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What's New in Cracks and Shards

• March 2008:
  • S. Crain has found in Dragon allusions to S. Crane's The Red Badge of Courage
• December 2007:
  • Jhegaala announced for July 8, 2008, added to the Books page.
  • Another interpretation of the Jhereg sword joke
• May 2006:
  • (finally) added Dzur to Books page
  • a bunch of lightbulb sword jokes about the Great Houses (and a few other groups) written by members of the Dragaera mailing list
• April 2006:
  • Who's on First?
  • A note from Steve on bagels and lox
  • different axioms
  • Steve checks in on Morrolan's name and the categorization of The Viscount of Adrilankha
  • Updated the list of Other Web sites
• January 2006:
  • Niven allusion identified, "maybe I use different axioms"
  • Chaz or Tukko?
• August 2005:
  • too, too solid flesh
  • Reorganized list of other Brust websites. Checked current status. Added notes about DDB's big meltdown.
• July 2005:
  • Reborn Phoenix in the Cycle Poem
  • an inchoate* page on Assorted Shards
    [This means 'coming into existence; only beginning to take shape', not 'chaotic', although chaos and formlessness are closely related. Don't judge by anagrams.]
• May 2005:
  • Another Scribblie name detected, Daridd of Diar-by-the-Bennaat.
  • What if Loraan was already undead in Taltos?
• April 2005:
  • Hilary A.'s comparison of Paarfi and Dumas, on a page of its own, linked from the Jokes and Allusions page.
  • Table of Contents for Sethra Lavode.
  • Aaron Kashtan's Crack about the number of horses Adron killed in getting to Redface. And I'm only five years behind schedule, too.
• March 2005:
  • Recommendations for translation and movie of The Three Musketeers.
  • Moved the Grateful Dead section of Jokes and Allusions to a page of its own and rearranged its contents more logically.
• February 2005:
  • Added page numbers for SFBC omnibus Dragon and Issola.
• January 2005:
  • Added full set of section links at top and bottom of each page.
• November 2004:
  • How Many Windows In Morrolan's Tower?
  • Aibynn's band
  • The basis of Bengloarafurd Ford debunked. (But not listed here till Jan. 2005.)
• May 2004:
  • A couple of new theories about the Dragaeran week and month
• April 2004:
  • A new Grateful Dead reference in TPG.
• November 2003:
  • Alexx's new URL
• October 2003:
  • http://cracksandshards.com
  • Table of Contents for The Lord of Castle Black
• September 2003:
  • Sethra Lavode link added
• August 2003:
  • The Lord of Castle Black published (but not even read yet)
• June-July 2003:
  • Loraan, Orlaan, Rolaan, and Röaana: names and anagrams.
• May 2003:
  • I'm starting to implement Cascading Style Sheets, in hopes it'll make this hobby a little easier for me, make the site look more uniform (bit by bit), and give me practice for one part of my work. (I use primarily MS Internet Explorer, but I also test with Netscape and Mozilla.) -- Thanks to John Klein for help with CSS.
  • I've cleaned up the internal "name" anchors. For those of you who know HTML, that means I've removed spaces and other characters likely to cause problems, so now all the "names" begin with a letter and contain only letters, digits, hyphens, and underscores. For the rest of you, some site-internal links that may have not functioned for you in the past should be working now.

    And in checking my work I've discovered that this site now contains exactly seventeen HTML files, which tempts me to stop here. That would be cute, and it might be smart for other reasons, but I ain't gonna do it.... I might, however, try to arrange any changes so as to keep the mystic number.

    ("Boss, that would really be stupid!" *

    "Give me three reasons."

    "First, you've always tried to keep the size of your files under 32k to keep download time reasonable, and you'd have to give that up. Second, you'd be adding an unnecessary constraint to the arrangement of your site."

    "That's two. You used to be able to count."

    "Dead mouse on your pillow. Reason number three is, you were gonna shower and go to bed a friggin' hour ago!"

    "I yield to the force of your argument.")

  • Table of Contents for Paths of the Dead.
  • From POTD: Some Eastern peoples and languages, and Morrolan's name. These all constituted one complex set of cross-referenced entries in three files ([2003-05-28:] four) and took a couple of hours to set up to my satisfaction.

    ("Well, boss, how much of that are you going to blame on the material and how much on your own fussiness?"

    "Hmph. Call it 'perfectionism' and I might share this doughnut with you."

    "Your perfectionism, then."

    "Here you go."

    [munch] "And as MoCo said, 'Vi ne devas cxiam esti tia goddam perfectionist!'")

  • Spellbreaker's variable length, leading to a consideration of cracks, Brusts, and unreliable memory as authorial plaster.
  • The rocks in Sethra's fireplace.
  • Some observations on confusing titles of the UK omnibus editions published by Pan.
  • The curious absence of "jh" in Dragaeran names.
  • Dark complexions for Hawk and Vallista.
  • Loraan and Orlaan, and Rolaan, and Röaana; and some advice for the author, and some help for him.
  • What am I, roast kethna?
  • Brust identifies (some of) the literary influences on the Vlad books.
  • When I procrastinate, I really do a job of it. Lee Ann Rucker sent me a Crack about Morrolan's hair nearly three years ago, and I only put it in now. Tsk, tsk. And I've probably got lots more of the same vintage.
  • ... like "Kneem"'s and Michelle Pratt's takes on How Many Houses?
  • ... Kimberli-Anne Measor's take on the color(s) of the chaos stones.
  • ... a little more discussion of revivification in historical context.
  • A number of small additions and tweaks not worth mentioning here.

