Monthly Archives: December 2014

Breath’s Duty

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Delgado
Leafydale Place
Standard Year 1393

In which Scout Reserve Captain Daav yos’Phelium returns a favour.

Speaking of first published appearances, this is Kamele’s, brief as it is, and it gave me entirely the wrong impression of her until Fledgling came out. I blame the translators’ decision to use “mistress” as a substitute for whatever word they use on Delgado, because while it has the advantage of bypassing a lengthy explanation it fails to capture the actual spirit of Kamele’s relationship with Jen Sar. On the other hand, I admit there were also some failings of comprehension on my part, regarding (a) the actual likelihood of Daav getting in the kind of relationship that “mistress” implies, and (b) the fact, which is mentioned right there in the story, that they’ve been together long enough for her daughter to be grown up.

This may also be, even more briefly, the first published mention of timonioum.

One of the purposes of this re-read was to see what new associations would come out of the stories by reading them in a different configuration: what would come out of a story by reading it near another story I maybe hadn’t read it near before? In this case, a new thing that struck me was the first dissonant detail: after a couple of pages of Jen Sar Kiladi getting ready for a fishing trip, just as he always does, he pauses to run through the Rainbow pattern. Reading the story so soon after Carpe Diem, with everything it has to say about the Rainbow and about the Rainbow being a Scout thing, that really jumped out at me as a sign that Professor Kiladi isn’t the groundhugging academic he appears. It says, if one didn’t already know, a great deal about his background in a very few words.

Another association that I don’t think I picked up before this re-read is that Acting Scout Commander sig’Radia has the same surname as Senior Scout Cho sig’Radia, the friend and mentor of Daav’s daughter. Probably a relative, not the same person; “Phoenix” has established that sig’Radia has a history of producing Scouts, and this story says straight up that Daav doesn’t know her. (I wonder, though: I don’t think Kiladi ever actually met Cho sig’Radia other than through written correspondence, and if he did notice the connection Daav wouldn’t make anything of it while he’s keeping the Kiladi connection quiet; conversely, of course, Cho sig’Radia knows Theo’s father only as Kiladi and has no reason to suspect he’s Daav. And one who was a Senior Scout a few years ago might have progressed far enough to become Acting Scout Commander now — especially since the “Acting” suggests that the Department’s recent actions have resulted in some rapid movement in the line of succession.)

I’m pretty sure I got the significance of the Richard A. Davis Portmaster Aid Foundation first time, though.

I seem to recall there being something I wanted to say about the bit where L’il Orbit casts shade on Kiladi’s piloting skills, but the only thing that’s coming to mind now is that it was never Kiladi, in the old days, who was called “schoolteacher”. And that there’s a bit of an irony in Daav yos’Phelium being named as a reliable pilot considering what happened the last time he was seen piloting a spaceship.

Plan B – Chapter 3

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Delgado
Bjornson-Bellevale College of Arts and Sciences

In which Professor Kiladi suffers an interruption.

Now, this is a chapter where it really makes a difference whether you’re reading in publication order or internal chronological order. In published order, this is the professor’s first appearance, and the scene is full of enigmatic hints that only get paid off at the end of the novel, or even later, leaving us with the question of who he is and why he’s interested in Val Con. In internal chronological order, Professor Kiladi has already featured in several novels, and the same details are not so much enigmatic hints as reminders of things we already knew; we know who he is and why he’s interested in Val Con, and the question instead is what he’s going to do about it.

Tomorrow, a brief diversion from the novel to find out what he is going to do about it, in the short story “Breath’s Duty”.

Plan B – Chapter 2

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Standard Year 1393
Vandar Orbit and Jump

In which Miri is not keen on sleep-learning.

The timing gets tricky again here: Val Con says that he and Miri have been together on Vandar for eight months, but there’s a solid date near the beginning of Carpe Diem and there’s a solid date near the beginning of I Dare and the gap between them is closer to four months.

Four Standard months, that is: Val Con doesn’t say what kind of months he’s thinking of, and since they’ve only just left Vandar, maybe he’s thinking of Vandar’s months — and if that’s so, and a Vandar month is about half the length of a Standard month, it all fits together.

