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.

Brokedown, Issola, Paarfi, the rest of the Vladiad EXCEPT Teckla, Agyar, Sun Moon & Stars (which I remember liking a lot when I read it at 13, but I think I read a special "Children's" version with just the fairy tale), Gypsy, To Reign in Hell, Freedom & Necessity, [big gap], Cowboy Feng, Teckla. I kind of hate Teckla. It's just so depressing.

Brust himself says about Cowboy Feng:

Not one of my better efforts, I think, but there are bits of it I like. It started out to be funny, developed a serious side, and I was never able to get the elements to blend the way I wanted them to. Grumble grumble. It's always pleasant to run into someone who liked this book; it means that I can still do all right when I'm not on my game.