Continuity
The events described in the Khaavren Romances take place several hundred years before the events of the Vlad Taltos novels. Dragaeran society is somewhat different in the Romances than that in which Vlad lives. The capital of the Empire is Dragaera City, which serves as the primary setting for the first two novels of the series. In addition, sorcery is much weaker and more rare. Most of the characters in the Khaavren Romances know little about sorcery and rely on flintlock-like "flashstones" as their only source of magical weaponry. By Vlad's time, the abundance of sorcery has transformed Dragaeran society.
There are many crossovers between the Khaavren Romances and the Vlad Taltos novels. Due to the long lives of many characters in Dragaera, some characters appear in both series. Paarfi wrote The Phoenix Guards during a time roughly contemporary to Vlad's life, while the rest of the series was written at least one hundred years later. Some of Paarfi's other work is referenced in the Vlad novels. There are some discrepancies between the two series, but many of them are intentional. Paarfi, like Vlad, is not a completely reliable narrator. Brust has stated that while Paarfi is very well informed, he does not know as much as he thinks he does, and sometimes simply makes things up.
Read more about this topic: Khaavren Romances
Famous quotes containing the word continuity:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Only the family, society’s smallest unit, can change and yet maintain enough continuity to rear children who will not be “strangers in a strange land,” who will be rooted firmly enough to grow and adapt.”
—Salvador Minuchin (20th century)
“There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)