Tag Archives: Audrey Breckstone

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 32

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In which Kezzi’s mother meets Kezzi’s grandmother.

And now I’m thinking I may have been over-hasty in concluding that my younger self was wrong about which ship Kezzi was interested in; Silain’s reaction suggests that she, at least, is thinking of the Bedel ship. Of course, since Kezzi never actually said anything specific to identify the ship, everybody in the story as well as out is left to make their own conclusions. Perhaps Kezzi was thinking about the Bedel ship, but the Bedel subsequently put their heads together and find a less hazardous ship to be interested in.

It is interesting that the woman who is no friend of Rys was already settled in the bakery before the Bedel arrived: that suggests that she wasn’t merely following them hoping for a chance to speak to Udari, but somehow knew they would be there at that time. (I’m inclined to consider it unlikely that she just happened to be stopping for a bite to eat at that particular moment.) I’m also inclined to consider it unlikely that she has a source of information among the Bedel, or that she learned anything from Nova or from Mike Golden. Recalling who else knew about the meeting in time to be settled beforehand, I could believe that she has some way of finding out what the Patrol is up to, and learned of the meeting courtesy of Mike’s request for backup, but as far as I recall Mike didn’t tell the Patrol who the meeting would be with.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 29

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In which it is sometimes necessary to attend to one repair at a time.

The two plot strands in this chapter are connected by the issue of rushing things: Udari, inspired by having something to work with, attempts to rush Rys’s recovery, with no good result; Pat Rin finds that circumstances are forcing them to rush the opening of the new consolidated school.

(If it can be said that the opening is rushed when the school building is so far behind schedule, thanks to the people Rys used to work for. And that reminds me that one of those people is still on the loose, so the fact that there has been no further sabotage on the school might just mean that they’re having another go at lulling the Dragon into a false sense of security.)

Ghost Ship – Chapter 36

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Emerald Casino
Surebleak Port
Surebleak

In which Theo lifts.

One wonders what the Uncle knows about Clarence O’Berin, and whether his approval is a good or a bad sign.

The Uncle’s appearance has changed a bit since Theo saw him last. One change that’s pointed out is that his beard has grown (when she first met him, he had only “a sketch of a beard”); in addition to that, the earring he’s now wearing is interesting because last time it was mentioned that he didn’t have an earring but had a tendency to fiddle with the side of his head as if he was used to have one and was missing it. Given the rumours about the Uncle, one might wonder if Theo had caught him when he’d recently had to shift to a new body — and if so, what he’d been up to that cost him the old one.

He’s also packing away the wine in a hurry, but who can say if that’s significant?

Ghost Ship – Chapter 34

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which the party becomes unexpectedly exciting.

More unnamed party guests. I’m particularly interested in the “buxom, jolly lady whose face was older than her hair”, because that amount of description implies that we’re expected to recognise her, but it’s not ringing any bells.

The idea that Theo’s ability to see pilots is her touch of Korval strangeness has been sneaking up gradually since it started in Fledgling. The early examples were often of her identifying pilots in motion, where it was plausible it was just a case of recognising something about how they moved. It’s developed gradually from there, to the point where in this novel she’s capable of not only identifying a pilot on sight but instantly assessing what grade they have attained or could attain, and now the definitely non-straightforward example of identifying a pilot who hasn’t even been born yet. Another thing that camouflaged the nature of the gift, which Theo alludes to, is that it came on her when she was seeing pilots for the first time after living her entire life on a planet with no pilots that she knew of, so it would make sense that she’d be alert to the differences. But another way of looking at that, which I think Daav alludes to, is that it was the period of her life when her half-formed instincts were shaking out and getting into adult shape, the period where one might expect a psychic gift to manifest. (Though without the trip to Melchiza she’d perhaps have been restricted to noticing that certain people were different in some way without being able to name the difference, just as I suspect she wouldn’t have been able to distinguish grades of pilot now without her education at Anlingdin.)

Ghost Ship – Chapter 32

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which the housewarming party begins.

I recognise from their descriptions some of the party guests whose names Theo doesn’t know – the man with the eyeglasses is certainly Penn Kalhoon, and I’m reasonably confident that the lady in the crimson jacket is Ms Audrey – but I’m not sure about the man in the lab coat talking to Shan. Of course, it may well be someone we haven’t been introduced to yet ourselves.

More foreshadowing is coming together: We’ve had several interludes remarking on the campaign to sabotage the road repairs and school building, with one last chapter establishing that the policy of sabotaging machinery but leaving people unharmed – in spite, as we were reminded, of Surebleak’s usual more direct response to disliked persons – was deliberate and insisted on by the campaign’s mastermind (who was not named, but in context and given the reported attitude is very likely an agent of the Department). And now we see that Val Con and Miri are perhaps letting their guard down a bit on the assumption that people who have made a policy of not hurting anybody will continue to do so – which is, I suspect, the intended effect of the policy. It is not only Korval who does things in layers.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 8

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The Grand Progress
Surebleak

In which Delm Korval is given more welcomes, in a variety of styles.

