Surebleak
In which Surebleak has more visitors.
A whole lotta people arriving on Surebleak in one clump, with at least one more bunch expected soon, and all of them having business with Korval. It remains to see how much more complicated things are going to get when they start (as I expect they will, sooner or later) interacting with each other as well.
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Surebleak
In which Korval goes visiting.
Kamele has a come a long way in her understanding of risk and safety since we first met her.
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In which there are many meetings.
Many meetings, and more reintroductions, and an innocent request concerning grapes that may or may not turn into something larger.
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Surebleak
In which we are reunited with various people already resident on Surebleak.
As the first chapter of the latest book of a series, this is mainly concerned with reminding the reader (or introducing them if they’re entering the series here) who everyone is and what they’ve been up to. It’s quite a long chapter, which might simply be that it’s a long series and there are a lot of characters to catch up on — but then, we don’t catch up on everybody, which suggests that these might be just the characters we need to know about to follow what’s going to happen in this novel. Which suggests there’s going to be a lot happening.
(Just how long a chapter the first chapter is depends whether the first part of the novel set on Surebleak, divided into three sections headed I, II & III, is one chapter or three. I wrote the paragraph above thinking of the whole thing as one chapter, but on reflection, I think I’m going to blog it as three chapters, if only so that the blog entries are a reasonable length.)
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In which the Road Boss comes home.
I spent the entire epilogue waiting for Theo to show up, or Daav and Aelliana, or all of them together, but it didn’t happen. Perhaps Daav’s homecoming, like the downfall of the Department, is a large enough thing to require the length of an entire book to tell it.
Maybe Daav and Aelliana are even home already and the narrator’s just not mentioning it, to avoid being distracting. Or they may be just about to arrive; the hint of the seed pods could go either way. Theo’s definitely not back yet, judging by Miri’s reaction to the vision of her with the seedling from Spiral Dancer; Miri doesn’t know it’s a thing that’s actually happened. (It has to be a thing that’s happened, because the business with Admiral Bunter shows that this is after Dragon Ship – so it’s interesting that it’s in among a bunch of visions of things that haven’t happened yet. I wonder if the young woman in Scout leathers is who Lizzie will grow up to be.)
Another thing that’s happened is “The Rifle’s First Wife”, since there she is among Korval’s other guests. I suppose that means the events of that story have been happening alongside the events of this one (or perhaps in the gap between the last chapter and this epilogue, if it’s large enough, although I seem to recall “The Rifle’s First Wife” begins when Hazenthull is still on Surebleak and Kareen is still guesting at Jelaza Kazone).
And that’s it. Nothing left to read. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow: A few retrospective posts.
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which the Tree reaches out to a visitor, and Quin decides to go for a walk.
kin’Joyt professes to be offended that Korval is (supposedly) charging money for viewing the house, instead of having a free open day like properly civilised people, but it doesn’t seem to have occurred to her to protest by, say, refusing to buy a ticket. Then again, I get the impression kin’Joyt is willing to embrace an opportunity to be offended by Korval’s behaviour.
The mode of captain-to-passenger is an interesting choice; technically, that’s no longer an option that lies within Korval’s melant’i, since the Contract that made Korval the Liadens’ captain was concluded. It efficiently announces the delm’s identity, though; everybody still remembers, and if it’s no longer within Korval’s melant’i, there is yet nobody else who can lay claim to it.
“Lefty” pen’Erit’s new name follows the existing Surebleak pattern of This Is What Your Name Sounds Like To Me, though I had to go and look his personal name up to be sure because it’s been mentioned less often than the other examples we’ve seen.
Surebleak
In which there are meetings and partings.
I’m still inclined to the idea that Tolly is the specialist Jeeves is sending with Tocohl. Conversely, this implies that Jeeves is the colleague who encouraged Tolly to settle on Surebleak, which raises the interesting question of what enterprise they might have been colleagues in.
I haven’t the faintest idea what High Judge Falish Meron (whose name is given here for the first time) might want with Val Con. Based on past performance, this probably means I haven’t been paying attention and it will be obvious as soon as it’s said.
Smealy’s meeting with Miri is sure to go badly for somebody, but I’m not confident in guessing who. Miri might send him out with his tail between his legs, the way Val Con did, but he’ll be more inclined to fight back this time, because he needs a success to show his colleagues. He might be tempted to do something foolish because Miri is small and female, in which case he’d be making a mistake in underestimating Miri – not just because she’s ex-merc and Korval, but because she grew up on Surebleak, and was pretty tough already before she was either of those other things. I suspect the Syndicate Bosses are similarly underestimating Surebleak’s population in thinking the campaign of examples will make them roll over.
Boss Conrad’s House
Blair Road
In which the Road Boss makes plans for the day.
Miri’s bruised cheek is one of those things that have extra resonance from details mentioned in other stories. Pat Rin is especially upset about it because the culture of Liad puts a big value on presenting a clean and unblemished face to the world: no dirt, no smudges, no injuries. (No concealing make-up, either.) That’s also part of why everyone made such a fuss about Val Con’s scar in Plan B, beyond its inherent unpleasantness. Val Con is less concerned about it, partly (as with his scar) because of his Scout training, and partly because, as he reminds Pat Rin, this is not Liad.
Val Con and Miri do a neat job of diverting Nelirikk’s disapproval.
I somehow suspect there’s something to the fact that Tocohl’s proportions are described entirely in terms of being similar to Theo’s. Her voice isn’t Theo’s though, if Val Con recognises it but Miri doesn’t. (I wonder if it’s modelled on Aelliana…) Perhaps Jeeves decided that if Tocohl was to be a child of Korval, she ought to bear some resemblance to her sisters and her cousins and her aunts.
Tocohl takes after her father in choosing a name from fiction that suits her intended role: Susumo Tocohl is the protagonist of Janet Kagan’s novel Hellspark; she’s a linguist, a dab hand at smoothing over the problems caused by clashing cultural assumptions, and her universe’s leading authority on the process of teaching an AI how to be a person.
(Hellspark is a long-standing favourite comfort-read of mine, and I would perhaps be more excited about this development except that the surprise was spoiled for me long ago by an acquaintance who, in addition to our shared loved of the works of Lee & Miller and of Kagan, has a taste I don’t share for reading Advance Reader Copies.)
We still haven’t been given the name of the specialist Jeeves proposes as Tocohl’s colleague, which suggests that the authors consider it something worth building up to. My only guess at this point is that it’s Tolly, if only because he’s been established as a specialist earlier in the novel. And, come to think of it, if he’s still being looked for by someone he doesn’t want to be found by, he might welcome a trip away. (…and if he’s a specialist in AI, what does that say about the person who’s looking for him?)
Surebleak Port
In which Val Con has a meeting, and Tolly avoids one.
I speculate that the crew who made an attempt on Yulie’s growing rooms are connected to the group Rys encountered near the gate of the Bedel. Nothing really solid to go on, just a sense that they were both sniffing around places that they ought not to even know about.
I don’t believe we’ve heard the name of Tan Ort before. I note that the description Val Con gives, as far as it goes, matches Herb’s description of the Liaden Tolly is anxious to avoid meeting, but I don’t think that necessarily means anything; the description doesn’t go very far and probably fits a lot of Liadens. There’ll be a fair few who are of a portly bearing, red hair isn’t entirely uncommon (look at Miri’s entire family, for a start), and it’s a rare Liaden who isn’t shorter than Val Con.
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which Jeeves brings an urgent request to the delm.
That’s what you get, Miri, for tempting fate by being thankful you didn’t have to deal with Pat Rin’s problem in fleecy robe and slippers.
(It occurs to me that there’s a conceptual connection between Jeeves’s intention to create a child and what Val Con and Miri were doing when he interrupted, although Val Con and Miri presumably weren’t motivated by the same intention in this instance.)
The idea of Jeeves’s child coming to Korval is interesting; Jeeves, as far as I know, is not counted a member of the clan himself, any more than the other household servants. Perhaps it’s an option opened up by the fact that he came to the delm for permission. I don’t think a household servant would normally do that; inform their employer of a factor likely to affect their performance, yes, but the decision itself would be in the hands of their own delm. (I’m thinking, among other examples, of Jeeves’s predecessor Mr pak’Ora, who was called by his delm to serve his clan in another role, with his employer being given no say and left to cover his absence at short notice.) Jeeves, of course, doesn’t have a delm of his own, which may be another factor in Val Con’s offer. If it is an offer, and not an ultimatum: there have been cases where a child has gone to another clan as Balance for trouble caused by the parent. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, even though Jeeves admitted fault for the present emergency, but I suspect that the possibility is one of the reasons he had to stop and think before accepting the delm’s word.