On Tue, 26 Aug 2003, Alexx S Kay wrote: > >> (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's also some banter between Vlad and Kiera in /Orca/ - Vlad says: "You must be sure to permit me to be cut into pieces for you sometime", and Kiera says "Been reading Paarfi again?" >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. Well, I'll add in one more: Note that the dates in all of the books are when they were submitted to the Imperial Library. There exists the possibility that the books were published as popular works before this date; indeed, perhaps as many as 70 years previously (which puts it right into Vlad's time). Also /Phoenix Guards/ might have been published in 2 parts, allowing for the plurality noted. After all, we don't know how Dragaeran publishing works.