I wonder how often authors give in to temptation....

[laurion]

Recently I started reading the works of author Steven Brust, and tearing through them at a fairly rapid rate. They're light, and entertaining enough to keep me going. Towards the end of the second book, I come across this small exchange:

"Vladimir," said Cawti, "how should we approach them?"
"Yes," said Morrolan dryly. "You wouldn't want her to turn you into a newt."
"I'll get better," I said.

I got a few odd looks when I burst out laughing at that point.

(I'm sure there's at least one of you out there who is scratching their head at the moment. It's a Monty Python And The Holy Grail reference. No one make fun of that person for not getting it, ok?)

P.S., the recent 2.1 update to WordPress? Me likey.....

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Comments

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Brust is a lot of fun. :)

[sarahsam.livejournal.com]

I quite adore the brust books. Curiously, Agyar was the first of his works that I read, back in high school.

I'd be intrigued to see a reader of fantasy, Brust specifically, who would be unfamiliar with Monty Python.

[dkaine.livejournal.com]

Which book did you start with? Overall they are a very quick read, and very highly amusing, since well there are a lot of those kinds of random references. I've found his dialogue is phenomenal, especially when it comes to the really tongue in cheek humor. I've been meaning to get his more recent books, but somehow haven't gotten around to it. I guess I'm secretly hoping that he puts out more of the three-books-in-one format, like Taltos, Jhereg, and Athyra (I'm pretty sure that's the third one). The only complaint I ever had was the whole writing things completely out of any kind of chronological order. It gives the book a certain kind of character, and yet sometimes makes following the flow of story that much more difficult.

[laurion]

I'd actually read one of them a while back as source material for a game, and enjoyed it, so I've been picking up his books at library sales and whatnot, but hadn't really started reading them until recently when I picked up the three-in-one volume of Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla (the first three books according to the intro he wrote) at Arisia. In a few weeks I'm already half way through Teckla.

He acknowledges the non-chronological nature in the intro, and that people have often asked him what order to read the books in. He mentions chronological order, but that most agree that publication order still seems to be best. I concur so far because it lets me see how he fleshes out the characters as he goes, rather than jumping around in character complexity.

[dkaine.livejournal.com]

I do agree with publication order as well. I have the three three in one volumes that have been put out so far. The thing about the chronology that annoys me is that he will mention something that either happened in the future or the past and those events may have happened two or more books behind or ahead respectively, which if you're reading at any real pace, it can be confusing the first time you look at it.

[laurion]

There have definitely been a number of those. I guess he mapped out a number of books in a plot outline, then wrote them in the order that struck him as easiest to tackle. I'm getting very good when seeing one of these references at setting aside my internal questions on the assumption that the answers will be in another book. The one thing I wish is that he'd include a brief paragraph or chart at the beginning of each book to show where it lies in the chronology. The second book seems to be a few years before the first, and the third is mere weeks after the first...

[dkaine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely would have been very helpful.

Google search (just thought of doing it) avails this -->http://www.panix.com/~alexx/brust.html


and apparently some wikipedia links about the novels. Pretty useful as well.

Besides, just wait. There are books where chapters will start in one timeline, and end up in a totally different one... and you may or may not even notice the change until the very end.

[laurion]

Hah! That's my friend Alexx Kay's site. World gets a bit smaller...

[dkaine.livejournal.com]

Lol, that's awesome. that world shrinks every single minute of every day. How do you know him?

[laurion]

He's in the SCA with me, as well as the local sci-fi fan scene, and we worked together on a beta test of a third friend's graduate study project here at Brandeis.