Dragaera

Several Questions...

Thu Mar 4 08:52:52 PST 2004

--- Kenneth Gorelick <pulmon at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> On Mar 3, 2004, at 7:38 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> 
> >
> > --- Howard Brazee <howard at brazee.net> wrote:
> >> John Klein wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 2 Mar 2004, David Silberstein wrote:
> >>>
> >>> You know, I don't recall ever being involved in another discussion
> >>> group where an author says, flat out, that something is the case,
> and
> >>> debate then continues on whether it's /really/ the case. I suppose
> >>> this is a natural consequence of having a group based around a set
> of
> >>> novels that are naturally attractive to suspicious people... I mean,
> >>> lying to people in the course of telling a story is, basically, an
> >>> author's job, but lying to people randomly in interviews usually
> >>> isn't.
> >>>
> >>> (Maybe it's his hobby. Heh.)
> >>
> >> Or maybe Brust has had a history of having fun with what the truth is
> 
> >> -
> >> in
> >> his books and even in his songs.
> >
> > Can anyone give me an example of his saying something about his work,
> > apparently seriously and not in fiction, that turned out not to be
> > true?
> >
> > And how much fun could it possibly be to tell someone that Devera's
> > (even mistyped) father was Kieron, or that she was the dragon, if
> > it's not true?
> >
> > Jerry Friedman
> >
> >
> 
> The question really is, "what is the meaning of the Brustian 
> pronouncements. For example, when a name is misspelled, is that an 
> error or is he misdirecting? Similarly, "give the man a banana" is NOT 
> a synonym for "yes".

It is in my book.

Can you give an example of Steven'ss taking advantage of something
like that to misdirect people?  And how much fun could that be?

Also, if we assume two characters are different people and then
find out one is the other in disguise, and then see that it makes
sense (mostly), that's Cool Stuff.  But if the author says "Monty
wins the banana" on Usenet when he could have ignored the post,
just in order to mislead people, that's Distinctly Uncool, in my
opinion.

Alexx Kay is right that Steven has repudiated "A Dream of Passion"--
what's the other story?--so he could probably repudiate a Usenet
post or a comment in an interview.  Heck, he may even repudiate
Morrolan's account of being at Deathgate Falls before _Taltos_.
But would he really volunteer what looks like information to mislead
readers for fun?

Jerry Friedman


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