> > Been doing some rereading, and I came across a couple of > time-stream-alignment problems. Apologies if these have already been > pointed out, discussed to death, etc. They have come up, but I wouldn't say they've been discussed quite "to death". > (1) In _Orca_, we have Kiera meeting briefly with Stony, then hurrying > back to the Ugly Blue Cottage, arriving late that afternoon. There she > finds Vlad, who tells her what he's been up to. His exploits include a > run-in with Stony, leaving him (Stony) in no condition to meet with > Kiera thereafter. The implication, though, is that a full night has > passed between Vlad's arrival at the cottage after his adventure and his > telling the story to Kiera. It's definitely an inconsistency. In my timeline, I dealt with it as follows: O, day 16 Shortisle's Office (O 159-168). Shorty's Advice (O 168-171). Vonnith Again (O 205-219). O, day 17 Back to Vlad (O 171-174). [Kiera says that after leaving Stony, she "hastened back", but she must be either lying or mistaken. After she saw Stony, there had to be time for Stony to be killed by Vlad, and for Savn to work on Loiosh "far into the night" (O 219). Thanks to allegro at innocent.com for pointing out this discrepancy.] > (2) In _Teckla_ or _Phoenix_, Vlad refers to 'one of Paarfi's > "histories" '. (Scare-quotes his.) One of? "The Phoenix Guards" isn't > published until the year 309 in Zerika's reign, which is something like > 60-70 years after the action in the Vlad books. The implication from > the introduction to FHYA is that, previous to TPG, Paarfi had only > written one other book -- "Three Broken Strings" -- for popular > consumption. There are varying opinions on this. My own is that the Paarfi reference was an in-joke insertion by Brust-the-translator, who had read at least one of Paarfi's books by that time, but had not yet realized that he might be able to sell english translations of them. Others prefer to believe that Paarfi's alleged histories were already more than a bit romanticized. Still others point out that the preface to FHYA was written by Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet, not SKZB, and should perhaps therefore be considered non-canonical. You are welcome to any of these beliefs, or to come up with a new one of your own. Alexx Alexx Kay Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers alexx at world.std.com http://world.std.com/~alexx "I do like the idea of the Talking Death doll. Says six different phrases: 'I am Death' 'One lifetime is all you get' 'I've got a job to do, and I do it' 'In the end there is me' 'Supercalifragilistic- expialidocious!' 'Gee, math is hard!' --Lance Smith