Art for Dragaera

[krait]

Okay, so sholio has been having such fun rereading the Dragaera series novels! In a post of hers I mentioned some great art by a friend of the author's and that I'd try to dig it up, because her Orca is my headcanon and I find the version in the books disappointing.

The Lyorn Records contain only broken links, but confirmed the artist I was looking for is Katherine Grantham, and I was able to track it down in my own hard drive. :D




(The *happiest* Tiassa; I love him!)






(The best orca - "Orca circles, hard and lean" suits this much better than the blubbery Earth mammal.)



By the by, Katherine Grantham, nee Marschall, is who the character of Kathana e'Marish'Chala was based on. :D

Comments

[sholio]

Oooh! Thank you so much for digging these up; I love them! (The orca. YIKES. XD)

I am also very charmed by Brust writing a friend into his book in that way.

WHEE, DRAGAERA. :D

[krait]

She is not the only person from Brust's circle of friends and fellow writers to appear via Expy in one of his novels. :D

Paarfi's commentator, Ivan Sekely, is a tribute to John M. Ford, who passed away in 2006.

Aibynn, the odd drummer Vlad picks up during his adventure on Greenaere, is an Expy of Robin Anders, a drummer friend of Brust's.

The "Seven Wizards" mentioned in Athyra are based on Brust's writing group; see specifics here.

The character Daridd of Diar-by-the-Bennett is a shoutout to David Dyar-Bennett, Brust's friend and admin of the official Dragaera website.

"Tersa of Haynels" is a reference to Brust's editor and friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

And Brust himself appears, metaphorically, as Miska the coachman!

There are lots of little shoutouts and personal-friend appearances in this series (notwithstanding that Brust also named his daughter Kiera! Or Aliera? Maybe he has two daughters. I forget biographical details so easily....)

[hamsterwoman]

Brust also named his daughter Kiera! Or Aliera? Maybe he has two daughters.

Aliera :) (He does have two daughters, but the other has a non-Dragaeran name :)

(because, conversely, I have a head for random biographical detail I pick up from just reading his blog and twitter, and therefore tend to come off as a stalker. XP)

[krait]

Thanks! I'm terrible with biographical stuff, but that means together we make a great team!

[hamsterwoman]

but that means together we make a great team!

Yep! :DD

[rachelmanija]

Ooh, I love the Tiassa.

[krait]

The tiassa looks so pleased with life!

[edenfalling]

Oooh, nifty!

[zdenka]

Ooh, I like them! They look suitably alien.

I did not know that about Kathana! That's cool, especially since she's a great character.

[krait]

Yeah, I thought the artist did a great job subtly highlighting the "sci-fi" background of the Dragaera series; these look like alien life forms that a human colonist would plausibly name or describe in Earth terms, rather than like actual Terran animals.

I love the explanations for some of the characters who appear in minor roles! There are several more in my reply to sholio, above. :D

[zdenka]

Ah, cool! Thanks for sharing those details. :D

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh, these are great! The issola looks a little familiar, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen the others -- the orca is suitably nightmarish -- I definitely prefer it to the regular Earth orca in the Cycle art! And I love the self-satisfied expression on the tiassa's face -- it's so nicely feline :D

Thank you for digging up and sharing these!

[krait]

You are welcome!

Finding that all the links in the wiki were broken because they went to Grantham's Elfwood page made me really, really miss Elfwood.



One day I should try to start a "fandom-related artwork amnesty" where people post the oldest fannish image on their hard drive/other storage media...

This thought brought to you by the realisation that I still have tiny low-quality images stolen from fannish 'character shrines' back in the early 2000s, when it took half an hour for a good shrine to load and people jealously guarded their images by disabling right-click and creating 'traps' for hotlinkers. :D