Tag Archives: Chi yos’Phelium

Due Diligence – Chapter 4

In which Fer Gun pen’Uldra gets married.

And so here is the context for the things that had puzzled me about Chi’s behaviour.
Continue reading

Due Diligence – Chapter 2

In which Petrella yos’Galan is diligent.

I had some things I was going to say about how I still didn’t understand why Chi is going to these lengths, but they’ve been rendered moot by the helpful person in the previous post’s comments who wished to spare me the trouble of waiting for the story to explain itself. So.

I like the discussion of the difference between offending nobody and offending everybody.

The thing Petrella thinks she remembers about Line pen’Uldra, which has not yet been revealed, is I suspect likely to be connected somehow with the fact of Fer Gun being the last of the Line.

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 13

Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which everybody’s going to town.

The island Shan is interested in is presumably an outcome of his search for a site for the new yos’Galan house, so this chapter has references to both him and Kareen looking for new housing situations. There’s room for them at Jelaza Kazone, and they’d be safe there, but “safe and well provided for” has never been the overriding priority of the children of Korval.

I have sympathy for Kamele’s temptation to call it quits rather than face further uncertainty with no assurance that it won’t turn out to be quits anyway. I’ve had situations where I’ve felt similarly, though obviously none quite like this.

I still have a bad feeling about this upcoming meeting of the Bosses. Hearing that the delm will be there as well as Boss Conrad – in fact, with Kareen and Kamele’s excursion pretty much the entire household is going to be in town today – this is not making me any less concerned about the possibility that there will be Drama.

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 11

Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which the carpet shop has a visitor who wants Pat Rin to pay.

The discussion of how the dream adapts itself to the dreamer (and is not, for one thing, just restricted to “do you kill this person who is important to you?”) is reassuring in regard to the question of whether every one of the captured agents will be able to be offered a choice. But now I have another concern: The fact that many of the Department’s agents were bound unwillingly to a course and a goal they wouldn’t have chosen in their right minds doesn’t necessarily imply that there are no agents who would support the Department’s aims if given a free choice.

Quin’s story is a reminder of how long we’ve been following Korval’s recent history; “great-grandmother” sounds like such a long time ago, and I thought at first of some unknown ancestor, but count it back and it’s Chi yos’Phelium, whom we already know. (And that’s the second mention of her in two chapters. I don’t know if that’s going to be significant, or is just a coincidence.)

A garnet trade ring is pretty good; not the Master Trader’s amethyst, but only a few rungs below it.

Beslin vin’Tenzing’s attack would be a useful illustration in a discussion about why “revenge” is not always an appropriate synonym for “Balance”. It’s not a well-considered Balancing, even if one accepts that Pat Rin bears full responsibility for the people killed when he fired on Solcintra (and I think a full account of the responsibility there would need to consider the role of the Department, who chose to use those people as a human shield). If nothing else, it’s an attempt to redress vin’Tenzing’s losses that leaves out all the other people who sustained losses in the attack. There is more than one family that lost a child, and there’s only one Quin; they can’t all settle it by shooting him.

…though that doesn’t mean vin’Tenzing is going to be the only one to give it a try.

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 10

Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Kareen and Kamele have an informative conversation.

I was a bit glib and a lot unfair when I suggested that Kareen might view Kamele as a performing dog. A better way to characterise the situation might be that Kamele has a genuine interest in and enthusiasm for learning the intricacies of the Liaden language, which makes it easier for one to forgive any stumbles since she’s clearly doing her best and it’s not her fault she’s not fully fluent yet. One might be less forgiving of a Terran who seemed to have made only the effort required to get by, for instance.

Also, they seem to actually like each other, a fact of which I took some convincing if only because Kareen has generally not made friends easily and it seemed unlikely that she would find it any easier with a non-Liaden.

(It’s interesting that, after Kamele was worried she might miss nuances if the conversation about the portrait was in Liaden, Kareen makes what must have been a deliberate choice to step out of Liaden into Terran to tell her about it, perhaps specifically to spare her that worry.)

Kareen’s description of the circumstances of Er Thom’s birth didn’t quite make sense to me at first: I wasn’t sure why it would be necessary for yos’Galan to produce a back-up delm of certain piloting ability when there was already Sae Zar. I think, though, that the problem with Sae Zar as a back-up delm is that he didn’t have the training for it; we know that training for a delm’s heir begins when he or she is very young, as happened for Daav (and Er Thom, as the designated back-up heir, got the same training). Also, Sae Zar was already designated as the heir to yos’Galan’s Master Trader, and to add Delm’s Heir to his pile would have been a disservice to yos’Galan, to be avoided unless no other solution was available.

Of the delms Kareen mentions in passing, we have heard of Jeni yos’Phelium, who helped establish the Scout Academy, and Theonna yos’Phelium, who was responsible for the Tactical Defense Pods. Edil yos’Phelium and Var Ond ter’Asten are new names. (ter’Asten is itself also a new name, unless it’s an alternate transliteration of “ter’Astin” – Jethri’s friend the scout was named Jan Rek ter’Astin.)

