Deja Fu

It seems that a couple of months ago, fantasy/sf author Robert Asprin died.

Asprin was probably most widely known for his creation of the Myth Adventures series, which is how I was introduced to him. For my nineteenth birthday, a high school buddy who had come down on vacation, presented me with the (up to that point) complete series. To this day, those books remind me of the friends I had back in New Orleans, which carries with it an interesting fact: Asprin had moved to New Orleans a few years ago and was living in the French Quarter, haunting bars and pool halls until all hours of the morning.

I also enjoyed his “Phule’s Company” novels, which put him on the New York Times‘ Bestseller list for a short time in the early 90’s. Apparently, Asprin had run into some personal and financial troubles which knocked him out of the writing game for a while. I saw that he’d returned around ‘99, but his books were always co-authored, apparently for a good reason. It kept the IRS off his back.

However, just this year his latest novel, the beginning of a new series, was published called Dragons Wild - a fantasy/detective story set in contemporary New Orleans. Definitely will be picking that up.

-K