Steven Brust

Vlad Táltos is the central character of a series of novels written by Steven Brust and set on the planet Dragaera. Vlad was first introduced in the 1983 novel Jhereg as a mobster and witch in the Dragaeran metropolis of Adrilankha. "Táltos" is a Hungarian word for a particular... supernatural person or creature. Vlad is always accompanied by his familiar, Loiosh, a wisecracking flying reptile called a jhereg, with whom he shares a telepathic and empathic connection. As an Easterner in species, Vlad's appearance corresponds with real-world humans, in contrast to the tall, elf-like Dragaerans that also inhabit his world. Though shorter and weaker than most Dragaerans, Vlad is very fit and agile. He has a hairy chest and usually sports a mustache in defiance of the Dragaerans' lack of facial hair. He typically wears fine nobleman's clothing in black and grey, the colors of House Jhereg. Earlier in the timeline of the series, he carries a magical chain called "Spellbreaker" wrapped around his left wrist, but this chain is later replaced by a Great Weapon called "Godslayer".
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Alexandre Dumas, pronounced: [a.lɛk.sɑ̃dʁ dy.ma], born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The... Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were originally serialized. He also wrote plays and magazine articles and was a prolific correspondent. Born in poverty, Dumas was the grandson of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave. Alexandre Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, France. Dumas' paternal grandparents were Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and Général commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of Saint-Domingue and Marie-Cesette Dumas, an Afro-Caribbean Creole of mixed French and African ancestry. Their son, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, married Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper.
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