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ConfusedUs posted:Yeah, there's a bit of the "spoiled rich white girl" in Cawti. The stereotype doesn't exactly fit, but look at the symptoms. She's rich, has a much better life than most of those around her, and got bored with her idleness after her retirement. It's hinted that she had a similar if not worse upbringing then Vlad. I'm not sure this fits.
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Oct 17, 2014 18:10
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Cawti is, incidentally, the princess of Fenario (she's Brigita and Miklos' daughter.)
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Oct 17, 2014 18:37
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wiegieman posted:Cawti is, incidentally, the princess of Fenario (she's Brigita and Miklos' daughter.) Hmmm. I haven't read that far yet. May want to spoiler that.
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Oct 17, 2014 22:37
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Decline posted:Hmmm. I haven't read that far yet. May want to spoiler that. It's not in the books, it's from a discussion that SB was in. It literally never comes up.
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Oct 18, 2014 01:37
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wiegieman posted:It's not in the books, it's from a discussion that SB was in. It literally never comes up. It actually happens at the end of Brokedown Palace, the only novel set in the same universe that isn't about Vlad Taltos or Khaavren. Tiassa has kind of a callback to its style during the Cawti/Norathar story. It's not great, honestly, but it's somewhat interesting since the series spends so little time in Fenario.
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Oct 18, 2014 05:51
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Decline posted:It's hinted that she had a similar if not worse upbringing then Vlad. I'm not sure this fits. I think she says something like her family couldn't afford a title (Vlad's dad worked himself to death to buy the lowest title, which got them... a connection to the orb and no respect, but DID afford it). And I think she may have implied she might have been or considered being a tag until the whole killing-people-for-money opportunity came up. But I haven't reread the pre-Issola books in at least five years and I'm resisting doing so until they hit kindle. wiegieman posted:Cawti is, incidentally, the princess of Fenario (she's Brigita and Miklos' daughter.) I thought Brigita was her grandmother. But the point stands. Doesn't it also make her some fraction demon, or am I mis-remembering Brokedown? Test Pattern fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 09:57
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wiegieman posted:It's not in the books, it's from a discussion that SB was in. It literally never comes up. No, it's in the books. Devera tells Miklos that (paraphrasing) his daughter will be okay, and that "a whole lot of people" will have to look out for Cawti. She doesn't name Cawti explicitly, but it's fairly easy to figure it out, and SB obviously confirmed it. Test Pattern posted:I think she says something like her family couldn't afford a title (Vlad's dad worked himself to death to buy the lowest title, which got them... a connection to the orb and no respect, but DID afford it). And I think she may have implied she might have been or considered being a tag until the whole killing-people-for-money opportunity came up. But I haven't reread the pre-Issola books in at least five years and I'm resisting doing so until they hit kindle. Cawti has some conversations with Vlad where she's extremely down on pimps and the sex trade in general, and it seems very personal. When she was "cleaning up" South Adrilankha, it seems like chasing out pimps was one of her top priorities. It certainly would make sense if some kind of sex work was how she met Norathar, since it seems completely improbable otherwise, particularly if it was bottom-of-the-barrel dodgy sex work, being as Norathar was houseless at the time. Maybe she wound up living in the Easterners' area for a lack of options. Or maybe they were in some kind of special brothel for "exotic" tags? There wouldn't be many (any?) Dragons working that business, and even if Norathar thought she was a half-breed bastard, obviously she'd look the part since she actually is pure Dragon. We know some Dragaerans do have a taste for Easterners, but it's very obviously something kinky and taboo. Vlad definitely presents sex work in Dragaeran society as being mostly more enlightened and not traditionally sexist the way it is in Eastern society, but the structure of Jhereg brothels is obviously fairly exploitive and it seems to be a career path for a lot of disenfranchised or otherwise marginal people, like Piro and Ibronka's girlfriend or Mellar's mother. The male tag in Tiassa says tags aren't supposed to acknowledge their nums in public unless they do so first, so there's obviously still some kind of residual stigma around it. I can't imagine the kind of Dragaeran who really wants to pay to gently caress a (disgraced) Dragon or an Easterner being particularly savory.