If this is the case, it would also neatly solve the puzzle in Carpe Diem where Val Con said it had been slightly over a month since they left Lufkit and Miri said it was less than a month and the best estimate I could come up with said it was about 20 days. If Val Con was already thinking in local months (which would make sense for a Scout who’s trained to pick up local customs) and Miri was thinking in Standard months (which would make sense for an untrained person who was struggling to pick up the local language), that fits together too.

It’s a good thing I enjoy figuring out how much smarter than me the authors are, considering how often it happens.

Something else I’ve been wrong about, that I need to make a note of because it’s come up in the comments before: I’d always thought before this re-read that autodocs and sleep-learning units were the same thing, but every time I re-read a bit that I thought supported that impression I turn out to have misunderstood it. This chapter is where the confusion started for me; it’s the first time in publication order we see someone go into a sleep-learning machine, and I thought it was the same device as the autodoc Miri was in a few chapters ago, partly because Miri lies down in both and partly because Val Con gets her tested by the autodoc to see if she’s ready to try sleep-learning. On this re-read, I’m picking up the differences, like the autodoc having an entrance hatch on the side that cycles open and closed and the sleep-learner having a lid on the top that raises and lowers.

Plan B – Chapter 1

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Liad
Department of Interior Command Headquarters

In which the Commander of Agents reviews the situation.

A new book. After two months with Partners in Necessity sitting by my elbow, it feels a bit weird to look down and see Plan B instead.

This first chapter is mostly recap, which makes sense for the first Liaden novel to be published in a decade, even if it’s not obviously useful to a fan who’s just finished re-reading Carpe Diem.

There is some new information slipped in amid the recap: the military action on Lytaxin was mentioned in Agent of Change when the Gyrfalks shipped out to it, but this is the first time it’s been said that it was set off by the Department in an attempt to deprive Korval of its ally Erob.

The recap also mentions that Korval has disappeared lock, stock and barrel, “ship, children, servants, and pets”; it struck me on this re-read that we’ve since had a short story about where the children went, but they didn’t have any servants or pets with them — so where did the servants and pets go?

Quiet Knives

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In which Captain Rolanni goes to Shaltren sooner than expected.

This is an important story for the Juntavas, laying the groundwork for them to be something a bit more nuanced than The Space Mafia.

The pacing of this story didn’t quite work for me the first time I read it, with all the build-up to Kore’s escape attempt/Rolanni’s rescue attempt, and then it suddenly didn’t matter because Chairman Trogar meets his fate in an unrelated Act of Turtle. (And I got the feeling that the role of the Turtles isn’t sufficiently set up for someone who hasn’t read Carpe Diem first — though I’m in no position to say for sure, since I did read Carpe Diem first.) On this re-read, I got a better feeling of how the two things aren’t entirely unrelated; for one thing, if Sambra Reallen hadn’t called the department heads to a meeting as a distraction from Rolanni’s rescue attempt, they wouldn’t have been on hand to witness the Chairman’s downfall, and Reallen wouldn’t have been there to take hold of the situation before it got out of hand.

(Incidentally, from the mentions of them in this story, the department heads seem to be functionally just such a council of elders as Chairman Trogar boasted to Edger did not exist and had no power over him.)

Also, I’m thinking now, Rolanni’s attempt to rescue Kore is a bit like like Marguerite’s attempt to rescue her husband in The Scarlet Pimpernel, in that whether she will succeed in rescuing him is not the big question of the story; the big question was already answered when she decided she had to make the attempt.

It struck me on this re-read that “Kore” is also the name of a figure in Greek mythology, but I think that’s probably just a coincidence, notwithstanding that this Kore also has what might be understood as a descent into the underworld.

Another more useful thing that struck me on this re-read is that Rolanni’s personal and professional history places her as part of whatever the modern equivalent is of the trading family network that Jethri’s family was part of back in Balance of Trade.

