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He is best known for his novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos . His novels have been translated into German , Russian , Polish , Dutch , Czech , French and Hebrew , as of 2006. ''Agyar'' in particular has two different French translations. Most of his short stories are in shared-world universes. These include Liavek , Thieves World , Sandman and Borderlands . THE DRAGAERAN BOOKS The Vladimir Taltos series is set on another world (possibly another planet), in an Empire mostly inhabited and ruled by the Dragaera ns, who are humanoid but have such differences as greatly-extended lifespans, and heights averaging about 7 feet. Referred to as "elfs" by some humans, they refer to themselves as "human". The Dragaeran Empire controls the majority of the landmass on the planet, and does not greatly concern itself with the rest. Vlad Taltos is one of the human minority, which exists as a lower class in the Empire (known by Dragaerans as "Easterners"). Vlad also practices the human art of witchcraft; "táltos" is Hungarian for a kind of supernatural person in folklore. Though human, he is a citizen of the Empire because his social-climbing father bought a title in one of the less reputable of 17 Dragaeran Great Houses. The only Great House that sells memberships this way is, not coincidentally, also the one that maintains a criminal organization. Vlad proves surprisingly successful in this House. Despite being a human and a criminal, Vlad has a number of high-ranking Dragaeran friends, and often gets caught up in important events. Brust has written nine novels in the series, which is proposed to run to nineteen novels - one named for each of the Great Houses, one named for Vlad himself, and a final novel which Brust has said will be titled ''The Last Contract''. The first three novels resemble private-eye Detective Stories , perhaps the closest being Robert B. Parker 's Spenser series. The later novels are more varied than the first three. Though they read like fantasy, there are hints at science-fictional explanations for some things. In 1986, Steven Brust was a Guest of Honor at the Per Ardua Ad Astra science fiction convention in Toronto, and he contributed the Vlad Taltos short story "A Dream of Passion" to the convention chapbook. Brust included "Klava with Honey" in ''Eeriecon Chapbook #4''. This very brief excerpt was initially part of the novel Dzur. He was unable to attend the 2005 convention due to medical reasons. Brust has also written another series set in Dragaera, The Khaavren Romances, set centuries before Vlad's time. Since Dragaerans live for thousands of years, many characters appear in both series. It is partly an homage to Alexandre Dumas 's novels about The Three Musketeers , and is five volumes long, following the pattern of Dumas's series. The books are presented as historical novels written by '''Paarfi of Roundwood''', a Dragaeran roughly contemporary with Vlad. Paarfi's old-fashioned, elaborate, and highly-verbose style is explicitly based on Dumas's, though with a dialogue style that is reported to be, at times, based on Tom Stoppard 's wordgames in '' Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead ''. There is a certain amount of variation in the writing style amongst the Taltos novels as well. Brust uses a different narrative approach in almost every novel in the series. Some of these approaches are more purely stylistic and, though enjoyable, have minor effects on the actual story-telling; some are profound and involve the point-of-view of characters whom the reader never expected to get to know so well. Further, as the writing of the Taltos novels has spanned over two decades, they have been influenced by events in Steven Brust's own life. An infatuation and (subsequent to the murder of a friend) disillusionment with the Mafia, and later the breakup of Steven Brust's marriage, have both profoundly influenced his storylines. Lastly, it should be noted that Brust has a decided knack for slipping absorbing mysteries into the minor details of his stories; mysteries that tend to fascinate his readers, once they notice them, and often form the kernel around which later books coalesce, even though their resolution still springs upon the reader unexpectedly when it finally comes. TO BE PUBLISHED Dzur, the latest Dragaeran book, is due August 2006 from Tor Books . It has been selected as "a Sci-Fi Essential Book" as part of an arrangement between Tor and the Sci-Fi Channel . Brokedown Palace will be reprinted as of September 5, 2006 (per Amazon.com). This was the only Brust title out of print. Tor Books is releasing Brokedown Palace as an Orb trade paperback. BOOKS NOT WRITTEN BY STEVEN BRUST In 1987, Tor Books published the book "Dzurlord" (A Crossroads Adventure in the World of Steven Brust's Jhereg). It is like a cross between a book and a game. Steven Brust wrote the introduction for this book which introduced readers to the world of Dragaera and its inhabitants. Tor also published a translation of The Three Musketeers in paperback. Steven Brust wrote the introduction, saying that this was his preferred translation of Dumas . DEVERA The same character, usually a cute brown-eyed girl of about nine, appears as a Motif in all of Brust's novels. In the Dragaeran books her name is Devera. She is the (future) daughter of another character and seems to be able to appear anywhere in time and space. In Brust's non-Dragaeran books she usually appears briefly although it is not always obvious where she appears. BIBLIOGRAPHY 39 in Minneapolis, MN .]] Dragaera
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