[Dragaera] re Iorich???

[Jeffrey Kiok]

It's been a while since I responded to the list, not that I ever did a  
lot, but I wanted to say this:

What i like about the progression of the "Vladiad" (I saw someone call  
it that, but I can't call it that with a straight face, sorry), is  
that its progression is very human.  Vlad isn't in control of his own  
destiny, and events come to him as they do, and he deals with them.   
He's involved in crime, he gets divorced, he has an epic battle with  
the gods.  Somehow, the temporally disjointed nature of the series I  
feel makes Vlad seem more real, because you don't necessarily learn  
about people in chronological order.

I guess what I'm saying to say is that when you meet a human being,  
you don't necessary learn about them chronological order.  The concept  
of the temporally linear "biography" is a very peculiar and artificial  
concept.  When I meet someone, I don't learn about their birth, but  
about what they're doing more recently, and it takes a lot of learning  
to dig into their past, to gain a more complete understanding of  
them.  You end up learning more about a person, most often, by  
learning about their past, than learning about their present or their  
future, but you don't necessarily learn about their past in a linear  
manner.

And I feel that the manner in which Vlad's story unfolds more aptly  
mirrors the human experience of knowing about person.

-Jeff
On Aug 3, 2009, at 11:21 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> Well, since everyone wants to know my opinion, I thought
> the series reached a peak with /Athyra/ and stayed in
> the alpine zone with /Orca/ and /Dragon/.  The next
> three books were back on the level of, say, /Teckla/.
>
> --- On Mon, 8/3/09, Steve Rapaport <steve.rapaport at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Funny you should say this.
>>
>> I feel disappointed by Dzur and Jhegaala too, not because
>> the writing or
>> story is poor in either one, but because anything after the
>> climactic battle
>> between gods and Jenoine and one-armed Easterner just
>> seems, um, ante-climactic. [sic]
> ...
>
> Before the climax?  That certainly applies to /Jhegaala/.
>
> But the battle in /Issola/ was too silly for me to call
> it climactic.  (They still fear Verra, do they?)  /Issola/,
> /Dzur/, and /Jhegaala/ all had very Cool Stuff, but they
> also had what felt like incidents that were just there
> to keep the story going.
>
> I too want to know what happens to everybody, but I also
> want a secondary character as interesting as Cawti or
> Savn.  Lady Teldra had interesting thoughts, but C. and
> S. had both those and interesting feelings.
>
> And don't get me wrong.  I got hooked with /Jhereg/ and
> /Yendi/, which in my opinion are the two worst books in
> the series.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
>
>
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