Steven Brust : The idea came from a role-playing game, run by a friend of mine, Robert Sloan, who also created much of the background for the world. No, in fact, I had no idea there would be so many. I wrote the second one, Yendi, just as a treat to myself because the novel I'd written before it, To Reign In Hell, had been so difficult. It was only when I suddenly hit on the idea for the third one, Teckla, that I realized (or admitted to myself) that I was writing a series.
Actusf : How would you introduce your Vlad character? He is an assassin, a gangster, but at the same time somehow attaching with a lot of humour and a realistic point of view on himself.
Steven Brust : I don't wish to be difficult, but I'm very bad at that sort of thing. I always enjoy introducing him in each book--finding new ways to communicate who he is is part of the fun for me--but I guess the obverse of that is my inability to really talk about him outside of the writing, if that makes sense. I can talk about my influences, or the research that led to him, but I can't really introduce him. Sorry.
Actusf : What did influence you on this cycle? Are there authors that have directed your work and from whom you took up some ideas ?
Steven Brust : Think of the style as coming from Raymond Chandler or Dashiel Hammet, the tropes from Michael Moorcock, the world from Fritz Leiber, and the general aesthetic from Roger Zelazny.
Actusf : You write mainly fantasy books. What are the reasons? What do you like in that type of writing ?
Steven Brust : I've been asked that a lot, and I wish I had a good answer. The closest that I can come is to say it is when reading adventure fiction in general and fantasy fiction in particular that I most often find myself saying, "Oh, cool!" That's the feeling I'm shooting for in the reader. Secondarily, well, I should point out at the least the Vlad Taltos novels owe as much to science fiction as to fantasy; it's just more fun for me to keep those elements in the background, and to write about characters who aren't aware the underpinnings of what is happening around them.
Actusf : How will the story continue? Do you have an idea of an end for this cycle ?
Steven Brust : I do have an ending in mind. I don't know if I'll actually get that far. I might die first, or I might get tired of writing them. I trust you'll forgive me if I don't tell you any details of what I have in mind.
This year the first volume of The Khaavren Romances is published in France.
Actusf : How was born the idea of this cycle ? It seems it is a fantasy novel but also with swords and capes, in the spirit the Three Musketeers. What did you like in the novels of Alexandre Dumas ?
Steven Brust : Now that one is easy. I've been in love with Dumas pere since I first read him as a teenager. Now, unfortunately, I don't speak the lovely French language, so I had to make due with translations. But the good side is that it lead me to many different translations. The result of comparing the different translations, and deciding which I liked and why, led me, accidentally as it were, to internalize the way he used words. I completely fell in love with the way he used language, and I simply decided I was going to write a story that way, even if I was the only English speaker who liked it. I was very fortunate that it turned out I wasn't.
Actusf : Why did you try to extend his work in a world of fantasy ?
Steven Brust : It came about by accident. In the world on which many of my stories are set, there are what are called Great Houses--clans, of a sort, in which people have certain similar characteristics. I remember sitting around with my friends Will Shetterly and Emma Bull one day, trying to explain to them what a Lyorn was like. I said, "Well, think of Athos in The Three Muskateers. That's a Lyorn." Then I said, "And Porthos is a Dzur. And Aramis is a Yendi. Hmmm. " From then on, the idea wouldn't go away until I wrote it.
Actusf : How would you introduce your heroes ? Who are they ?
Steven Brust : You mean in the Khaavren Romances? I'd say they are quite simply Dumas' heroes put into a world of fantasy.
Actusf : What are you currently working on ?
Steven Brust : I'm doing research for a rather difficult project that will probably take me quite a while. In the meantime, I've completed another Vlad novel, and am working on yet another.
