Tag Archives: Birin Caylon

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 25

1 Reply

In which Delm Korval goes visiting.

Zan Der pel’Kirmin and his family join the collection of impressively detailed one-off characters. From the little we get to see of them, I like them a lot.

Ran Eld is locking himself into a course that’s going to take him nowhere good; every hint he gets that he might be in serious trouble is just making him stick to it with greater determination. It doesn’t help that his mother doesn’t seem to have realised how much trouble he’s in either; another delm might have twigged, for better or for worse, that there’s more to Ran Eld’s enthusiasm for this scheme than just misguided optimism. Is Ran Eld that good at deceiving her, or does she just not want to consider that her bright-eyed boy might be mixed up in something really nasty? A bit of each, perhaps.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 22

5 Replies

In which Daav sees Aelliana home.

Another progression of similar situations across chapters: Two chapters ago, Daav and Aelliana started holding hands “that they should not lose each other” in the crowd. One chapter ago, Yolan took Sed Ric’s hand in the darkness, “to lead him, she told herself fiercely”, with the implication that that wasn’t the only reason. In this chapter, Daav and Aelliana hold hands again, “though the station was barely crowded”.

A thing that amused me when I noticed it: The glossary at the end of the book includes the Liaden word va’netra, which is translated as “stray puppy” in this chapter when Daav uses it to describe Yolan and Sed Ric. The word itself appears nowhere in the novel except only in English translation, but it’s in the glossary all the same.

The subplot of the stray puppies seems at first glance to have no connection to the main plot, but it has thematic links forward and back. Their situation as Aelliana describes it here, “without kin on Liad, with no hope of going elsewhere”, is the situation Aelliana herself might have been in now if the luck had not been with her. And the idea of a person being cast out from their clan is going to reappear later.

Daav tells Aelliana that the custom to shun the clanless and withhold all aid is only custom, “the Code, not the Council”. Even the Code may be less strict on the matter than it’s usually interpreted to be, at least based on the section of it quoted at the head of an earlier chapter. That excerpt is very clear that a person cast out from their clan must be shunned and denied aid by the members of the clan that cast them out, but is less restrictive as regards the members of other clans. Another clan may not offer the outcast the benefits of a full clan membership, but there’s nothing there about not being allowed to, for instance, lend them a few dex and help them find a job.

I’m beginning to worry about Voni. Does she never think for herself?

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 20

3 Replies

In which Aelliana is having a much better day than Ran Eld.

Ran Eld is not just personally unpleasant, he’s taking advantage of his status to embezzle money from the clan to fund his lifestyle. When he’s not funding his lifestyle by borrowing money at ruinously high rates of interest, with the result that he now owes to one creditor more money than Aelliana earns in a year. Not only is he a crook, he’s not a very smart crook. (I suppose he might not have needed to be, as long as his mother’s regard tended to shield him from the consequences his actions might otherwise have had.)

Meanwhile, Daav is introducing Aelliana to a Terran dish called ”pecha” (sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on why…) and telling her stories about his days in the Scouts. Here we get the story of the planet where he gained his earring, which sounds a lot like the planet Tol Ven yo’Endoth visited in “Sweet Waters”, though the Mun are not one of the tribes he encountered and their traditions are not exactly like the traditions of the Sanilithe.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 17

Leave a Reply

In which Ran Eld enquires into Aelliana’s progress.

Ugh. Ran Eld is a really nasty piece of work.

Aelliana is still hiding behind her hair around him, but what she’s hiding has changed.

Clonak is frequently described as “pudgy”, or other words of similar import, but we’re also told he follows a full exercise routine and his comrades have no doubt of his physical fitness. That’s a combination that, although it exists in life, is rarely found in fiction; honor to the authors for giving it some representation.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 15

Leave a Reply

In which one might expect tea to be drunk.

In the Binjali crew, Aelliana has found not only comrades but family. What Jon offers is, as Aelliana identifies, a paraphrase of what a clan is expected to offer its members according to the Code (as was quoted at the head of Chapter 4). Her description of what is asked of her in return is likewise, if memory serves, a paraphrase from the Code, and appears somewhere else in the series (though I don’t at the moment recall precisely where) explicitly identified as the duty one owes to one’s clan.

It almost goes without saying that Aelliana’s actual family is not a good model of either end of that set of duties.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 9

2 Replies

In which the nature of Scouts is a cause for discussion.

There are some remarkable instances of short-sightedness in this mealtime conversation.

One of them is Voni, buying in to the idea that a dress that was a runaway success when worn by one person will necessarily work the same magic whoever wears it. The fact that she defends it from the charge of wantonness by saying it’s a knock-off of a design created for Lady yos’Galan underscores the point for anyone who remembers that in Local Custom at least one person did describe the dress created for Anne as “entirely wanton”, while the more nuanced view was that it would have been unacceptably forward on a Liaden but got away with being charmingly daring because it was Anne wearing it.

The other is Birin Caylon, who comes in on a scene she accurately describes as “Ran Eld the insatiable cat about to eat the unfortunate mouse, portrayed by Aelliana” — and completely fails to grasp, as she apparently always has when it comes to Ran Eld and Aelliana, how serious it is.

Have I mentioned how much I like Sinit?

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 8

9 Replies

In which Vin Sin chel’Mara’s delm has news to share.

I believe this is the only time we meet Delm Aragon. He seems a smart man, and well-equipped with that ironic sense of humor all the best Liadens have. I think I like him — from a safe distance. I should be considerably more wary if I had ever to deal with him in person.

Several chapters in, the authors have finally got around to telling us Var Mon’s family: he is of Line pin’Aker in Clan Midys. Since Trade Secret was published, his friendship with Rema ven’Deelin has retroactively become a nice callback to the friendship between Jethri Gobelyn ven’Deelin and Samay pin’Aker.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 5

4 Replies

In which Daav and Aelliana each get something to eat and gain some measure of comfort.

Daav’s little self-analysis session is interesting. It speaks well of him that he is able to be honest with himself about his failings and potential failings and about what may be necessary to address them.

It places him in contrast to Ran Eld Caylon, who is driven by jealousy of his power and position within the clan. Daav, as this scene shows, is also strongly beset by jealousy, but he doesn’t let it poison his relationships or steer him into dishonor.

That scene is also interesting in the light of what “Dragon Tide” says about how, back in the day, the Tree’s ancestors would each have a special branch where the dragons would sleep to commune with the tree. I wonder how much influence Tree had on Daav and Er Thom’s choice of location for their sanctuary platform?

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 3

1 Reply

In which Aelliana leaves.

Aelliana-the-teacher, confident in her handling of her students, is an interesting contrast to Aelliana the rest of the time.

In the course of the lesson, we get the most detailed description of piloting math I can recall before Trade Secret was published, including our first mention of the ven’Tura Tables.

It’s an interesting detail that it’s possible to go from Liad to Terra in a single Jump, if one should want to. I wonder how often anybody ever does.

(The second part of the chapter, in which Aelliana has that fateful conversation with Ran Eld, is one of those parts of the series which I appreciate a great deal but not in a way that leads to putting many words together.)

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 1

3 Replies

In which we are introduced to the persons of Clan Mizel.

New novel, and a new set of characters. This first chapter does a good job of establishing them not only as individuals, but also in relation to each other.

It also does the duty of bringing a reader new to Liad up to speed on some of the key cultural features, by way of Sinit addressing those differences from the other end.

(Sinit Caylon has been one of my favourite characters in the whole series ever since I first read this chapter. She reminds me a lot of me when I was that age.)