A fitting end to the House of Serpents trilogy, Smedman once again does a bang-up job in "Vanity's Brood". These reviews all sound alike, but I get a kick out of Smedman's mastery of Dungeons & Dragons minutiae. The main character's growth in power and ability is nicely portrayed, the impact of "mind magic" is loads of fun, and the plane-hopping was well done.

There was a battle going on in the background during the final third of the book which was never clearly described (either in physical terms, or even in why it was happening in the first place), so that added a bit to a rushed-at-the-end feeling to the prose, but overall, the story was still a grand adventure and fun to read.