Tag Archives: Bylee’s Beat

Carpe Diem – Chapter 39

Vandar
Hellin’s Surcease

In which Val Con is not the only one who can sense danger and come to the rescue.

It’s not just the Loop, then, or if it is, it’s using Val Con’s own insecurities against him. The mission he let the genie out of the bottle for is to ensure Miri’s safety, and on some level he still believes that she’ll never be safe as long as she’s around him. Though Miri’s working on that, and has made significant progress by the end of the chapter.

Val Con’s hope that Miri would not be able to hear him the way he hears her is, it seems, to be disappointed, except in the narrow sense that she, being more visually-oriented, doesn’t hear music but sees a pattern. Which may be why he missed it when she alluded to the fact; he doesn’t have the right metaphor in place to immediately catch what she was talking about. Or it may well just have been that he had other things on his mind at that precise moment.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 27

Vandar
Springbreeze Farm

In which Val Con paints portraits in piano music.

Miri is right: Val Con is trying to hide parts of himself from her. We have that not only in this chapter, when he declines to attempt more than the most cursory musical sketch of himself, but in the previous chapter, when his joy at being able to hear her life-song was mixed with hope that she would not be able to hear his. Given the life he was leading before he met Miri, it’s understandable that he might be reluctant to expose her to the details, but it strikes me that lack of communication is not wise in a long-term committed relationship. Even if he doesn’t want to reveal details, it might help to be honest about the fact that he is keeping something hidden, and about why. It may even be that, having been acquainted with the problem, Miri may be able to help him with it, the way he helped her when she was afraid of how he might react to knowing the real her. It’s a thing partners and lifemates do.

When I first read the Liaden novels, I had to stop in the middle of this chapter for several weeks, because my copy of Partners in Necessity had a binding error and contained a repeat of pages 609-656 where pages 657-704 should have been. (When I reported the error to Meisha Merlin, they very kindly sent me a new copy without charge, for which I’m still grateful.) If you happen to know of anyone who owns the copy with the inverse problem, get in touch — maybe we’ll be able to find an eccentric collector who’ll buy the pair of them as a matched set…