Jump
In which Theo seeks a relief of tension.
This is one of those chapters where I’d probably have something to say if I were reading it for the first time, but because I’m re-reading I’m just nodding along going “Yes, I remember that bit” and nothing’s jumping out at me as remarkable.
I do kind of wonder if Hevelin’s intense interest in Theo’s mental picture of Daav was all on Daav’s account, or if some of it was due to her including the Tree in the picture.
In Surebleak Transit Orbit, Outgoing
In which Win Ton yo’Vala has one last chance.
More evidence, if I needed it by this point, that I was wrong-headed when, in the early days of this re-read, I considered reading prologues like this chronologically (which would be near the end of Ghost Ship in this case) instead of with the rest of the novel. A prologue like this exists to remind the reader what’s been going on when they come back to the story after being a while away, which is precisely the function this one is performing now.
Mention is made by the Uncle of “my chief technologist”. The context doesn’t attach the description to a particular person, but if I had to guess I’d say that was probably Dulsey.
In which Diglon Rifle does what he may to help a teammate.
Poker was one of the first new things Diglon was taught after he came under the dragon’s wing, and he showed an immediate aptitude for it, so it’s good to see he’s continuing to develop it. In general, it’s pleasing to see that Diglon is thriving in his new environment – and a bit worrying that Hazenthull apparently isn’t, even now.
I say “even now” because the internal evidence suggests that it’s been over a year since the two of them came to stand with Korval: baby Lizzie, who was not yet born then, has progressed to standing up under her own power.
Lizzie’s development also means that although it’s early spring – “winter having been gone some weeks now” – it’s the spring after the one in which Lizzie was born, and so doesn’t tell us anything useful about that contested spring I’ve been worried about lately.
(It also means that I’ve scheduled this story too early, which is an acknowledged hazard of scheduling a story without reading it first. The actual position would be some time after Dragon Ship – and possibly one or two more novels as well, but since I haven’t read those yet either I’m not going to attempt a definite pronouncement.)
It’s nice that Alara has found a chance to make an alliance with somebody whose company she enjoys and who she has an attraction to, but I do wonder how she’s planning to explain her choice to her delm. It’s all very well saying that Diglon isn’t an Yxtrang any more, but is she going to be able to get away with not mentioning that he was? The delm did specify a “long lineage” as one of the criteria to look for, which means he’s going to want to know about Diglon’s antecedents.
One thing that might help is that, Clan Silari having made the decision to leave Liad, Alara and her clan are themselves, in a sense, no longer what they were either.
Incidentally, I notice that Diam, one of the two people who entertained Diglon on his evening off, is another of those for whom the authors have chosen not to constrain the reader’s imagination by specifying pronouns.
Next: Dragon Ship
History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado
In which Kamele explains her reasoning.
…and, just to keep the tension going, the progress of the party is interrupted with a chapter set somewhere completely different.
There’s a thing the authors of this series do that I’ve been noticing and appreciating on this re-read, where the reappearance of a character is preceded, a chapter or two earlier, by somebody mentioning that character, to remind the reader of the character’s existence. In this case, we have the return of Ella ben Suzan, whom Theo happened to mention last chapter.
(That mention might have been confusing for a first time reader, since Theo referred to her as “Aunt Ella”, after having told Kareen in a yet earlier chapter that she had no aunts on Delgado… except that she also, in that same chapter, remarked on the fact that sometimes people get called things like “Aunt” or “Grandfather” by people they’re not technically any such relation to. That’s craftsmanship, that is.)
Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado
In which Kamele starts asking questions.
It’s difficult to talk about a chapter that’s all “where might this lead” when it’s a re-read and one already knows where it’s leading.
One thing that’s already apparent, though, is that Daav might be right in thinking Kamele is best left out of Korval’s tangle, but he’s underestimating her if he thinks she’ll just meekly stay where she was left when she knows there’s something she’s being left out of.
Volmer
Underport
In which Theo gets a better offer.
Though he mentions it casually, the Uncle’s account of Theo’s forefathers is a reminder that he Knows Things. Given Delgado’s emphasis on the maternal line, there aren’t many people who even know that Jen Sar Kiladi is Theo’s father, and the number of people who have accurate knowledge of Jen Sar’s ancestors is smaller yet. It raises questions about how the Uncle found out, and how long he’s known, and for that matter what led him to think it was a thing worth finding out about.