Something I noticed the first time and again on this re-read is that we get very little detail about Kore’s employer, the High Judge, not even a name; I suspect the authors were leaving room to fill in details if he showed up in another story later. The first time I read this story, I wondered if he might be Clarence O’Berin, but that was mainly because I wanted more stories about Clarence; what little we get about the High Judge’s personality doesn’t really fit. It’s definitely not Clarence, anyhow; “Shadow Partner” has him still holding down the position on Liad many years after the High Judge started on the career path that led to him being the High Judge.

Tomorrow: Plan B

Carpe Diem – Chapter 71

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Vandar
Kosmorn Gore

In which Cory and Miri say goodbye.

To have been able to leave their hero money behind for Hakan and Kem, Miri and Val Con must have been carrying it with them when Agent sig’Alda showed up. Which is not, on reflection, so surprising: we know already that pilots have a habit of carrying essentials with them at all times, which mercenaries probably share, and having made the decision to signal the mysterious aircraft it would have made particular sense for Val Con and Miri to start carrying anything they didn’t want to leave behind, in case they had to leave in a hurry once the pilot of the aircraft replied. It does seem like a lot of money to have been carrying around, but Val Con and Miri seem like they’d have known how to keep it hidden, and how to protect themselves from anyone who might have been of a mind to take it.

The novel ends on an oddly disquieting note, with Hakan and Kem faced with the fact that they’ve been part of something they can’t understand. They’re going to have a tricky time explaining where Cory and Meri went to everybody else. For that matter, even with the things they know that they can say only to each other, they’re going to have a hard time explaining it to themselves.

Tomorrow: “Quiet Knives”

Carpe Diem – Chapter 70

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Vandar
Kosmorn Gore

In which Miri remembers Klamath.

Miri’s story, and her expectation that it will turn Val Con against her, is one of those things that I have feelings about but not many words. I’m more comfortable talking about incidental things, like Miri mentioning in passing that very few people succeed in entirely kicking a Cloud habit, which makes the Department’s assumptions about her seem like a bit less of an unprofessional reach.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 69

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Vandar
Winterfair

In which Hakan sees a thing that he cannot have seen.

The first published description of an autodoc in action, and one of the more detailed explanations of what it is an autodoc actually does.

The autodoc’s analysis indicates that Miri caught a bit of the MemStim that felled sig’Alda, which presumably explains why she’s been reliving Klamath all the way to the ship. (Not that it needs a memory drug for a gravely injured person to be reliving a past trauma, but it might otherwise have been a bit of coincidence that she was reliving precisely that one.)

It probably says something about sig’Alda that he didn’t bother to hide the footprint trail from his ship. Even given an out-of-the-way location, it might have been better tradecraft to make it less easy for someone to stumble across if they happened to be passing. I have a nasty suspicion that he didn’t bother because he figured any local who found the ship would be done in by the security system, and as far as he was concerned that was a satisfactory state of affairs.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 68

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Vandar
Winterfair

In which Val Con meets Tyl Von sig’Alda, Clan Rugare.

Given that it’s been suggested that Cloud targets the user’s most traumatic memories, it’s interesting that its effect on Tyl Von sig’Alda seems to have been to make him forget basically everything about being an Agent of Change.

(Also interesting: that although he is confused when Val Con mentions his ship, he doesn’t hesitate when Val Con asks for his first aid kit. Presumably carrying one of those is a basic pilot thing that he was doing even before he fell into the hands of the Department.)

sig’Alda’s recollection of his occupation suggests he’s not a former Scout, unless he left the Scouts for some reason to become a pilot-for-hire. I was going to say that it seems unlikely a Scout would choose such a course, but then I remembered that we know of a Scout who did very nearly that, and choice didn’t come into it: Val Con’s own father was called home from the Scouts to serve the necessity of his Clan, and later became a courier pilot at least partly because it was the closest he could get, while still serving the necessity of his Clan, to being a Scout again. And it could also happen more directly, that a Scout might be called home to serve the Clan’s necessity by being a pilot-for-hire, if the Clan’s necessity were that all its children be supporting it with paid occupations. (I think I’ve just argued myself out of believing that we’ve learned anything definite about whether sig’Alda was a Scout.)