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
Just a quick note to affirm that I’m sticking with the plan of reading new novels at their own speed, and blogging a re-read at some later point.
Salvage Right would have been a rough one to read for the first time at one chapter a day: it’s like Accepting the Lance, with lots of tiny chapters — only more so. A rough back-of-the-envelope calculation says it would have taken six months to get through. I’m much happier to have read it at the speed I read it.
Aequitas
Hel’s Gate
Rannibic Station
In which Sleak has things to say.
Shout out to Lute and Moonhawk, whose story continues to be told even when the Temple would prefer it to be forgotten. I wonder if the version Sleak knows includes the two things that must without fail be said. (I would bet good money that whatever version the Temple currently tells doesn’t include either of the two – if they tell the story at all.)
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Aequitas
Hel’s Gate, Rannibic Station
In which there is a change of plans.
There are a couple of resonant names in the dateline of this chapter.
Wikipedia describes aequitas as “the Latin concept of justice, equality, conformity, symmetry, or fairness”. Also, I see from my notes, in the Liaden Universe aequitas is the name of those tokens used by traders to ensure a fair exchange of information. So Aequitas is a plausible thing for a trader to name her ship, and it also echoes the broader issues of justice in the situation in which Lomar finds herself in this story.
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Melepomine Court
Alpraise City
Dayan, in the Irrobi System
In which Lomar Fasholt makes her move.
This, also, I read a few months ago and have been putting off because I didn’t know what to say about it. Apart from, obviously: Hurray! It’s good to see Lomar Fasholt again after all this time.
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In which we learn the fate of the second-last Admiral.
I’ve been putting off posting an entry for this story for months, because I wasn’t sure I had anything to say about it. The arrival of Salvage Right seemed like a good time to give it another shot, since it’s likely that this is going to feed into the backstory somehow.
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I haven’t yet set a date for a chapter-by-chapter blogging of Fair Trade. The current plan is “a few weeks to a month before Trade Lanes comes out, whenever that turns out to be”.
This, you will have noticed, is a departure from the way I’ve been doing things.
The thing is, when I started this blog, it was all about re-reading the Liaden novels chapter-by-chapter, finding new things in old favourites and giving old not-favourites a chance to change my mind. Then eventually I ran out of Liaden novels I’d already read, but there were new ones coming out, and I was feeling so enthusiastic I decided to just keep on reading Liaden novels and blogging them chapter-by-chapter. But I’ve been increasingly feeling that this isn’t sustainable and has been injuring my ability to enjoy the new novels in the way they’re meant to be enjoyed. (Accepting the Lance, in particular, wasn’t done any favours by being chopped into a hundred pieces and spread over three months, and I’ve regretted that I didn’t give it a fair shake on its own terms.) On the other hand, I do enjoy revisiting the novels and finding details that I didn’t notice before.
So what I’m going to try is a return to this being a re-reading blog. I’m going to read Fair Trade by myself, at whatever speed it wants to go. And then, in the lead-up to Trade Lanes, I’m going to re-read it and do the chapter-by-chapter blog then.
There’s a certain symmetry to the new Jethri books being the ones where I try out this plan: one of the reasons I started this blog when I did was to give myself an excuse to re-read Balance of Trade in the lead-up to Trade Secret coming out.
In which Sinit safeguards the clan’s treasures.
I’m always pleased to have another opportunity to spend time with Sinit, who’s one of my favourite characters in the series.
It’s also (speaking now as the presumptuous author of a suggested chronological reading order) something of a relief after the last few stories to have one that says up-front exactly where it fits chronologically.
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In which the bakery goes forward.
I had forgotten that we already knew of a character called “Our Lady of Benevolence” until I was re-reading the earlier bakery stories in preparation for this new one. (Well, actually, the authors’ foreword gave it away, but if not for that it would have been re-reading “Fortune’s Favors” that did it.)
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In which the crack team of Kilsymthe and yo’Dira deal with some unfinished business.
Being that this story involves an entirely new cast of characters at an entirely new location, it’s a bit short of indications about where it fits in relative to the main series. It’s more recent than the Jethri books, since the team-up of a Terran spacer and Liaden is unpopular in some quarters but not considered a remarkable innovation. The bit about “the asterisked end-notes in the ven’Tura Tables” might indicate that it’s before the Tables were properly revised. Caerli uses the technique called the Smuggler’s Ace; the earliest mention we have of that is in Scout’s Progress, but I don’t think we know how old it already was then, so that doesn’t help much.
The list of customers at the drinkery includes two women in “librarian’s robes”, which I’m not sure what to make of.
In which Bjarni helps see in the New Decade.
Major Lizardi, from Surebleak, with the knack for recognizing the right person for the job at hand, has to be Miri’s friend Liz at an earlier stage in her career.
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