For some reason I decided to read, in internal chronological order (more or less), every novel and short story in the Liaden Universe of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. This is the record of my journey.
Having run out of stories to re-read, I am now also reading the new novels and short stories as they come out.
Journey begins here | Jump to a specific work | Acknowledgements
Runcible System
Daglyte Seam
In which the Commander of Agents decides to stay on target.
That’s an interesting moment there, where the Commander starts to consider giving the whole thing up and disbanding the Department, and then is suddenly confident success is within grasp if they hold the course. Given what we already know about how the Department messes about with the insides of its assets’ heads, I suspect the Commander has something within hers devoted to heading off that train of thought. Something to keep an eye on, going forward.
Another thing to keep an eye on is the situation with the Old Tech having gone missing, including “the eldest and most destructive of the Department’s accumulated machines”. Not enough information yet to say who might be behind that, or with what purpose.
On the other hand, I suspect that I know who is behind the affliction of the Department’s dramliz: that would most likely be the lady from Alliance of Equals who set out to achieve her own Balance against the Department.
The Commander considers that it would be a crushing defeat for Korval if the clan were forced to disband and be absorbed by the Terran hordes; I suspect Korval would be less bothered by it, except if it meant they couldn’t protect the people they owed duty to. Even having the Luck diffused might not be something they mourned too much — and frankly, I’m not as confident as the Commander that it would be diffused in such a case. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that just meant it got spread around more, without losing any of its potency.
In advance of the publication of Accepting the Lance, there is a new Liaden story up on the Baen.com homepage, titled “A Visit to the Galaxy Ballroom” and described as “within the timeline of Accepting the Lance“.
I won’t be reading and posting about it until after Accepting the Lance, because my experience has been that when I read the forerunner short story first I spend the entire novel being distracted waiting for something related to the short story to show up, but you go ahead and read it whenever suits you.
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In which Geral Jethri believes in the Envidaria.
If someone had asked me what I expected future Liaden Universe stories to be about, I don’t think I’d have picked “what Jethri’s descendants are doing in the present day” as a possibility, but now that it’s happened it seems like an obvious question to explore.
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In which the fate of the RosaRing is sealed.
The story carefully sticks to local dates to avoid tying itself down too tight, but there is a hint of approximately when it’s set: one of the characters mentions the disruptions caused by astronomical phenomena cutting off the traditional trade routes, which suggests it’s set within the time period of Arin’s Envidaria.
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In which a lot of people are going places.
I enjoyed that. And I look forward to seeing Vepal and Ochin again, as Vepal’s plans make it likely we will.
Vepal’s comment about having been to Omenski before is the kind of small detail I really appreciate and would never have noticed if I hadn’t embarked on this project: way back in Agent of Change, when Val Con gets them through a police cordon with a forged ID claiming they’re part of the Yxtrang embassy, Miri asks if they’re going to have the Yxtrang ambassador after them as well and he assures her that the Yxtrang delegation is currently far away, on Omenski. I suppose that settles the lingering question I had about whether there is only one Yxtrang ambassador.
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In which we see the value of a good literary education.
So, not necessarily a formal regulatory intervention, but once word gets around the merc community about what Perdition Enterprises was up to, no doubt appropriate steps will be taken.
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In which Ochin has been thinking.
I am curious about whom Cheladin intends to quote Ochin’s assessment to. I can’t think of any regulatory body that would be able to claim and enforce jurisdiction if he’s right about what’s going on.
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In which Vepal and Sanchez go for a walk.
Commander Sanchez’s “easy security job on Panore” rings a bell; in “Quiet Knives”, Panore is the holiday planet for rich people that the protagonists were always saying they’d go visit some day.
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In which Commander Vepal checks his mail.
We’ve encountered the Yxtrang word “kojagun” a few times before, a couple of times in scenes with Hazenthull and once with Vepal himself in The Gathering Edge (his internal monologue acknowledging that JinJee Sanchez is not kojagun). Previously, it’s generally been glossed as “not a soldier”; this is the first time it’s been said that it also means “prey”, although in retrospect both aspects of its meaning would fit the occasion Haz uses it in Neogenesis.
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