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Oct 18, 2014 16:44
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HELLO LADIES posted:Or maybe they were in some kind of special brothel for "exotic" tags? There wouldn't be many (any?) Dragons working that business, and even if Norathar thought she was a half-breed bastard, obviously she'd look the part since she actually is pure Dragon. We know some Dragaerans do have a taste for Easterners, but it's very obviously something kinky and taboo. Vlad definitely presents sex work in Dragaeran society as being mostly more enlightened and not traditionally sexist the way it is in Eastern society, but the structure of Jhereg brothels is obviously fairly exploitive and it seems to be a career path for a lot of disenfranchised or otherwise marginal people, like Piro and Ibronka's girlfriend or Mellar's mother. The male tag in Tiassa says tags aren't supposed to acknowledge their nums in public unless they do so first, so there's obviously still some kind of residual stigma around it. I can't imagine the kind of Dragaeran who really wants to pay to gently caress a (disgraced) Dragon or an Easterner being particularly savory. Ugggggh. Thanks. You're probably right, and you managed to point out something I hadn't thought of -- sex work in Draegaera seems marginally better than in the real world (still not great, obviously, from what we see), but if Cawti (and/or Norathar) were involved in it, it was probably in a particularly abased and terrible situation. I suspect, though, that Norathar, like Kragar, did what one assumes most Dragon-turned-Jhereg do, which is start breaking knees for cash.
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Oct 19, 2014 02:21
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Test Pattern posted:Ugggggh. Thanks. You're probably right, and you managed to point out something I hadn't thought of -- sex work in Draegaera seems marginally better than in the real world (still not great, obviously, from what we see), but if Cawti (and/or Norathar) were involved in it, it was probably in a particularly abased and terrible situation. I suspect, though, that Norathar, like Kragar, did what one assumes most Dragon-turned-Jhereg do, which is start breaking knees for cash. Well, one thing to remember about the Jhereg brothels is that apparently there ARE legal brothels according to one remark I recall. Vlad claimed the reason for the Jhereg ones was because the legal ones have enough official scrutiny that it makes people uncomfortable, but you have to wonder how much of it is really the Jhereg catering to tastes that would be frowned upon. I know the one "tag" in Tiassa didn't seem terribly abused, but it's hard to tell if that's a general thing or if Vlad's place(s) happen to be on the less scuzzy side of things. Really hard to tell what the "average" brothel is like, kind of hard to determine what the views on sexuality in Dragaeran society are in general period. Apart from homosexual/bisexuality not being terribly important judging by Vlad's lack of reaction to Piro and Ibronka's relation with the girl who got kicked out of his brothel, but Dragaeran/human being very frowned on and inter-House relationships having a stigma (though possibly a shrinking one), we don't get much because most of the characters don't seem to focus on it much. Khizan posted:I don't think her stance of "It's okay to murder and profit off of Dragareans but not Easterners" is really a good argument for her being morally in the right. Bear in mind Vlad took up work as an assassin at least partly as an outlet for a hatred of Dragaerans, and he was uncomfortable at the idea of doing "work" on Easterners. Really, the whole reason he seemed to be able to be an assassin without being a sociopath boils down to thinking his targets didn't count as "people", he's certainly a lot less kill happy later on in the series as he starts meeting more Dragaerans he likes. Given there seems to be a terrible amount of bigotry on both sides even from many of the sympathetic characters, I don't know that Cawti really stands out here.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:21
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Is Brokedown Palace worth reading? The Vlad Taltos series has been great - the only novel that didn't really click with me was Dragon. Super happy I stumbled onto this thread, I don't think I would have found the series otherwise.
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Oct 19, 2014 03:37
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Decline posted:Is Brokedown Palace worth reading? The Vlad Taltos series has been great - the only novel that didn't really click with me was Dragon. Super happy I stumbled onto this thread, I don't think I would have found the series otherwise. I liked it but then I also like Dragon a lot so YMMV. Brokedown Palace is written as a fairytale so the style is significantly different than the other series. I read it, The Gypsy, and The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars and I feel that it fits better with them (despite those two books being non-Dragearan) than with the Dragearan books.
