BaneII

I am posting to see if anyone can recall the name of a fantasy book series. I read it over a decade ago. The main character was an assassin with a magical (anti-magical?) chain on his wrist and a pet dragon. The main thing I remember about the world was that magic was available to most of the inhabitants. I do remember characters using some type of common area magical globe to teleport. The first book I read had the main character divorcing his wife, giving her a business (an inn?), and leaving town at the end of the book. The writer was big on humor and the story had a lot of humorous moments. Does anyone know title or author's name?

Rincewind

Would this be the Vlad Taltos series set in the Dragaera Universe by Steven Brust? Jhereg (1983, ACE Charter) appears to be the first book in the series.

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BaneII

Yup, that is it. I recognize the cover. Hmmm, now that I've seen the publish date, that was actually two decades ago that I read it. No wonder I dont remember the name. Thanks, Rincewind! Now I can finish the whole series.

Rincewind

It looks like you just filled your entire reading schedule for the next year

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Trooper

o..i was gonna say box car children but i guess i was wrong.....nm

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CingularDuality

Ooh, good books.

Very interesting society in that series with the different houses and the semi-caste system.

There was another character in there, a female (thief? pickpocket?) that liked to play with knives, I believe. I remember that she impressed me in certain ways. Well, I read these books when I was 12-15 years old, so...

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ScratchMonkey

On a related note, anyone remember a series of novels involving a scientist in our world getting sucked into another universe? Very tongue in cheek, and the author becomes one of the characters. I think I read through 3 books before the well ran dry and I was left waiting for a sequel.

If you like this kind of thing, you might want to read Larry Niven's "Flight of the Horse", a collection of humerous short stories involving a time-traveling scientist from the future sent into the fantasy past to retrieve specimens for an up-time museum.

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CingularDuality

Ever read Piers Anthony's Xanth novels? Sometimes the magical land of Xanth overlaps the mundane world of Florida. I don't remember if it was part of the novel, or if it was in the author's notes, but I remember the author interacting with the characters of Xanth.

Great series of books, by the way.

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BaneII

See, that's what I like about TG. It isnt always about killing someone. We can have an intelligent literary discusssion. Just like Oprah!

ScratchMonkey

I'm pretty sure it's not Anthony's I'm thinking of. I seem to recall an author name starting with "W".

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SmokingTarpan

Oh, maybe someone can help me with my book now.

I read this series way back in junior high, and I only remember the plot of the first book. Basically a middle-ages world where some people have magical-like abilities called Talents. The main character is out in the fields one day and stranger comes by and marks him on the chest (an "M" I think) with a strange sword. He's basically slow-poisoned, and will die in a month or so. The boy runs into a group of performers that have some of these Yalents (a girl with telepathy, a martial-artist who's eyes are blind but sees in 360-degree vision with his mind, and a few others), and they recognize what's been done to him. They agree to try to help him, and along the way they discover the boy has a very rare Talent for controlling fire. Long story short, they get into the keep of the bad guy, all but the boy die, and they boy beseeches the gods or such that the bad guy was trying to call to save his dead friends. The gods like that he didn't try to save himself from the poison instead, so they revive everyone.

I thought the book was called "The Tainted Blade" or "The Poisoned Blade", but I guess that's not it. Anyone have any ideas?

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Rincewind

Tarpan, the author John Peel has written a few books that describe people who can use magic as Talents. but I don't know if this is what you're going for.

On a side note, anyone read Robert Asprin? He had a long hiatus in the 90's due to tax related troubles but his fanatasy is about as funny as it comes.

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ScratchMonkey

Aha, here's the one I was remembering (and it wasn't W, it was H):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_H...ctant_Sorcerer

Looks like he never did get around to writing more in that series.

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CingularDuality

If you haven't, you're really mything out...

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SmokingTarpan

I don't think that's it, though there's like 3000 entries for "John Peel" on amazon. It's sad, I've been trying to remember the name of this book for days to no avail.

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