Monthly Archives: May 2015

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 2

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In which Rys Lin pen’Chala runs smarter, not harder.

Another new character, Field Agent Rys Lin pen’Chala. It occurs to me that not every agent of the Department would have made the choice he makes here; some of the ones we’ve seen would have arrogantly assumed their own superiority to any attempt Korval might make against them, and gone straight into what Agent pen’Chala identifies as an area of particular danger. (Indeed, his plan to lay low until a few people have been caught and the hue and cry has died down implies that he’s expecting some of his colleagues to be that arrogant.)

Otts Clark we have heard of before: he was one of the Surebleak locals discussing the changes Korval had brought, back in Chapter 9 of Ghost Ship. It was pretty heavily implied from what he said then that he was with the saboteurs, but this is the first definite confirmation, and also the first indication that he was the actual person who attacked Miri, since Ghost Ship never got around to naming that person.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 1

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In which Kezzi and Malda do not get to go out.

New novel, new set of characters; it’s not even clear until nearly the end of the chapter that we’re still on Surebleak, around the same time as the last novel. (In fact we seem to have wound back a bit from where Ghost Ship ended, if the attack on Miri is still fresh news.)

We have heard of the Bedel once before, not recently: one of the protagonists of “Eleutherios” was a member of that group, though it wasn’t clear in detail then what that meant. Doubtless, there will be more room for detail as this novel progresses.

Kezzi stands out a bit by virtue of having a dog; characters in this series are more likely to be cat people. In fact, I’m not sure Malda isn’t the first dog to actually appear.

Two Things

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At this point, as someone once said in a different context, there are two things which must without fail be said.

First, that the depiction of the Bedel in Necessity’s Child is based on gypsy stereotypes. (This is pretty obvious even had the authors not said so in interviews.)

Second, that I am not comfortable about this, and wish it were not so.

I’m still going to cover Necessity’s Child for the project, because doing the whole series means doing the whole series, but I wouldn’t have felt right to go into it without saying that up front.

Prodigal Son

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In which Scout Commander yos’Phelium returns to the scene of the crime.

I haven’t read this story since a while before the first time I read Ghost Ship, and there’s quite a bit more to it than I remembered. I remembered the mirrored scenes with Miri at the beginning and end, and I remembered everything that happened at the Explorers Club, but the entire middle section I’d completely forgotten about. It’s a much better story with the middle in.

(I recognised the bits with Nelirikk that were included in Ghost Ship, of course, because I’ve just finished reading that, but I remember thinking both times I read Ghost Ship that those must have been new additions to the course of events.)

Speaking of the mirrored sections at the beginning and end, I noticed on this re-read that the opening scene is also reflected in the middle, with Hakan and Kem taking the places of Val Con and Miri, and the place of the rocking chair being taken by a different rocking chair.

Ghost Ship – Epilogue

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Pod 78
Moonstruck

…even this, in its own way.

Given that it’s already something of an effort for Theo to convince herself that things are going well with Win Ton, it’s probably just as well she’s not aware her father is likewise going to be spending the indefinite future in a heavy-duty medical unit.

There was apparently some controversy about this ending when the book first came out, but for myself I think it’s a reasonable cliffhanger, though I’d probably have thought differently if I hadn’t already known there would be another book coming along to pick up the loose threads. I’d also have been less well-disposed if there hadn’t been this epilogue – not that I’d have believed for a moment that Daav was really dead, but I’d have been annoyed if the authors had made us wait for the next book before they admitted it.

And of course the Uncle, being right there and, as we’ve been reminded recently, in possession of certain methods of cheating death, is the obvious explanation for why Daav isn’t out of the game just yet. Though I realised more on this reading that it’s not nearly so obvious from the Uncle’s point of view – after all, he’s notoriously self-centred and Daav yos’Phelium isn’t anything like a friend or an ally – and that the authors have done quite a bit of work in this chapter and the last few the Uncle has been in to put him in a position where he wants to help Daav.

The cliffhanger will remain hanging for a while longer, however, as tomorrow is “Prodigal Son”, filling in the details of what Val Con’s been doing lately, and after that Necessity’s Child.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 43

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which everything is going well…

Nearly the end of the book, so time to check in on everyone.

Things are going well for Val Con and Miri, with several items of unfinished business satisfactorily resolved.

And for Theo and Bechimo and Win Ton, though it’s soon yet to be sure exactly where things are going.

And for Daav – well, that’s the question, isn’t it? But even the first time I read this, I was confident we’d be getting an answer, and that it wouldn’t be the answer Daav was anticipating when last we saw him.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 42

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Pod 78
Moonstruck

In which Pod 78 draws blood.

I don’t think I’ve observed before, and given the events of this chapter there’s not going to be another chance, that Daav flies Ride the Luck from the co-pilot’s chair. There’s probably more to that than simple force of habit.

There have been a number of moments over the past few books when Daav has felt Aelliana’s presence and forced himself not to look because he knows he won’t see her, and they pay off in the moment at the end of this chapter. Which is a neat trick, really, considering that when the authors started including those moments they had no idea this scene was in their future.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 41

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Starrigger’s Cafe
Mayflowerport

In which Daav consults an expert.

The Uncle doesn’t come right out and say it, of course, but that does appear to be an admission that he deliberately put Theo in harm’s way so that Bechimo would be obliged to come and rescue her.

His reminiscence about meeting Theonna yos’Phelium confirms the hints about him having survived in a series of bodies. It also suggests that each individual body has a longer than usual lifespan, since the body in which he met her was older than hers and yet lasted “long years” after she died. (On the other hand, maybe that says something instead about the lifespan of a delm of Korval.)

The mention that Theonna had “known his relationship to the shipyards of the independents” might be taken as another hint toward Bechimo‘s origins being tied into some of the background details of Trade Secret (Theonna would have been alive during the events of Trade Secret, if not yet delm), but we still have that definite statement at the beginning of this novel that Bechimo has been waiting far longer than that.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 40

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which various preparations are made.

And while Val Con is off dealing with his metaphorical bombshell, Miri is stuck with another one – which is going to become rather less metaphorical if it’s not dealt with promptly.

This is one of Korval’s weak points at the moment: there aren’t very many members of the clan, all things considered, and there is such a lot to do. And if it should happen that something comes up when everybody who could do it is already elsewhere, there’s going to be serious trouble. (Come to think of it, this situation was somewhat foreshadowed earlier, with the difficulty they had lining up a suitable group to go and retrieve the children from their hiding place.) Now I’m maybe a bit surprised that the Department hasn’t tried to do anything with that, but then again maybe they don’t have any good ideas about what trouble they could cause that would require a specific clanmember to deal with; they only stumbled on this one by accident.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 39

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which there is good news and bad news.

Win Ton also knows who Clarence was, which is perhaps not surprising, since Win Ton is a Scout and the Scouts might be expected to have known who was doing what in their home port. What might be surprising is that, knowing who Clarence was, he’s so quick to trust him; part of that is probably that Theo trusts him, but it might also speak to a detailed knowledge of Clarence’s past: merely knowing Clarence’s old job description would probably be a count against him, but there have been better people and worse people to hold that job, and someone familiar with Clarence’s track record would know which side of the scale he was on.

Meanwhile, back on Surebleak, that quiet haven Theo was thinking fondly of while her crew were trying not to get blown up, Val Con has a metaphorical bombshell of his own to deal with…