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Oct 19, 2014 04:18
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MadDogMike posted:Given there seems to be a terrible amount of bigotry on both sides even from many of the sympathetic characters, I don't know that Cawti really stands out here. She doesn't stand out, and that's my point. Cawti's hardly an examplary model of moral behavior because she's just as bad as the rest of them.
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Oct 19, 2014 21:43
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Given the systematic power structure in Draegaeran society in general, and Adrilankhan in particular, is it even possible for an Easterner to be 'racist' against a Dragaeran? (Or for a Teckla to have classist views about a noble house?)
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Oct 20, 2014 01:32
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Khizan posted:She doesn't stand out, and that's my point. Cawti's hardly an examplary model of moral behavior because she's just as bad as the rest of them. At the start of the books, sure, but even by Phoenix, it's pretty clear her views have evolved and have been evolving the whole time. Jhereg comes after Yendi, she seems personally upset by Vlad's accusation of her being willing to do "work" on an Easterner, and I don't think there's anything to suggest that she found the cause because she retired. She's angry about life for Easterners in Yendi, aka her first chronological appearance. Between nearly killing, falling in love with, and eventually marrying Vlad and seeing her "sister" become Dragon Heir (aka the #2 beneficiary of the next regime change, #1 being the Warlord obvs), that's exactly the kind of thing that does cause people to reflect. Prior to Norathar getting Heired up, we don't even know how much of the "work" they did was financial necessity. Obviously they were paid considerably more than Vlad, but split two ways, and since they both presumably had Jhereg titles they'd bought since they both were rocking House colors at The Most Awkward Dinner Party Of All TIme, that had to have cost. It's no less plausible, probably more, that she retired because she had a crisis of conscience and wanted to start doing something about life for the less fortunate, or finally felt like she could, not that she was sitting around like a bored housewife all day and found the Dragaera equivalent of Tumblr. By Tiassa, her views are pretty much the exact opposite of what she's being accused of. Did all you dudes holding forth the "she's a spoiled white girl" thing actually read the bits where she talks with Daro, and tells her "I don't hate you personally, I hate the system that empowers you" and actually tries to empathize with her some (that bit about the Cawti/Vlad relationship vs the Daro/Khaavren one, and "there is more to me than the man I used to live with")? Or when she and Vlad meet again and she more or less states outright that she hasn't done anything violent for years? Or the bit with Norathar where they talk about whether they miss the old days? The part in Iorich where she tells Vlad that her part of the movement understands that violence won't get them what they want? Like, not to get all tumblr and poo poo but there are some aggression failures of reading comprehension going on, and I'd love to have a reason for that other than gross misogyny, but goddamn.
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Oct 20, 2014 02:18
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HELLO LADIES posted:Between nearly killing, falling in love with, and eventually marrying Vlad You may want to reread Yendi if you think Vlad was "nearly" killed.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:49
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ulmont posted:You may want to reread Yendi if you think Vlad was "nearly" killed. The whole thing was a setup, but it didn't depend on Vlad's permadeath either way. Yes, the conspiracy did technically want him to survive long enough for Aliera and Morrolan to get involved and be disgraced, but that probably would have happened posthumously. All the Sorceress and co wanted was to bring Norathar to the attention of Team Sethra, they clearly had any number of plans for getting them to eliminate themselves from Heirship after no matter how the "assassination" went down. Vlad's survival or lack thereof stopped mattering once M&A teleported in to the fight scene with Cawti/Norathar/the setup goons, and as Aliera says, revivifying Vlad at that point wasn't at all a given, and the conspiracy didn't depend on it. If Aliera says he was nearly permanently dead because it was so hard for her to bring him back (multiple attempts, Devera getting involved, etc), he was nearly permanently dead. Or were you ignoring the implied "permanently" part to make a smug gotcha?
