cup of tea...
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Full Random Comments review
June 16, 2010
This was okay. Not great -- which is too bad, I had high expectations with Brust involved -- but okay. I'm not terribly fond of the use of multiple tight 3rd POVs and this book had at least half a dozen, possibly more, and so I wasn't able to settle comfortably into caring about any particular character or plot thread before it was pulled away from me. Yet the story was interesting, and I liked the mix of the fairy tale with reality, and the writing was certainly quite competent, sometimes even better than that. Not a waste of my time but I doubt I'll reread it.
August 21, 2011
Overly complicated but in an unusual and irritating way. The characters in the story also have an allegorical or perhaps archetypical component. So they fade out in mid paragraph and are the owl or wolf or raven or badger or whatever. And the evil fairy world is seemingly just behind the veil and also fades in and out but in the writing not in the world itself. There were some good bits to this book but in general it was not worth reading or rereading. But showing the flaw in the star system ... it's more like a high 2 than a 3.
June 23, 2023
I went back and forth on two or three stars for this one. I can't recommend it to anyone because the beginning and middle were total drags. I only read it because I was familiar with both of the authors, and already liked other works by them. Anyways, the conclusion was good enough to bump it up to three, but you should probably pass on this one; it's not worth the time. In a completely random aside, I kept listening to the song Crystalline by The Midnight during this same time period and I remember thinking that the vibes were just spot-on to what the book delivered.
August 11, 2020
This book had a very difficult (confusing) start, which I imagine was at least partly intentional since it's a police investigation and the police are confused, but I found it difficult to follow because of that--constantly wondering whether I missed something. Halfway through the book it all started to make more sense and I ended up enjoying it, but I have a feeling a lot of people who started this one didn't finish it.
May 28, 2008
I'll give a big "meh" for this one. Pretty standard urban fantasy bit of fluff, with some vague prophecies delivered by bland characters in annoying verse.
It wasn't all bad. As a sometime violinist, I thought the scene where the would-be lovers played a violin in tandem was very sweet. Other than that, meh all around.
It wasn't all bad. As a sometime violinist, I thought the scene where the would-be lovers played a violin in tandem was very sweet. Other than that, meh all around.
April 30, 2009
This is a truly amazing urban fantasy. The characters are strongly drawn and intriguing, and while the plot is not new, it's handled well. One of the strongest elements of this book for me was the way the Gypsy/Dove character slipped involuntarily from a magical to a realistic view of his surroundings and then back again.
January 19, 2012
A tarot-fantasy, I guess. Street cops join with mysterious strangers to try and end the machinations of the devil, aided and abetted by Old Crones Who Know Secrets. Some passages of almost lyrical brilliance shine in an otherwise dank, dark novel that doesn't want to get into too many details (except about sauces - Brust does like writing about sauces). 3/5
August 29, 2015
I thought this was a good book; definitely in the style of American Gods (even though this was written before. :)). I did think that some of the symbology that was being played with got in the way of the story, but the characters were well-written and the events seemed to happen in a way that made sense and without too much explaining or "What the F*** is going on!!" by the characters.
August 22, 2014
An amnesiac gypsy and a hard-boiled cop work at cross-purposes as they struggle against the Fair Lady. Well-written but unmemorable entry in the "dark urban fantasy" genre. Oddly, half the cast is self-consciously archetypal; I found it difficult to dredge up empathy for characters without humanity.
July 7, 2008
Brust and Lindholm are the authors of this stories-within-stories "fairy tale" that was interesting and entertaining to read.
December 2, 2009
At first it was too much like a gritty cop murder mystery, but then the fantasy started kicking in and I actually thought the ending was pretty good.
July 16, 2010
Meh. I would like to blame Megan Lindholm, because her opinions are bad and I disapprove, but really, I suspect it's Brust. It takes skill to be that incomprehensible. Back to Dragaera for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews