Jelaza Kazone
In which Val Con receives a letter from an old family friend.
Timeline sorting: The last two Surebleak chapters of Neogenesis each focus, as this chapter does, on half the delm starting the morning’s work. This one appears to fit between those two; it’s the morning after the first of them, in which Val Con receives the news from Tinsori Light. The second, in which Miri receives an unexpected visitor, appears to yet be in the future.
When the mail queue produced a letter from Lady yo’Lanna, I thought for a moment that the authors had found a way to rescue the letter that features in the non-canonical outtake story “Street Cred”. This, however, is not that letter — although it may be a follow-up to that letter, or one very like it.
There’s a small irony in Lady yo’Lanna mentioning that she can’t appeal to Daav and Aelliana because they’re dead, when we’ve just been reminded that the reports of their deaths were exaggerations.
Really? But I thought they *were* dead?
To this impatient reader, I was disappointed when I realized we were picking up the plot with a dozen or more chapters from BEFORE the big event at the end of Neogenesis. For all these opening chapters I kept wondering “but what about the clutch??” Not convinced anything had to happen before clutch ship landed. An attempts
@Skip: Did something eat the rest of your post? Or were your last two words leftovers that tagged along inadvertently?
I forgot to post yesterday my delight in the way this chapter begins: It is so—silly?—yet perfectly accurate.
@Ed8r: it was meant to say “an attempt to build anticipation, maybe”
I liked the opening, too. Jeeves and Val Con together never disappoint:-)
I find Lady yo’Lanas letter – and Val Cons thoughts about it very interesting.
1st. Lady yo’Lanas age: Is she about Chis age? Or a bit older? Let’s assume her age similar to Chi. Than this would give us about 109 or 110 years. Since that is Liaden years that’ll be about 115 of our years.
I always assumed that Liadens have extended human life span. This might not be so. In our world persons of this age are not unknown, but I don’t believe them to be fit enough to move their household to a new country or – as Lady yo’Lana does – to a new planet.
So let’s see – what are the differences to our days? To us reaching the age of 115 years is an extreme exception. I suspect it is a bit more common on Liad – but still a situation where most of ones contemporaries have died. The main difference is the state of health and willingness to take action that accompany Lady yo’Lana. This is also supported by +80 year old Lady Kareen, who believes her age no hindrance for scientific studies in a new subfield or taking shooting lessons.
2nd. Lady yo’Lana speaks of arriving in approximately two month, Standard. Here she refers to a Terran time measurement, not the Liaden ½ reluma. This is in itself a hint of her having studied the culture she will be settling in. Her bringing most of her own furniture is another. Then she mentions the planed gather within 12 days of her arrival. This is a Liaden time frame, which she uses for several reasons. She takes the sensibilities of less adapted Liadens as well as reports on Liad into account. It will also be a timeframe she is used to plan a gather in. And then she might be informed of the Surebleak plan of a mixed culture, which partakes of Terran and Liaden. I would expect her to not only having corresponded with Boss Nova but also with Lady Kareen.
And then this travel of Lady yo’Lana gives us a hint of the timeframe we are seeing in AtL.
Skip: To this impatient reader, I was disappointed when I realized we were picking up the plot with a dozen or more chapters from BEFORE the big event at the end of Neogenesis. For all these opening chapters I kept wondering “but what about the clutch??” Not convinced anything had to happen before clutch ship landed.
Sharon Lee had something to say about this in a recent post on Splinter Universe. When they first set out to write Accepting the Lance, they picked up directly from the end of Neogenesis, that being the obvious place to pick up from, and… it didn’t work. They ended up having to go back and start over from page 1, this time doing it the way it is in the finished version.
(She doesn’t go into details in that post about exactly how it failed to work; that’s been promised for future posts on Splinter Universe in coming weeks.)
One difference is Theo as well as Daav still being there when the Cluch arrive. Difficult to get rid of them later without giving them more significant interplay with the Cluch.