My roommate has been moonlighting as a night-shift security guard. This gives him lots of time to read. I introduced him to Brust; he loves the Vlad and Khaavren books. The other night he was running late, and noticed _Agyar_ on my shelf. Now, it's his habit to take off the dust jackets on hardcovers so as not to risk damaging them. So, he read _Agyar_ without being spoiled by the blurb. He reports that he got about halfway through the book before the penny dropped -- he'd had clues before then, but it took the hero taking a shotgun blast before he was sure what was going on. Just thought you all might be interested to know.... -- David Goldfarb <*>|"...I'm a member of the Centre Extremist party. goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | We have very moderate views, but if you don't goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | agree with them, we'll kill you."