    ("If they're not worth mentioning--"

    "Not worth detailing here. Satisfied?")

• April 2003:
  • Mark Plattner has supplied several more Grateful Dead references: Brokedown Palace, Fenario, Dobpergés Ördög (Rhythm Devils), Dark Star, Master Hunter, and allusions to the song "Terrapin Station". I'm sure any Deadhead would know some of these in his sleep. I'm not a Deadhead, and so thanks again to Mark P. and all the other 'Heads who've contributed here.
• March 2003:
  • Koldus Sirbolt and Sárgacukorférfi on the map of Fenario in BP.
  • Fixed a bug in my "Feedback" links that has been there for years, and nobody ever told me! Of course, if they tried to tell me through the Feedback links...
  • Vlad as Joe Friday from Dragnet.
  • A small clue to the order of the days of the week.
  • Easterners are descended from Terrans.
  • A lighter grey in the background of the "cracks" pages, which should make them easier to read.
• Winter 2002/03:
  • Paths of the Dead is out, and Steve cites this site in the Acknowledgements; what a wonderful sight! Unfortunately, the heavy hand of Murphy crunched the URL. The correction notice was urgent; material from the book itself will be added soon. [Dec. 10, 2002]
  • Thanks to Corwin Brust for setting up the Dragaera webring! Cracks and Shards is now part of it. [Jan. 11, 2003]
  • Still trying to keep the white-and-gold theme while maintaining readability, I'm revising the Shards background yet again.
  • Added direct links to Amazon.com for each book. Each purchase made through one of these links will help support Cracks and Shards at no additional cost to the buyer. [Jan. 13, 2003]
  • Paarfi's reference to Glorious Mountain Press in POTD. [Feb. 9, 2003]
• Summer-Autumn 2002:
  • Several people have told me that the backgrounds make reading difficult. I have changed them to try to ease the situation.
  • Checked and updated links to other Brust sites.
  • Added link to Nytemuse's new Brust site.
  • How Savn and Kathana e'Marish'Chala got their names, in a new subsection on authorial origins of names.
• July 4, 2001:
  • Added Issola to Books and Contents pages.
  • Vlad and Teldra invent bagels and lox.
• [time passes]
  • Tables of Contents of all the Dragaera books.
  • A crack about muscular Dragonlords.
  • The interviewer's machine.
  • The Grateful Dead song titles in the map in Brokedown Palace.
  • The geography of Kanefthali.
  • The islands.
• Feb. 28, 1999:
  • Took out the list of Dragaeran tales into a separate page. I want to keep all my pages comfortably smaller than 32KB.
  • Several items on names and such:
    • A crack in the alleged differentiation of Dragaeran and Eastern names.
    • Confirmation of "D.B., Dean of Pamlar University", not only for name but for authorship of the Preface of Five Hundred Years After.
    • Paarfi's comment on the title "Mister" added into the discussion of Valabar's and titles of respect.
    • A look at the names of the Teckla villagers in Athyra.
    • Support for my use of "Dragaera" to refer to the whole planet.
  • A crack about the elevation of Bengloarafurd, along with observations on the overcast, and a note about the accent there.
  • A new analysis of Dragaeran currency
  • Rearranged Seventeen in Dragaera and added an item or two.
  • What color are the chaos stones?
  • Further speculations on why Sethra told Vlad she couldn't leave Dzur Mountain
  • Table of characteristics of the Houses enlarged by addition of the epigrammatic descriptions from the poem of the Cycle, and the epigraphic quotations heading the chapters of Jhereg.
  • A citation for Serioli water clocks.
  • A crack in the nomenclature of the imperial guards. Since it is not any kind of spoiler, I've put it in the paragraph on that topic, in "The Houses of the Dragaeran Empire", among the shards.
  • Expanded discussion of the Old Northwestern tongue vs. "the tongue of the Dragon" and Kanefthali.
  • A reference to another language in what seems to be the Seal of the Kingdom of Greenaere Island.
  • Fixed a silly error in "Time", where I said that the year was 17² hours long instead of days!
  • An allusion to "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead".
  • And a whole bunch of little bitty fixups.
• June 19, 1998:
  • Added references for the cat-centaurs.
  • A possible additional allusion to the game "Adventure".
  • Slight additions to the section on patronymics.
  • The source of the unusual two-part name of "D.B., Dean of Pamlar University".
  • Observations on honorific titles
  • Bits on Dragaeran and Serioli names.
• April 24, 1998:
  • A picture of two dubious characters.
  • Since "a knife between the shoulder-blades" doesn't belong in "Literary Allusions" at all, I've taken it out.
  • The origin of the pervasive number seventeen.
  • An inconsistency in the first Dragon-Jhereg war.
  • Acknowlegements moved out to a separate page
• April 14, 1998:
  • Outlines of the origin of the Imperial Palace in Adrilankha (correcting a "crack" posted earlier).
  • Brust also corrects my mistaken impressions of the origin of "bone-dancer" and "a knife between the shoulder-blades".
• April 12, 1998:
  • This "What's New" section.
  • More notes on accents in Dragaeran.
  • The straight dope on "Bengloarafurd Ford".