To Cut an Edge

In which the Edger does something hasty.

Back to Korval, but not to Liad, for Val Con is outworld on his preliminary Scout exam.

This is another story where I feel like I’d probably have more to say if I were reading it for the first time.

I like all the characters in this; they’re strongly drawn and make the most of the limited screen time they get. (An un-looked-for advantage of e-readers is that I no longer have to stop and ask myself “Can I say ‘screen time’ when it’s on paper instead of a screen?”) Edger’s first scene also does some good compact work at showing the Turtles’ society and their idea of doing things in a timely manner.

It’s probably just a coincidence, but I notice that in this stretch of stories which introduce (or re-introduce as adults) the main players of the new generation, Pat Rin’s story is next to Natesa’s and Val Con’s is next to Miri’s. (But no Shan story to go next to Priscilla’s, apparently. Yet.)


Tomorrow: “Shadow Partner”

7 thoughts on “To Cut an Edge

  1. Melissa G

    I love this story. I enjoy that it becomes a sort of Korval joke that Val Con defeated a dragon, while we the readers know the truth. I love the glimpse into Turtle society and what being a First-In Scout entails. My weakness for stories involving the interacting of different cultures is what brought me to the Liaden Universe in the first place.

  2. Bob D

    While I found this story some years ago, it was one of the backstories I really wanted to see. I love the interactions that show generalizing wisdom to apply across cultures and species.

  3. Linda Shoun

    It’s been a while since I read this, but I recall wondering at the time whether Val Con was sent intentionally to the Clutch planet. Or if it was some kind of mistake that the Scouts have made here? Was the Clutch planet known to the Clans of Men already?

  4. Paul A. Post author

    I tend to assume that the Scouts running the test dropped Val Con on the planet they meant to drop him on, which would mean that the planet is known, but not very well known.

    The test involves learning the local language and customs and surviving for six months, which means that the Scouts must have looked at the planet at least closely enough to determine that there are locals, with a language and customs, and that there are no hazards that will kill him within six months whatever he does. On the other hand, for the learning of language and customs to be suitably challenging, they’d want to pick a planet where they didn’t speak any of the languages a Scout-candidate might already know, or a planet the candidate might be able to read up on in advance. (Which Val Con attempted to do anyway; perhaps they went out of their way to pick a planet they knew he wouldn’t know.)

    So: a planet the Scouts know of and have studied in detail, but perhaps not known to the Clans of Men in the broader sense.

  5. Ed8r

    Yes, the Scouts may have deliberately chosen this planet…but then why choose one that has *any* speakers of Terran or Trade? Val Con will have a much easier time of it because there is a mutual language that can be used. This is not the same as learning from scratch. He now has a person to introduce him to others who would have refused to notice/speak to him.

    In a separate observation, I was actually quite surprised to read in this story the description of Val Con’s face, as perceived by Edger as “looking as if one of his kin had taken a nugget of soft golden ore and used a knife to plane off five quick, angular lines.” Although often the golden skin tones of Liadens is mentioned in other stories/books, I had never pictured the color as metallic, nor even as saturated as the nonmetallic “gold” color one finds in a box of crayons.

  6. Ed8r

    I would only repeat my comments from March, except to add that I am rather curious what features of this creature caused Val Con to identify it as a “dragon.” Since it does not have wings, the suggestion is that the shape of head, body, and tail must be similar to what is shown in Korval’s sigil, right? Does that mean that the dragons that were seen in the visions provided by the Tree (presumably seen and described by Cantra and/or Tor An) had similar structure, even down to the spiky tails?

  7. Ed8r

    This time through, while enjoying the story, I also found myself wondering about the authors choice of the term T’carais’amp. It certainly evoked the term “imp,” as applied to a mischievous child!

    I also have questions about the tune Val Con first plays to the T’carais’amp. The authors often allude to music our culture might recognize—sometimes even naming a classical piece, such as Toccata and Fugue—but I can’t think of a nursery rhyme or children’s tune that accompanies a “rhyming game.” The tune for “Three Blind Mice” is simple enough to start on a little reed flute, and has the added advantage for this story with its association with a knife! But “Three Blind Mice” is not a rhyming “game,” per se.

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