I don't think Cowboy works after the reveal. Up until that point I was with it, but irritated enough by the feeling that he was contradicting himself that I couldn't reread to check.

There lies the viscous (like, worse than vicious, totally) circle of my dissatisfaction.

I like Reign In Hell the most, then Sun, Moon, and Stars, then the Vlad, then Agyar, Gypsy, Brokedown, Paarfi, a big gap then Freedom and Necessity, another big gap and Cowboy Feng.

so I see that Gus and I can never be together.

Oh, well done! With my various disavowals and your present misdirection, they will never have a suspicion. Clever! Most clever!

That is it. No one has mentioned Spider Robinson, and it is pissing me off.

I hereby mention Spider Robinson

Our secret is safe!

I liked Spider Robinson for a while, but I drifted away. However, since I liked Stardance (and I think I was told I wasn't supposed to), I suspect the Callahan side of his oeuvre may be like new to me, whether I like it or not.

I used to love Spider Robinson, but then he pissed me off and he hasn't won me back, yet. Funny thing, I don't remember why I'm mad at him, but I'm still mad.

I think I will adopt ita's hierarchy of Brust as my own, but with smaller gaps. I think about Freedom and Necessity every time I eat a plain baked potato.

Jhereg

But it's been so long I'm unsure. May need to re-read. Darn.

I think about Freedom and Necessity every time I eat a plain baked potato.

I think about it every time I encounter an example of the Hegelian dialectic.

Now, I don't understand the Hegelian dialectic. I don't think. But I do think I got the book. So why did they have to keep mentioning it like it was important? Would I love it if I could only grok Hegel? Or why the dialectic needed a name?

Thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis...is there more to it than that?

I honestly don't remember that in the book, but I read it not too long after taking a history of europe in the 19th c. class, and constant mentioning of Hegel probably seemed very natural, then.

Whatever it was, it was either something I completely failed to get, or something so incredibly ingrained in my late 20c self that I failed to see why it had to be brought up all the time.

:: wildly slings his mono-filament sword to and fro, creating a zone of protection around the radiance of Spider Robinson's name::

Sure, he is ridiculously enamored of Heinlein. Sure, the Key West of his imagination is augmented by way too much cannabis. This can all be trumped by a single word:

Stardance.

I liked the Callahan stories when they were just independent stories, When he started turning them into more novel like things, he lost me. I really dug Night of Power.

I know I read Stardance, but I don't remember much about it.