[Dragaera] Iorich NO SPOILERS

[Jon%20Lincicum]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eugene Zaretskiy" <eugene.zar at gmail.com> 
To: mtiller at ntlworld.com 
Cc: "SKZB List" <dragaera at dragaera.info> 
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 8:48:57 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
Subject: Re: [Dragaera] Iorich NO SPOILERS 


>thing to think at the time, but Vlad's a strange guy. Every book in 
>the series, including _Jhereg_, is filled with references to people 
>and events that the reader may not know about, depending on which book 
>they started with. 

Some examples from /Jhereg/: 

Vlad refers to Loiosh about the giant jhereg they saw at Deathsgate [sic] Falls. (Not seen until /Taltos/) 
Vlad makes obscure references to Aliera acquiring Pathfinder (not seen until /Dragon/) 
Vlad refers to his war with Laris (Not seen until /Yendi/) 
Vlad recalls his first meeting with Morrolan/Sethra (/Taltos/, again) 

Does this make /Jhereg/ a bad book to start the series with? Not in my opinion. Just sets the reader up for interesting adventures to come. 

The references in /Iorich/ are similar. The first-time reader will just wizz by all these, and will be rewarded later on second (third, fourth, fifth...) readthrough. 

>I'm still not seeing how this makes Iorich worse of a first read than 
>anything else in the series. 

Really, I would not recommend starting the series with any book published after /Orca/, but it has much more to do with style and content than plot developments. 

The books have become much deeper and thoughtful as the mythos has evolved. I think the level of subtext and implication present in the later books makes the earlier ones seem a little... flat. Just by comparison. 

But I can see someone who gets into the series by reading, say, /Dzur/ or /Jhegaala/, and appreciating all the subtle things going on in those books, being a little dissapointed by the rather stark simplicity of /Jhereg/ or /Yendi/. 

Majikjon