[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Krazykiwi

I love the Vlad Taltos books. They're very often quite hilarious, and cover a variety of styles which I find a lot of fun. It also means if you find you're losing interest, the next book might just reawaken it since it's likely to be written in a completely different way. Some are written like old noir detective stories, one begins with a literal laundry list from the protagonist, and proceeds to explain how each item of clothing got on it and needing exactly that repair or bloodstain removed, one plays out over a single meal, and one of the spinoff subseries is basically a Three Musketeers rewrite set in the Taltos world. I think Brust is wholly underrated, he's one of my all time favourite authors.

Not yet mentioned is the Pern Books by Anne McCaffrey. A huge long series, eventually covering thousands of years, if you like them you're in for a lot of fun.

Re Thomas the Covenant, I actually have a problem seeing that recommended to anyone without a caveat what you're in for. He's a bit more than unpleasant, he's broken and rotten and not a good man, at least at the beginning. This is a book that has a protagonist, not a hero.

There is one incident only about 6 or 7 chapters in that pretty much will make or break if you are going to continue reading it, when the protagonist commits a really vile act.

Spoiler:

It's a portal fantasy, where one character crosses from one world into another. The problem is he doesn't believe the new world he's in is real, he thinks he's dreaming. When challenged on this by the teenage girl who has just healed him of all his woes and is pretty much his only friend, he proceeds to rape her - but since it's not real, it doesn't matter anyway.

Fans say: Realising what he's done when he decides the other world is in fact real, breaks his already fragile psyche, makes him hate himself, and pretty much starts a quest for some kind of redemption that threads the entire story. And that the direct ramifications are still making him pay right to the end of the third book of the first chronicle.

Not-Fans say: There is no redemption, and the book is stupid.

YMMV.

I found Brust's three musketeer's pastiche to be particularly annoying. Different strokes for different folks. To an extent, I got the impression that Brust was getting bored with things and started to experiment with literary devices rather than focus on telling a good story. I actually have the main line stories up through Hawk (# 14).