Dragaera

How did you discover ... ?

Sat Jan 11 15:26:39 PST 2003

Hi all, thanks for the welcome message Reen. I
discovered this list a few days ago, when I
noticed the yahoo group was very quiet, even
though TPOTD was out.  I've been reading the
archives so I won't ask too many questions that
have been asked before.

How I discovered Steve's books, well that's a
little embarrassing, as I ignored them for a
couple of years...... I had discovered Emma Bull
and every time I went looking for any more of her
books* I kept seeing these adjacent ones with
unpronouncable single word titles that I
(embarrassed cough) didn't like the look
of......... Steve was in good company though, I
was also ignoring these other books, with
terrible covers, by someone called Bujold. I've
learned better since. So, the first Brust book I
read was Brokedown Palace because I knew what
that title meant, followed by Taltos (probably
because it was the one retitled The Paths of the
Dead). By which time, quel horreur, all those
other books I'd rejected were already off the
shelves. Fortunately the first omnibus came out
not long after and from Phoenix I could snap up
the whole series as soon as each one came along.
I'm also lucky enough to have picked up the whole
Liavek series from my local SF bookshop. 

What I really like about the Dragaera books is
how rereadable they are, there is always a new
perspective, something else to notice. The Paarfi
books, I find get funnier every time I re read
(one friend phoned me up twenty pages into TPG to
ask "Is it ...... supposed .......to be funny."
On my affirmative reply she happily read to the
end.) Last year, on another list, I nominated
Issola as something like "The biggest tease,
being not the book you expected but the book  
you didn't know you wanted, answering questions
you didn't know you had and opening up a whole
load of new ones", which pretty much sums up the
appeal of these books for me.

Enough about Steve, here's more about me. I'm a
mendicant scholar living in the frozen north of
the UK, in exile from the warm south which, of
course, is just as brass monkeys at the moment.
I'm a book addict, I live with three unruly cats
and keep cacti (don't laugh, they have a
greenhouse and I even heat it sometimes.)  

Looking forward to sharing speculations

Ven

*Back when the first I'd know of a book being in
print, in existance even, was it's appearence in
a bookshop.



=====
Ven

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