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Oct 20, 2014 16:48
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fritz posted:Given the systematic power structure in Draegaeran society in general, and Adrilankhan in particular, is it even possible for an Easterner to be 'racist' against a Dragaeran? (Or for a Teckla to have classist views about a noble house?) This is an interesting question, especially given (a) certain things that are physical realities in Draegaera (most notably the cycle itself, but including differing afterlives, among others) and (b) SKZB's stated beliefs about this exact question (I think, broadly, he would answer "doesn't matter" and "yes, and they should," respectively, but I'm not entirely sure. Of course, we're all in an Orca reign, so we can't easily assume the mindsets of people in a renewed Phoenix reign.
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Oct 21, 2014 14:41
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Wow, I can't believe that this thread petered out so quickly!
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Oct 28, 2014 15:37
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Did the books change in tone after whichever one had Cawti and starting a union? I followed the Dune/Ender's Game strategy of just walking away and not looking back once I didn't like a book in the series. To Reign in Hell is also really good although it has nothing to do with Vlad. Zelazny's review of it was something to the effect of "There's no way he's going to pull this off ... oh hell, he actually did it."
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Oct 28, 2014 16:44
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AngusPodgorny posted:Did the books change in tone after whichever one had Cawti and starting a union? I followed the Dune/Ender's Game strategy of just walking away and not looking back once I didn't like a book in the series. Yeah. The one you're referencing is Teckla, and it's easily the worst book in the series to me. I really dislike it. It's boring. To Reign In Hell is amazing.
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Oct 28, 2014 16:49
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ConfusedUs posted:Yeah. The one you're referencing is Teckla, and it's easily the worst book in the series to me. I really dislike it. It's boring. For me, it's more that book and Phoenix are a little too emotionally depressing to read for me to enjoy them (the nominally sympathetic Teckla/Easterner faction being a bunch of self-righteous assholes also got old fast, though I'll grant I'm not sure how much of that is filtering through Vlad). Had trouble clicking with Athyra also, but that was more the shift in perspective (writing from someone seeing Vlad rather than Vlad himself). After Athyra though the series to me seems to have gone back to very good. I rather liked Orca, that did the shifting perspective thing better by making it from a more interesting character and splitting it with Vlad's own perspective, and it goes back to the "Vlad as 'noir detective'" feel that caught me into the series with Jhereg and Yendi. Most of my favorites in the series go towards that angle, though Tiassa and Hawk had an equally fun (and somewhat similar) "Vlad runs a caper" storyline. I definitely like the fact Vlad seems to come to his victories through cleverness a lot rather than some power trickery; even though he's gained several advantages that could easily have been bent into Marty Stu territory, they feel more like "reasons he's actually still alive" than "untouchable god" given his opposition and limits he keeps having to operate under. Hell, Lady Teldra is a dubious blessing for him since he is far less willing to soul-kill enemies than the other Great Weapon wielders, so while he's definitely willing to whip her out as a very terrifying threat he seems rather reluctant to actually kill with her.
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Oct 30, 2014 05:46
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Just to keep things going, does everyone know Brust wrote a Firefly novel called "My Own Kind of Freedom" ? http://dreamcafe.com/downloads/ It's really solid, of course, and I like his take on River a lot.
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Oct 30, 2014 05:59
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PreacherTom posted:Wow, I can't believe that this thread petered out so quickly! I think the problem is that, even for people like me who loving love the series, there's only so much to say. Most of the books are just so fun in the moment, but there's not any kind of grand over-arcing plot to speak of, and I don't know how much discussion 'Vlad having dinner with that clueless Dzurlord was pretty funny' can really generate. ConfusedUs posted:Yeah. The one you're referencing is Teckla, and it's easily the worst book in the series to me. I really dislike it. It's boring. To be fair to Teckla, it captures Vlad's suicidal depression at the impending failure of his marriage pretty well! The tone is just so jarring compared to the light and slightly comedic tone of literally every other book that it's hard to get into. Phoenix has similar issues, but the whole bit with Vlad on the island keeps it pretty interesting. I would actually argue Yendi as the worst, as the pacing and writing are all over the drat place, the gang war should be exciting but feels really uneven and repetitive, and Vlad and Cawti falling in love is kinda awkward and clumsy. The only thing that really saves it is the court politics surrounding Norathar. Iorich is also pretty forgettable, but I think that's more because it's sandwiched between two much better books. Admit it; you forgot it existed until reading this post.