The ship Theo’s being offered, which possesses “both monetary and sentimental value”, is called Arin’s Toss, and was “built on an old Terran commissioner’s ship plan”. One recalls that Jethri’s father Arin was a Terran trade commissioner, and suspects a depth of history that’s not being elaborated on.
And the Uncle has a fractin in his money pouch. It’s been a while since we’ve seen one of those, long enough that it took me a couple of times reading those paragraphs to recognise what it was.
Primadonna
Out from Alanzia
In which Mayko Ikari explains her presence.
So, now we have some idea of when this is in relation to the rest of what’s going on: it’s after the Yxtrang invasion of Lytaxin was defeated. The question now: how much after? Not a great deal, perhaps, if the effects are only just becoming apparent — and Mayko’s remark that nobody is quite sure what Korval is up to suggests that it’s before Korval’s very public standoff with the Department.
It’s interesting, getting a bit of a look at how all that stuff appears from the outside; a reminder that the universe is wide enough to contain people to whom all that life-and-death struggle is a distant event that carries opportunity in its wake.
Diverse Cultures Celebration Team
Anlingdin Piloting Academy
In which Theo meets friends new and old.
It hadn’t occurred to me that yos’Senchul referring to Korval and Ixin by their nicknames might be a test of Theo’s knowledge of Liaden clans — at least partly, of course, because my own knowledge of such is at least solid enough that those two nicknames are transparent to me.
I wonder if Theo would have thought to look up Line Kiladi in the Book of Clans if Kara hadn’t interrupted — and what she would have found if she had.
Win Ton’s courier ship, Torvin, built in a Korval-affiliated ship-yard, has a name with history behind it: Clan Torvin was the clan of pilots that Cantra yos’Phelium was the last survivor of before she founded Clan Korval.
The bit about Liadens and Terrans disagreeing over which side of the ship things like entrance hatches go on is just a colorful detail here, but it will be significant later.
Conglomeration of Portcalay
Eylot
In which one may have anything at Hugglelans as long as one eats it under red sauce.
Theo’s advisors probably do want to hear her answers to their questions about her future hopes, but I think she’s right that there are other questions behind the questions, and I think that by asking about her future they’re also hoping to learn more about her past. Especially after the question about whether her father aimed her anywhere in particular, I suspect they’d like to know where he’s coming from. If Wilsmyth has discovered that Jen Sar Kiladi has no current flight time, surely Theo’s advisors have done the same.
Theo’s answer brings to mind the fact that the med tech a few chapters ago was confident that the life of a courier pilot lay in Theo’s future without having to ask, and, it now appears, before Theo knew herself. It might just be that as a med tech in a piloting academy he’s seen enough courier pilots in training to recognise the signs (especially if one of the signs is “shows up in the dispensary after getting in a fight”!) but I’m inclined to take it as more evidence that he’s a soul-weaver.
Mail Room
Anlingdin Piloting Academy
In which Theo passes the time in a queue by discussing literature.
I made a series of extremely undignified noises when Theo said who the author of Sam Tim’s Ugly Day was. I’ve mentioned that one of the joys of this re-read is discovering connections that went past me before, but I have no idea how I missed that one the first time through.
The story of Sam Tim and the family joke is interesting as an example of what Lois McMaster Bujold calls the author’s right to have a better idea later. The first time Theo appeared in a Liaden novel (which, in chronological order, is still some distance in her future), she said her father had taught her that if she were ever in really serious trouble she might take the matter to Korval, with the wording strongly suggesting that he’d said so outright. When the authors came to expand on Theo’s story, it seems, they came up against the problem that if Jen Sar Kiladi had said such a thing directly he would have consequently faced the awkward question of who he was that the troubles of him and his family might be of interest to Korval, and so instead there is this series of events which conveys the lesson to Theo indirectly. (The question is not entirely unanswerable, since Jen Sar is a pilot and we know from earlier books that Korval doesn’t mind taking a hand when a pilot is in serious trouble, but we saw at the end of Fledgling that even the fact of being a pilot is more about his past than Jen Sar would like to give out.)