Editing Steven Brust (section)

===The Dragaeran books===
The '''Vlad Taltos''' series, written as [[high fantasy]] with a science fiction underpinning,<ref name="walton2009">{{Cite web |last=Walton |first=Jo |date=November 16, 2009 |title=Playing the angles on a world: Steven Brust's Dragaera |url=http://www.tor.com/2009/11/16/steven-brusts-dragaera-a-really-cool-fantasy-world/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151101134231/http://www.tor.com/2009/11/16/steven-brusts-dragaera-a-really-cool-fantasy-world/ |archive-date=November 1, 2015 |website=Tor.com |publisher=Macmillan}}</ref> is set on a planet called Dragaera.<ref name="wolf">{{Cite book |last=Wolf |first=Mark J.P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k60W4FvGG5UC&dq=dragaera&pg=PA335 |title=Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation |publisher=Routledge |year=2014 |isbn=978-1136220814 |page=335}}</ref><ref name="mapping">{{Cite web |last=Newell |first=Bryan |year=2011 |title=Chapter 2 – Methods and Assumptions |url=http://bryann.net/dragaera/map/Methods_and_Assumptions.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160105185547/http://bryann.net/dragaera/map/Methods_and_Assumptions.html |archive-date=January 5, 2016 |website=Mapping Dragaera}}</ref> The events of the series take place in an Empire mostly inhabited and ruled by the Dragaerans, a genetically engineered humanoid species,<ref name="lavode">{{Cite book |last=Brust |first=Steven |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1-4fCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT92 |title=The Book of Jhereg |publisher=Penguin |year=1999 |isbn=1101665734 |page=92 |quote=Jenoine ... once used the Dragaeran race (and, I might add, the Easterners) as stock to practice genetic experimentation.... [T]here are theories which claim that Easterners aren't native to Dragaera at all, but were brought in by the Jenoine from somewhere else to use as controls for their tests.}}</ref> having characteristics such as greatly extended lifespans and heights averaging about seven feet. Referred to as "[[elf]]s" by some humans, they refer to themselves as "human". The Dragaeran Empire controls a region that is "enclouded" by a perpetual overcast that blocks the sun from view.

Vlad Taltos is one of the human minority (known by Dragaerans as "Easterners"), which exists as a lower class in the Empire. 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 the 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 organization.  Despite being a human and a criminal, he has a number of high-ranking Dragaeran friends and often gets caught up in important events.

Brust has written 17 published novels in the series, which is proposed to run to nineteen novels&nbsp;– one named for each of the Great Houses, one named for Vlad himself (''[[Taltos (Steven Brust novel)|Taltos]]''), and a final novel which Brust has said will be titled ''The Final Contract''.{{Citation needed|reason=Only reference I can find is on a fan page (http://www.panix.com/~alexx/future.txt) referencing an article that is no longer available.|date=July 2019}}  The first three novels resemble private-eye [[detective fiction|detective stories]], perhaps the closest being [[Robert B. Parker]]'s [[Spenser (fictional detective)|Spenser series]].  The later novels are more varied than the first three.  Though they read like fantasy, there are science-fictional explanations for some things.

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 père]]'s novels about [[The Three Musketeers]], and is five volumes long, following the pattern of Dumas' 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 writing is explicitly based on Dumas', though with a dialogue style that is, at times, based on [[Tom Stoppard]]'s wordgames in ''[[Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' (according to Pamela Dean's introduction to ''Five Hundred Years After''). ''[[The Baron of Magister Valley]]'', an additional Paarfi novel, is modeled after Dumas's ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]''.

The two series are finally brought together in the thirteenth novel in the Vlad series, ''Tiassa'', which can also be viewed as the sixth novel in the Khaavren series. ''Tiassa'' comprises what are in effect three related novellas, each told in a different style and connected by a common theme. The first section reads like the first three novels in the series, with first-person narration by Vlad but including Khaavren's son, Piro; the second section has a different viewpoint character in each of its chapters; and the third section is narrated by Paarfi in the style of the earlier ''Khaavren Romances'', with Khaavren as the viewpoint character and interacting with Vlad.