I’m not sure what to make of this: we’ve had at least two people remark on how much Val Con resembles Pat Rin, and at least one say she doesn’t think the resemblance is all that marked. Different people looking for different things? Or perhaps it’s a question of expectation; with so few data points it’s difficult to be sure, but the degree of perceived resemblance might vary depending on whether a person has been told beforehand to expect it.

I like the idea that the Tree’s response to being moved is to be pleasurably reminded of its younger days when it travelled regularly. I wonder if it ever got bored just standing around for years on end. Perhaps it helped that it had people around it who went and travelled, to some degree, on its behalf.

There’s a fair amount of leeway in the question of just how young the young Mr pel’Kana actually is, since the last we heard of the old Mr pel’Kana was nearly twenty years ago.

Moon on the Hills

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Surebleak

In which Korval acquires a new neighbour.

It’s an evocative name, “World’s End”. There’s the obvious sense in which the place is named, referring to a physical boundary, a place where the world comes to an end, but there are other things it could mean, such as a temporal boundary, a time when a world comes to an end. Sometimes a person’s world can come to an end even though the planet continues untouched. Yulie’s world might have ended when he lost the last of his kin. It might have ended today, if Boss Conrad had been someone other than the person he is.

(And isn’t it interesting how, when he’s talking to Yulie, he’s mostly Pat Rin but sometimes he’s Boss Conrad for a moment or two?)

It’s also interesting to speculate how things might have gone differently if Yulie’s brother hadn’t got himself killed before Boss Conrad showed up, and had been the one handling the negotiation for road access.

I Dare – Chapter 36

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Day 376
Standard Year 1392

Blair Road
Surebleak

In which Boss Conrad throws a party.

And that brings us up to the end of Pat Rin’s 1392. If you don’t keep track of these things, that means he’s just about caught up with the end of Carpe Diem.

Which is interesting, because it’s been nearly three months since Pat Rin got the Plan B scatter order that kicked all this off, an event which is shown occurring – anyone? – that’s right, very near the end of Carpe Diem.

Now, that’s not a problem in itself, because I’d already figured out that the not-on-Vandar scenes in Carpe Diem aren’t necessarily in sync with the Vandar scenes – witness the entire journey of the Dutiful Passage from Arsdred to Krisko, sandwiched between two Vandar scenes that occur on a single day – but I do tend to wonder about some of the corollaries. If it was really three whole months from the Plan B scatter to when Korval started coming together again, what were people doing for all that time? Where did Nova go for three months before showing up on Liz’s doorstep? What were the crew of the Passage up to? (Apart from refitting the Passage as a battleship, which, to be fair, I have no idea how long that would be likely to take.)

And, what really bothers me, what were Val Con and Miri up to for those three months? Everything after the scene where Priscilla gets the info from Miri that leads to Nova activating Plan B is set during the week of Winterfair, right at the end of the year, so if Plan B was activated three months before the end of the year, that means Miri and Val Con had a very active first month on Vandar and a very active last few days, and in between was two or three months of nothing much happening. Which doesn’t feel right, somehow – not that it’s necessarily unlikely for a group of people in a remote town on a remote planet to have a quiet couple of months, but when I read Carpe Diem the gap doesn’t seem that long, and the active period preceding it feels like more than one month.

I Dare – Chapter 26

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Day 345
Standard Year 1392

Jolie’s House of Joy
Surebleak

In which Pat Rin and Natesa pass the eve of an enterprise of surpassing danger.

I am convinced that the ambiguous moment in which Natesa shows up naked in Pat Rin’s bedroom is the primary reason for which the detail of “naked” being Surebleak slang for “unarmed” exists.

Not that it’s without layers of its own; the implications of the analogy say a lot about the conditions of life on Surebleak.

I Dare – Chapter 23

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Day 310
Standard Year 1392

Blair Road
Surebleak

In which they’re fighting in the street with their children at their feet.

It’s an occupational hazard of people who read adventure stories, daydreaming about being in the story working alongside the heroes, but when I daydream about being in the Liaden Universe I always have to include some element of being swept up involuntarily, because otherwise my plan would be to hide under the nearest rock until it’s all over: the Department of the Interior scares me, and if I’m honest I have to admit that the heroes all know how to look after themselves and I really don’t have any relevant skills and there’s more ways for me to make things worse than to make things better. But there are a couple of places in the series that always tempt me to consider coming out from under the rock, in defense of innocent bystanders who can’t fend for themselves, and Jonni is one of those. (And then I start thinking about my odds of surviving on Surebleak long enough to achieve anything useful, and the rock starts looking good again.)

In the last scene, told from Natesa’s viewpoint, the ring Pat Rin wears is described as Korval’s Ring, which reminds me that on the day he obtained it he told Cheever it was a fake but only showed it to Natesa and allowed her to draw her own conclusions. It appears he has not subsequently found it necessary to correct any false impression she may have gained thereby.