Tag Archives: business of the clan

Accepting the Lance – Chapter 32

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Surebleak Port
Portmaster’s Office

In which Team Leader Kasveini has her limits.

The idea that social change on Surebleak works from the bottom up, by improving the lives of the people at the bottom of the heap, was a major theme of Dragon in Exile. Part of it was that, as seen again in the Road Boss’s meeting here, it’s harder for the Old Ways to come back if everyone knows they’re better off under the new ways.

Dragon in Exile also saw the origin of Kareen and Kamele’s project collating the historical documents of Surebleak.

Accepting the Lance – Chapter 20

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Surebleak Port
Office of the Road Boss

In which Delm Korval has visitors.

Well, there’s an answer to my question about how things would have gone if Emissary Twelve had done this on Liad, anyway.
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Dragon Ship – Epilogue

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Kamele has a matter for the Delm of Korval.

The first meeting between Kamele and the Delm of Korval went rather better than I was expecting, the first time I read this; I particularly admire Val Con’s feat in navigating around the issue of Theo’s father’s name. However, it’s only a temporary measure; I can’t see them getting away with leaving him unnamed all the way until he returns to explain himself. (And likewise, the several complications involved in the situation of “Father’s first alliance”.)

To be fair to him, I don’t think he intends to hide the truth from Kamele; it is only that he’s being selective and giving her first the bits she needs to hear, while leaving the more confusing and worrying details for a moment when they might be explained clearly and received calmly.

And here, in a sense, the Liaden re-read comes to an end, since there’s nothing left to re-read. There are, however, several new things to read that have come out since I began this, and those will carry me through into October. Specifically, it’s the short story “Chimera” tomorrow, and the very-much-not-short Dragon in Exile after that.

Saltation – Chapter 42 & I Dare – Chapter 58

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Day 201
Standard Year 1393
Solcintra
Liad

In which Theo brings her business to the Delm of Korval.

The fact that it’s Clonak on the gate leads me to wonder whether he recognised a family resemblance in Theo, and that formed part of his decision to let her in. He did, after all, know her father well and for many years.

Speaking of family resemblances, Theo’s first words on being reunited with her father are exactly the same as Val Con’s.

There’s apparently been some disagreement among readers about the way I Dare ends, so for the record I personally found it a perfect and delightful note on which to end the Agent of Change series, and would have thought myself entirely satisfied if that had been the last we ever heard of Liadens. (Though I am, of course, glad now that it wasn’t.) To me, it didn’t come across as a loose end, but as a reminder that even with the Department defeated, the wide universe still contains new discoveries and new adventures, and the children of Korval are not the kind to live quietly ever after.

Tomorrow: New adventure.

I Dare – Chapter 56

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Day 56
Standard Year 1393

Solcintra
Liad

In which Pat Rin faces the judgment of his delm.

I’m not sure what to make of the bit about Val Con looking enough like Pat Rin to be “a younger edition of himself”. That seems too specific to be just family resemblance, particularly since Cheever’s met enough of Pat Rin’s relatives to have some range on the family resemblance already, although those were second cousins, and Val Con is a first cousin. A side effect of Line yos’Phelium gene-selecting for delm traits, maybe? Val Con was bred to be delm, and Pat Rin is descended from those bred to be delms even if he wasn’t himself (and he might have been, despite his mother, if the old delm had hope of getting the bloodline back on track). Or maybe the resemblance is not only genetic but also increased by a similarity of expression or attitude arising from a similarity of melant’i: Val Con, the delm of Korval, and Pat Rin, who might have been delm of Korval and has certainly been the something-very-like-a-delm of Surebleak. Anyway, it explains why people are going to mistake them for brothers when they start being seen in the same places.

After all the worry Pat Rin spent on showing up in front of the delm wearing a pilot jacket he doesn’t feel entitled to, Val Con doesn’t give it a second look until Pat Rin draws attention to it. Apparently, he doesn’t find anything implausible in the idea of Pat Rin having qualified as a pilot since they last met.