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Oct 30, 2014 06:25
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Wolfsheim posted:To be fair to Teckla, it captures Vlad's suicidal depression at the impending failure of his marriage pretty well! The tone is just so jarring compared to the light and slightly comedic tone of literally every other book that it's hard to get into. Phoenix has similar issues, but the whole bit with Vlad on the island keeps it pretty interesting. From what I've heard, Brust's own marriage imploded in almost exactly the same way that Vlad's did. He only noticed after he finished Phoenix when it was far, far too late.
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Oct 30, 2014 06:47
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Wolfsheim posted:
I like Iorich but I might be biased by my profession.
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Oct 30, 2014 12:01
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I ignore this forum for a little while and suddenly there's a thread about my favorite fuckin' author ever. Dammit. Obviously Brust is known for his Taltos/Khaavren series, but the thing that really stands out to me is how good his other books can be. Like, take my least favorite of his others: Agyar. Agyar is a vampire novel, about a brooding perma-young vampire/art afficionado type in a college town. Only thing is, never in the book does he use the word vampire. Or thirst. Or blood. It's a fantastic exploration of just how lovely people can be to each other, and giving folks more power doesn't mean they'll stop being lovely; hell, they'll just distance themselves further from people to be even shittier. It's also a great exploration of the vampire genre, and is told through a surprisingly effective epistolary style. Or To Reign In Hell, a novel about the revolt of heaven, where Satan isn't just a main character, but is portrayed as being hella sympathetic. It draws a shitload of inspiration from Paradise Lost, only, being Steven Brust, it's ridiculously readable and has a great fuckin' pace. This is a lot of people-who-I've-spoken-to's favorite Brust novel, because of how open minded he is when dealing with a potentially tricky subject matter, because of how he is weirdly respectful while tromping all sorts of made-up poo poo through a popular narrative, but mostly because it seems writing about angels as kind of dicks gives you a huge fanbase instantly. But my favorite is his worst-titled book: Cowboy Feng's Space Bar And Grille. When I first read it, it didn't really stick; something sat awkwardly with me while he was writing about this matzoh-ball-soup-making, space-jumping, dumb fuckin' named book. Then I reread it and poo poo, it's so full of heart. It's incredibly 90s too; like, James Hawes could have wrote half the characters in here, what with the depression, the romanticized heroin, and the constant idea of "bars are places where poo poo goes down." Only, it's so much more. Brust goes into some loving incredible passages about anxiety and depression in here, while also telling a story about a bar that mysteriously jumps through space and time to avoid being nuked. The cast is fantastic too; the central group is either people who work in the bar, or the folk band that was playing the night the bar first jumped. There's this sense of long-term camaraderie between everyone that is just so fuckin' pleasant. If you even slightly like Brust, please please please pick this book up and read it a couple times. It's like everything he's done, in that you can get through it in a couple of hours, but it's also unlike anything I've read by him. I'm desperate to read The Incrementalists but I seem to forget every single time I'm out a bookin' and fail to buy it.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:39
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To Reign in Hell is my favorite Brust book, I think. It's surprisingly funny. Especially if you have the slightest knowledge of linguistics--so many puns
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Dec 19, 2014 20:06
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The "get thee behind me, Satan! " line still gets a chuckle from me when I remember it.
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Dec 19, 2014 22:12
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Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that too - it's one of the funniest books Brust has written. poo poo, I think I'm going to have to reread it real soon too; the last time I read it was almost fifteen years ago.
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Dec 19, 2014 22:19
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The Ninth Layer posted:The "get thee behind me, Satan! " line still gets a chuckle from me when I remember it. Yep. And the intro by Zelany calls that one out, too. It's a good line. My favorite, though, is that Michael is basically a huge idiot and No Fun At All. He gets to be the butt of every joke in every scene he's in, and half the time doesn't realize it. When he does, all he does is kind of seethe and glower impotently. Also great: any scene with Mephistopheles
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Dec 19, 2014 23:48
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