It turns out that Teckla was written after a friend of Brust's (who was a communist orgainzer) was killed by the mafia. This, not suprisingly, set off a lot of soul-searching on Brust's part about glamorizing hit-men and was behind Vlad's transformation into ex-mob boss/hitman ending with Phoenix. He mentioned spending a lot of time thinking about John C. Gardner's book On Moral Fiction. Knowing about this also makes the character of the ghost in Teckla a bit more compelling.
The story behind Teckla made me wonder how much of Cowboy Feng's came out of having someone Brust knew dying of AIDS. Given his links to the deadhead community (and therefore the drug using community), this seemed entirely probable. But Brust stated in email "No, but some of it came from knowing too many people who were too paranoid about it"
Brust himself is very quiet about his own politics ("I hate it when other people preach") but did refer to his dead friend as "comrade" and professed to being a "red diaper baby" raised by Trotskyite parents. Brust later corrected an earlier error I had here about his parents fleeing Hungary with the following: "My paternal Grandfather was a delegate to his Soviet in the Hungarian revolution of 1919, and left when the fascist, Horthy, came to power." [*]
Brust has said in a letter to me that there is a "Vlad Goes Out East"-book yet to be written (which I think he said either preceded or followed Jhereg chronologically) where Vlad meets the now old hero of Brokedown Palace.
When given the comment that the two funniest scenes in Phoenix Guards are the heroes' initial return from thir first assignment and reporting to the captain that they've killed their partners along with the scene where Pel's scheme to get our heroes out of prison plays itself out, Brust replied that he liked both too, but what drove him nuts was that one was effortless to write while the other was a nightmare, and he couldn't tell any difference by comparing the writing. He asked the audience to guess which was which and tell him the reason why they guessed that way. He never did say which was which.
Brust said that he had forked out the $2,000 or so for the painting
that graces the cover of Phoenix Guards and said that he's been generally
very happy about his book covers with the exception of To Reign In Hell
(led people to think it was a McCaffery Dragonriders ripoff). While I originally
had written that Brust didn't like that Vlad had red hair on
the cover of Yendi he says he doesn't care. [*]
Aside: those of you who liked the modern take on angels and their civil war really must go out and rent The Prophecy with Christopher Walken as Gabriel. A way way cool movie from the guy who brought you Highlander.
Brust said once that he originally created Vlad as a kind of mirror image wish-fulfilment character. Brust he says was liked but not respected, Vlad, therfore, was respected but not liked. I'm not sure what how this relates to his interest in creating progressively less likable protagonists in Count Dashief of the Liavek anthologies and the protagonist of his vampire book, Agyar.
This last was a book who's best quality really is its heavy 'understatedness',
which is dependent one knowing a bit about vampire lore, and being pleased
not to have it explained to you by the author. I found all the characters
kind of unsympathetic except maybe the artist and the ghost, and the plot/conclusion
wasn't very good. The book overall left me kind of cold, just like Cowboy
Feng's. Some o.k. dialogue though, like "I only listen to quiet music".
And the scenes with the witch and as well
as the scene where the artist's boyfriend tries to take the main character
out with a shotgun are decent). The narrative framing device of the found
manuscript is intetresting and looks like it was hard to pull off. It shows
that Brust is willing to try new things, and it adds to the book overall
as well.
Brust called Athyra (at least while he was writing it) "ThegoddamnfuckingbookfromHell,"
but, as he told me later "in fact,
about half of my books have been called that
at one time or another while I was working on them." [*]
Trouble in writing the Athyra seems to show in that it feels strained
in places, has pacing problems, and it never seems to be able to make me
beielve that a 50-year-old teenager would act just like a 16 year old teenager,
or that the kid really does feel that he wants/has to turn Vlad in after
everything that's happened. Nevertheless, the book was really ambitious
in being so different from what he was used to writing (different viewpoint/narrator
[the vacuum created by the absence of Vlad
and Loish's internal banter and Vlad's narration is really powerful],
different setting, less magic, etc. And I think the book does give the
reader some idea how other people see Vlad, as well as what life is like
for ordinary people in Dragaera. (Brust said in a letter back in 1989 or
so that he wasn't very good at short-story writing [and maybe not at writing
from other viewpoints, I forget]. I thought the four Dashief stories I've
read in the Liavek books were pretty cool though, and he admitted to being
pretty fond of the one he wrote for the last Liavek with Megan Lindholm.
(I liked The Gypsy too, and how it riffed off of The Sun, The Moon, and
The Stars)
Brust noted that some of his favorite/most influential writers are Mark
Twain and Milton. He also I think mentioned that he thought Dumas was really
cool for jerking around his publishers with those long dialogues with short
sentences after they started insisting on paying him by the line because
he wrote using so many words. Brust got kind of defensive about his own
use of the device in Phoenix Guards after I mentioned that it was kind
of grating that the characters didn't speak in in complete
sentences. He pointed out that the sentences are all complete, it's
just that the thoughts expressed aren't. Which, while true, doesn't seem
to me to make it any less grating. Except maybe when it draws out a particualrly
funny scene to good effect.
