The Grand Progress
Surebleak
In which Delm Korval is given more welcomes, in a variety of styles.
I’m not sure what to make of this: we’ve had at least two people remark on how much Val Con resembles Pat Rin, and at least one say she doesn’t think the resemblance is all that marked. Different people looking for different things? Or perhaps it’s a question of expectation; with so few data points it’s difficult to be sure, but the degree of perceived resemblance might vary depending on whether a person has been told beforehand to expect it.
I like the idea that the Tree’s response to being moved is to be pleasurably reminded of its younger days when it travelled regularly. I wonder if it ever got bored just standing around for years on end. Perhaps it helped that it had people around it who went and travelled, to some degree, on its behalf.
There’s a fair amount of leeway in the question of just how young the young Mr pel’Kana actually is, since the last we heard of the old Mr pel’Kana was nearly twenty years ago.
I liked the scene where Tree was so excited about his flight with Edger.
I have been wondering if the authors have something in mind for Tree, rooted in that timonium quarry. Surely that wasn’t just coincidental. I really have no idea what timonium is, or how precisely the Sheriekas used it. I don’t ever remember reading WHY timonium (a rock) is so powerful.
But maybe Tree absorbs something through its roots. Timonium could perhaps boost Tree’s natural abilities (clairvoyance, biochemistry) and/or generate new abilities.
It does seem likely that all that timonium is going to become relevant at some point, one way or another.
There is some detail in the Crystal books about what precisely timonium is and how it’s used, but it’s the kind of technical detail one gets in science fiction sometimes where it’s not necessary to remember the actual details, just that this is an element unknown to modern science and therefore capable of anything the authors need it to do.
Yeah, that might be why I don’t remember the details about it. And that’s fine — happens all the time in fantasy-sci-fi, as long as I haven’t missed or forgotten anything important.
But it’s so intriguing. The possibilities.
I will certainly be curious to see what the authors do with the timonium beneath Jelaza Kazone.