Six of Us
Jenarian Station
In which Claidyne and Rys are brought up to speed.
We’ve encountered Lucks and Rememberers before, but I think this is the first mention of Finders and of Hearth-Warmers.
Chernak and Stost were wondering, just a few chapters ago, if there’s ever any need in this universe for defences against mind control!
It looks like I was right when I said that what had happened to the Department’s Healers tied in to the events at the end of Alliance of Equals.
I’m… not sure how I feel about this development. There’s something unsatisfying about a large proportion of the Department’s strength having been dealt with off-screen, even if it was as a consequence of the actions of a protagonist. Partly it’s the timing, I think: at this point in the story the difficulty should be ramping up toward a climax, not checking off things that have already been sorted out.
The bit about Rys being linked to the Bedel in a manner similar to a Healer and a patient is interesting. Presumably the entire kompani is similarly linked. I wonder if that will cause any discomfort when the kompani splits up.
Paul: this is the first mention of Finders and of Hearth-Warmers
Yes, it seemed the authors had decided to add a few ideas to the list of “Younger siblings” of Rool and his Lady. However, the Gambler’s list in Crystal Dragon did include Finders: “healers, true-dreamers, seers, finders, hunch-makers, green-thumbs, teachers.” But I do wonder what a “Hearth Warmer” could be? And what about the title “Rememberer” . . . I thought that was Nova’s talent, that she is a Rememberer?
Also, I agree about this major part of the struggle against the DOI being offstage. It almost feels like a cheat, a giant deus ex machina. Very unsatisfying—after how many books and stories of build-up? I suppose we could hope that there will eventually be either a short story to fill in the gap, or that it will appear as part of Trader’s Leap since it was originally Shan and Padi’s thread. Meanwhile, the authors have a very different climax or two in mind for this book.
It didn’t exactly happen off-screen though. It was on-screen but several books ago. I hadn’t worked out that Shan cutting all those threads leading to the Dramliza in Alliance of Equals would have a direct effect on the Department, in addition to whatever balance she took, but I feel that I could have done.
While the end of the Department that we got – it was defeated roughly simultaneously in several different ways – wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting, it worked for me. And it made sense given the multiple attacks on it, and the increasing desperation we’d been seeing from the Commander, as the scouts kept taking more and more vital chunks, and she kept attacking and not rebuilding.
I know that it’s a result of Shan cutting the threads; that’s what I meant about “as a consequence of the actions of a protagonist”. But those consequences do play out off-screen: we don’t get to see Tarona Rusk returning to the Department, or any of the Healers acting to secure their portions of the Department, or Hosilee — apparently at the cost of her own life — screening the actions of the Healers from the Commander.
What we get on-screen is the protagonists we’ve been following rolling up prepared for a fight and getting the Department handed to them on a plate.
I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense, but I am saying that I personally found it unsatisfying.
(Have we been seeing increasing desperation from the Commander? The prologue of this novel is the first time I remember it mentioning her being desperate. Unless you count “Shout of Honor” — and if you recall, when I first read “Shout of Honor” I ended up convinced that it couldn’t be the Department’s work precisely because we hadn’t seen anything to indicate previously that the Deparment had reached that level of desperation.)
Ed8r: I thought that was Nova’s talent, that she is a Rememberer?
Yes, that’s Nova’s talent. There are a few references through the series of there being other Rememberers around; for instance in Carpe Diem it’s said that “never in the memory of the longest Rememberer” has a particular thing ever happened.
Paul, you strike a cord. This is how I felt, too:
What we get on-screen is the protagonists we’ve been following rolling up prepared for a fight and getting the Department handed to them on a plate.
I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense, but I am saying that I personally found it unsatisfying.