The implication of Kamele’s remark about Aelliana also being delm is, as I understand it, that her death wasn’t as simple as Daav failing his duty as delm to protect the vulnerable and husband the clan’s resources; Aelliana was also acting as delm, with a different assessment of who was most vulnerable and which resources the clan could least afford to lose, and no time for the two halves of the delm to reach a consensus.

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 1

Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Val Con yos’Phelium receives two messages.

I confess to some surprise at the idea of Kareen being a mild and unruffled tutor. Perhaps there is something in Kamele’s manner that she finds pleasing. (Perhaps it’s the harmonica-playing dog principle: while a Liaden student would have high expectations to rise to, a Terran’s fumbles are rendered insignificant against the fact that a Terran is essaying Liaden at all.)

Necessity’s Child also had an early incident in which an attempt to reach out to one of the captured agents ended badly; the way the Department of the Interior operates, such attempts are unlikely to end otherwise. That novel did subsequently feature Rys’s breakthrough, and perhaps another breakthrough will occur in this one, but they will always be too late for the people lost along the way.

If Melsilee bar’Abit did manage to break her conditioning – and even if her behaviour portends something else – it’s striking for having apparently occurred without an external trigger. Val Con and Rys both started getting loose of their conditioning after major changes in their life circumstances, but Agent bar’Abit has been sitting for the last while in a prison where little changes from week to week, so the question is: what caused this to happen now?

The Rifle’s First Wife

In which Diglon Rifle does what he may to help a teammate.

Poker was one of the first new things Diglon was taught after he came under the dragon’s wing, and he showed an immediate aptitude for it, so it’s good to see he’s continuing to develop it. In general, it’s pleasing to see that Diglon is thriving in his new environment – and a bit worrying that Hazenthull apparently isn’t, even now.

I say “even now” because the internal evidence suggests that it’s been over a year since the two of them came to stand with Korval: baby Lizzie, who was not yet born then, has progressed to standing up under her own power.

Lizzie’s development also means that although it’s early spring – “winter having been gone some weeks now” – it’s the spring after the one in which Lizzie was born, and so doesn’t tell us anything useful about that contested spring I’ve been worried about lately.

(It also means that I’ve scheduled this story too early, which is an acknowledged hazard of scheduling a story without reading it first. The actual position would be some time after Dragon Ship – and possibly one or two more novels as well, but since I haven’t read those yet either I’m not going to attempt a definite pronouncement.)

It’s nice that Alara has found a chance to make an alliance with somebody whose company she enjoys and who she has an attraction to, but I do wonder how she’s planning to explain her choice to her delm. It’s all very well saying that Diglon isn’t an Yxtrang any more, but is she going to be able to get away with not mentioning that he was? The delm did specify a “long lineage” as one of the criteria to look for, which means he’s going to want to know about Diglon’s antecedents.

One thing that might help is that, Clan Silari having made the decision to leave Liad, Alara and her clan are themselves, in a sense, no longer what they were either.

Incidentally, I notice that Diam, one of the two people who entertained Diglon on his evening off, is another of those for whom the authors have chosen not to constrain the reader’s imagination by specifying pronouns.


Next: Dragon Ship

Ghost Ship – Chapter 30

Boss Vine’s Turf
Surebleak

In which Theo is offered a trade route and a seed pod.

One advantage of re-reading is that when you know where the story’s going, it can be easier to make out what the foreshadowing is trying to tell you. For instance: Here is Clarence, who’s made himself unpopular enough that somebody came to shoot at him, and probably hasn’t helped his case much by being so unobliging as to shoot the person who came to shoot him. Might be he’ll soon be in a situation where a job that takes him offworld for a longish while will be just the thing he needs.

And Clarence’s visitor is interesting: Seems to have known him from when he was working on Liad, and got on the wrong side of him then. An independent operator, not a fellow Juntava, is my impression. It’s not just Korval’s friends who are making the trip to try their luck in the new land of opportunity.

I Dare – Chapter 44

Erob’s Clanhouse
Lytaxin

In which Pat Rin is still missing, Ren Zel is still processing his change in circumstances, and Mr dea’Gauss is, as always, remarkable.

More evidence suggesting that this is actually Day 52: it was on Day 51 that Val Con and Miri learned that Pat Rin had disappeared, and it seems unlikely they’d wait an entire day before asking Nova if she knew anything.

Nova, by the sound of it, is still hoping that they might bring matters before the Council of Clans and have a solving without resorting to anything that might be described as a “war”. Val Con and Miri are less optimistic. I think I’d be with Val Con and Miri, even without the information (which we have and they don’t) that the Department is even now moving against Korval through the Council. (Indeed, considered from Val Con’s point of view, it might be said that it is already too late, and that the war has been going on, with casualties on both sides, for some considerable time already.)

Ren Zel, it appears, is of the dramliz (a thing for which there have been several hints already, which Ren Zel has been shying away from acknowledging), with power and potential that impresses even Anthora, who’s reputed to be one of the most powerful dramliz now living. In the scene where he explores the starweb of creation, he reminds me of the surpassingly powerful dramliz of the Migration-era prequels. (There are several other aspects of this match that remind me of the old dramliz, too – which is perhaps not to be wondered at, considering that this is the first “wizard’s match” we’ve seen since the prequels to occur between two actual wizards.)