Khaavren Romances

The Khaavren Romances are a series of fantasy novels written by Steven Brust and set in the fictional world of Dragaera. The novels are swashbuckling adventure stories involving war, intrigue, and romance. They are heavily influenced by the d'Artagnan Romances written by Alexandre Dumas.

The title of each book roughly corresponds with its equivalent in the d'Artagnan Romances. The Phoenix Guards names the guard organization to which the main characters belong, as does The Three Musketeers, Five Hundred Years After describes the length of time between it and the previous book, as does Twenty Years After, and The Viscount of Adrilankha is the name of the next generation of hero, as is The Vicomte de Bragelonne. The third novel of each trilogy is broken into smaller volumes.

The heroes of the Khaavren Romances roughly correspond with the heroes of the d'Artagnan Romances. Brust conceived of the series after assigning each of the Musketeers a House of the Dragaeran Empire.

Brust uses the conventions of false documents to present the books as historical fiction novels within the world of Dragaera. The author of the novels is Paarfi of Roundwood, a nobleman and historian from the House of the Hawk. Through his narrative, Paarfi attempts to dramatize historical events of Dragaera that he has studied but not witnessed himself.

Steven Brust presents himself as Paarfi's English translator. At the end of several of the Khaavren books, Brust and the character Paarfi have a comedic interaction or interview, and the two often quarrel. Brust claims to have changed Paarfi's original text in a number of ways in order to accommodate the differences in language. For example, the Dragaeran language has gender neutral pronouns, which Brust has translated into the generic male, a change that outrages Paarfi during one of their conversations.

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