Delgado
Bjornson-Bellevale College of Arts and Sciences
In which Professor Kiladi suffers an interruption.
Now, this is a chapter where it really makes a difference whether you’re reading in publication order or internal chronological order. In published order, this is the professor’s first appearance, and the scene is full of enigmatic hints that only get paid off at the end of the novel, or even later, leaving us with the question of who he is and why he’s interested in Val Con. In internal chronological order, Professor Kiladi has already featured in several novels, and the same details are not so much enigmatic hints as reminders of things we already knew; we know who he is and why he’s interested in Val Con, and the question instead is what he’s going to do about it.
Tomorrow, a brief diversion from the novel to find out what he is going to do about it, in the short story “Breath’s Duty”.