One of the more interesting facets of Brust's writing is how the Taltos character and his world seem to mirror Brust's life. As he went through a turbulent relationship, so did his characters and the books. As he seemed to find the joy back in his life, so did his books.

Brust also wrote a wonderful related series, set several hundred years before the Taltos series, "The Phoenix Guards", "Five Hundred Years After", "The Paths of the Dead" and the recent "The Lord of Castle Black" that are wonderful homages to Dumas' "Three Musketeers". They're not easy reading, but they're fun!

He's also written several other fascinating fantasy novels including "The Sun, The Moon and the Stars", "To Reign in Hell", and co-authored the historical fantasy novel "Freedom and Necessity" with his longtime friend, urban fantasy* author Emma Bull.


Personal:

It was TV Writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe who first recommended that the WriterGroupie read Steven Brust's Taltos series. To be honest, the WriterGroupie was a bit hesitant at the thought of a high fantasy** series about an assassin and his pet dragon. But as soon as she read the first book in the series, she was completely hooked and immediately went out and bought the next six books.

The WriterGroupie attended a signing by Brust a few years back and found him as... challenging as his books. But she still loves reading his work.


*The term 'urban fantasy' refers to stories with fantasy elements i.e. elves, magic, wizards, set within a real world setting. Charles De Lint, for example, writes excellent urban fantasy.

** The term 'high fantasy' refers to fantasy stories completely set in an unreal world, generally populated with elves, magic, wizards, etc. J.R.R. Tolkien is someone who wrote wonderful high fantasy.