The titles of The Phoenix Guards, 500 Years After, and the Viscount
of Adrilankha, are puns on the Dumas book titles The Three Musketeers,
20 Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelone. Brust
says: "The D'Artagnan Romances consist of three novels:
THE THREE MUSKETEERS, TWENTY YEARS AFTER, and
THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONE.
The last novel, VICOMTE, is made up of several
books:
TEN YEARS LATER,
THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONE,
LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE,
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, and
FORTUNES OF D'ARTAGNAN.
The confusion comes, of course, because THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONE is the name of the novel AND the name of one the books (two volumes, in my edition, just to make it even more confusing)." [*]
mike.schilling"at"sun.com had this to add about the parallels in the
titles:
"The title reference actually goes further. The Vicomte is generally
published in 3 or 4 volumes. When 3, they're usually called:
Ten Years Later
Louise de La Valliere
The Man in the Iron Mask
Compare these to Brust's proposed titles:
1.The Paths of the Dead
2.The Enchantress of Dzur Mountain
3.The Lord of Castle Black"
Brust once wrote an essay on the folk song (not the book) [*] Finnegan's Wake in a zine ("Medusa", which once came out with one issue as far as I know) edited by Emma Bull.
More in the art-immitates-life department: Brust noted that his own marriage finally collapsed around the time he was writing (finishing?) Teckla, but that he didn't see it coming even though the parallels with Vlad and Cawti's troubles are painfully obvious to him in hindsight.
Brust used to fence, but hasn't in years (bad knee).
Brust's advice to an aspiring writer: don't tell other people your story ideas, because when you finally sit down to write it you will have already told the story (killed the enjoyment of telling it).
Brust's old band Cats Laughing were actually very good (I have both their tapes). The first tape (Re-Issue) is performed with more heart and has cooler and more fantasy oriented lyrics, the latter (Another Way to Travel) has better musicianship, more instruments, and better sound quality.
Brust put out another tape "Queen of Aitr and Darkness" with a band called Morrigan which wasn't as good as Cats laughing IMHO, but they still turn in a couple of very good traditional celtic tunes (the best of which is "The Fair Lady" which resonates with the villain in _The Gypsy_). Adam Stemple, the guitarist for Cats Laughing and Morrigan now plays for Boiled In Lead. And the song "The Fair Lady" appears with many other book related songs (presumably written or co-qritten by Brust) on Boiled In Lead's album Songs From The Gypsy, which incidentally includes the text of the novel in CD-ROM form.
Brust says: "Morrigan (as of [fall '98]) has three works out: "Queen of Air and Darkness," "King of Oak and Holly," (both tapes) and "Jack of Fools" (CD). They are, or ought to be, or will, be availible at Uncle Hugo's bookstore ("Unclehugo@aol.com")" [*]
Emma Bull, vocalist, is writing more books (although not the sequel to War for the Oaks I've been wanting to see), Lojo Russo left to sing with some celtic band. Cats Lauging actually appeared in issue #5 of the Marvel comic X-Calibur (as a joke on the part of Chris Claremont who I suppose met Will through comics conventions back when Will was doing a pretty intersting present-with-an-alternate-history comic called Captain Confederacy).
Paul Knappenberger had this to add: "Lojo Russo left to sing with Gallowglass. Emma Bull and Lorraine Garland formed the Flash Girls after Cats Laughing, and Steve plays drums on some of their tracks. (2 albums.) Chris Claremont has since referred to Cats Laughing a couple more times - they're in the FAQ for Cats Laughing. (The Flash Girls show up in Sovereign 7.) Steve is also pictured in one of the final installments of Sandman (I think it's issue 74), which takes place at the Minnestota Renaissance Festival. One of Adam Stemple's other projects is a band called The Tim Malloys, which covered one of Steve's songs (I forget which one) on their first album."
Aside from the Grateful Dead and old folk music, Brust is extremely fond of a folk singer/songwriter by the name of Greg Brown. He was singing several of Brown's beautiful and witty songs late one night at a con while playing guitar. Having since acquired or heard most of Greg Brown's music and having seen him live, I concur with Brust that Greg Brown is a musical genius [and a nice guy]. Get his music (starting with the album Dream Cafe, then In the Dark With You, and Iowa Waltz.) and absolutely go see him in person if you can.
Aside from Greg Brown, Brust has also mentioned his admiration of Neil Gaiman as a cool individual. Neil's work in comics and wonderful novel Neverwhere (which Brust appears in the Acknowledgements for) needs no description from me. Gaiman now lives in Minnesota, and I guess Brust still does too. It would be interesting to know the story of how the two of them met and whether their friendship contributed to Gaiman's decison to move to Minnesota.
Comments are welcome,
Shayne Weyker
weyker@wam.umd.edu
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~weyker