Tag Archives: Alara chel’Voyon

Accepting the Lance – Chapter 88

On the Road

In which Emissary Twelve appreciates flowers.

Even while Boss Surebleak stirs up trouble, life goes on. Somebody said, earlier in the book: that’s the only way to do it. You have to keeping planning for life After.
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Accepting the Lance – Chapter 41

Jelaza Kazone

In which Chernak and Stost go to rejoin their captain.

That appears to settle, fairly definitely, the question of where Chernak and Stost would serve if they had their preference.

I notice that Val Con refers to Theo as “your captain” near the end, suggesting that Diglon told him what Chernak said, or perhaps Jeeves did. I wonder if anybody plans to tell Theo, or if they’re going to let her figure it out for herself.

Accepting the Lance – Chapter 36

Jelaza Kazone

In which the house is quiet.

A little demonstration of melant’i in Val Con’s conversation with the Healers: the person enquiring after the health of Anthora and Ren Zel is Lord yos’Phelium, their thodelm, but the person who would like to hear from Anthora when she has a moment is Val Con, her brother.

Accepting the Lance – Chapter 18

Jelaza Kazone

In which Delm Korval meets Emissary Twelve.

Way back when Edger was first introduced, there was a brief mention of the Ambassadorial Clans of the Clutch, whose members are shorter and svelter and speedier than the working clans such as Edger belongs to. It would appear that Emissary Twelve is an example.
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Dragon in Exile – Epilogue

In which the Road Boss comes home.

I spent the entire epilogue waiting for Theo to show up, or Daav and Aelliana, or all of them together, but it didn’t happen. Perhaps Daav’s homecoming, like the downfall of the Department, is a large enough thing to require the length of an entire book to tell it.

Maybe Daav and Aelliana are even home already and the narrator’s just not mentioning it, to avoid being distracting. Or they may be just about to arrive; the hint of the seed pods could go either way. Theo’s definitely not back yet, judging by Miri’s reaction to the vision of her with the seedling from Spiral Dancer; Miri doesn’t know it’s a thing that’s actually happened. (It has to be a thing that’s happened, because the business with Admiral Bunter shows that this is after Dragon Ship – so it’s interesting that it’s in among a bunch of visions of things that haven’t happened yet. I wonder if the young woman in Scout leathers is who Lizzie will grow up to be.)

Another thing that’s happened is “The Rifle’s First Wife”, since there she is among Korval’s other guests. I suppose that means the events of that story have been happening alongside the events of this one (or perhaps in the gap between the last chapter and this epilogue, if it’s large enough, although I seem to recall “The Rifle’s First Wife” begins when Hazenthull is still on Surebleak and Kareen is still guesting at Jelaza Kazone).


And that’s it. Nothing left to read. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow: A few retrospective posts.

The Rifle’s First Wife

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