In Lesson 7 of Phoenix, "Matters of State I", Vlad calls Sticks into his office and says, "You told me once that you used to work connecting musicians with inns that wanted music." Sticks goes on to list five such people. Three of the five appear to be sci-fi/fantasy book publishers, but I can't figure out the other two. 1. Ace "There's a woman named Aisse. I wouldn't work with her, though [...] She never seems to know quite what she's doing. And when she does, she never lets the musicians know. Word is she lies a lot, especially when she screws up." Ace published all the Vlad novels through Orca, I believe, and then Steve switched to Tor for Dragon and Issola. 2. ? "There's a fellow named Phent who doesn't lie quite as much, but he's about as incompetent and he charges twice what everyone else does. He's got a lock on the low-life places. They suit him. [He's located at] Number fourteen Fishmonger Street." Phent kind of looks like a contracted version of pheasant. www.m-w.com defines "bantam" as "any of numerous small domestic fowls that are often miniatures of members of the standard breeds". Phent = miniature pheasant = Bantam? Phent appears structurally similar to Knopf. Sticks' description appears to contain all kinds of clues; I feel like this one should be obvious, and I'm just missing it. 3. ? "There's Greenbough. He's not too bad when he isn't drunk." Greenbough sounds like Green Bow, so perhaps Arrow Books? Or maybe Laurel-Leaf? They had a fantasy imprint that was active at the time Phoenix was published (1990). Baen's current logo looks kind of like a yellow arrow, but I think they were using a different one back then. It's founded by Jim Baen, which sounds a bit like "Jim Beam" (as in the whiskey), and he apparently socializes/opines with his fans on his forum, which is called Baen's Bar. A green capital D looks like a "green bow", but I can't find a sci-fi/fantasy publisher with such a logo. 4. Del Ray "D'Rai will keep you working, but she'll also get a hold on you and try to keep everything you play sounding the same. Most of the musicians I know don't like that." 5. Tor "The best of the lot is an outfit run by three Easterners named Tomas, Oscar, and Ramon." I particularly like this one. A common mistake (per Tor's website) is to spell Tor in all caps, as if it were an acronym of some sort. Here are some of the other people publishing sci-fi/fantasy novels circa 1990. Perhaps Phent and Greenbough can be linked to one of these? Arrow Avon Baen Ballantine Bantam DAW Dell DK Publishing Doubleday Harper Collins Knopf Laurel-Leaf Morrow Penguin Putnam Pocket Questar St. Martins Warner Anyone have any ideas on Phent or Greenbough? Bryan