Tag Archives: Clan Torvin

I Dare – Chapter 57

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Day 59
Standard Year 1393

Solcintra
Liad

In which the Council of Clans throws Korval into the briar patch.

The Delm Hedrede who delivers the Council’s judgment here is not the same Delm Hedrede who clashed with Korval thirty years ago in Scout’s Progress – different pronouns – but it does make me wonder if Hedrede has a personal investment in Korval getting booted off the planet.

There’s a neat bit of narrative sleight of hand with the problem of what to do with the dies: the problem is carefully laid out, then just as Val Con is about to suggest a solution, the conversation is interrupted. The reader is left to assume that a solution is found without the authors having to actually come up with one.

Tomorrow and tomorrow: Revisiting old friends and seeing how they’re affected by recent events, in “Misfits” and then the remainder of Saltation.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 19

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 143
Third Shift
16.00 hours

In which Shan has some explanations.

This is a significant turning point for Shan and Priscilla, with Shan finally explaining what’s going on and the two of them agreeing on a future course of action.

We get another mention of that elusive person, Anne’s brother Richard, and perhaps the most extensive account of him, in Shan’s description of his conflation of Liadens with elves. Shan doesn’t say why Richard picked on Val Con for the role of “king of Elfland”, but presumably it’s because he had heard some account of the Contract which once prompted Anne to accuse Val Con’s father of being King of Liad. In which case, I’m pretty sure this is the first intimation, in published order, of the existence of the Contract.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 17

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Arsdred Offworld Bazaar
Local Year 728
Dawn Bazaar

In which Shan helps put up a pavilion and is nearly run down by a jitney.

I like how this chapter fleshes out the details of Shan’s work as a Trader and his interactions with Ken Rik.

This is the chapter in which Shan gives Priscilla an account of how Clan Korval came to be which differs in a number of respects from the more detailed account we eventually got in the prequels. I’m not sure what to make of that; Shan has no reason to tell Priscilla anything other than the truth as he knows it, and I can think of no reason for him not to know the actual date of the clan’s foundation, since the foundational paperwork is presumably among the things a ranking member of the clan would be expected to have read.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 30

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Solcintra
Near Orbit

In which a new venture calls for new names.

The Service Families have declared themselves the new High Houses of Solcintra. That didn’t take long.

Partly in response, Cantra and Tor An decide to strengthen their association, from perhaps-temporary co-pilots to permanent clanmates. (As I recall, Shan’s recounting of the Clan’s history in one of the later novels implies that they didn’t take that step until after landfall, but it does make sense for them to take the step now, for all the reasons Tor An mentions – and it has always been said that the contract was with Clan Korval, so that’s all right. In situations like this, Lois McMaster Bujold is wont to say that “the Management reserves the right to have a better idea later.”)

And on reflection, while it makes first-glance sense for the idea of forming a Clan to have presented itself later, at the point where the voyage was over and Cantra and Tor An needed to decide how they were going to carry on into the future, I’m not sure the Cantra we’ve come to know in this duology would have made this choice then. Forming Clan with her co-pilot means hitching her destiny to someone else’s in a way she’s never done, and I get the feeling that on some level she’s only letting herself do it now because it’s not going to matter if they all die soon anyway. If they’d waited to decide until they knew for sure they had the rest of their lives ahead of them, I don’t know that she might not have got cold feet.

Crystal Soldier – Chapter 19

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Spiral Dance
Ardega

In which the Enemy makes an example.

More about the aelantaza, and about Dulsey’s background, and Cantra’s. That’s an interesting insight about why Cantra’s so cantankerous.

Cantra’s been thinking to herself lately that it’s not safe to find Jela as attractive as she does, and now it appears that Jela has been thinking to himself similar things about Cantra. It’s pretty clear where that’s headed, even if I didn’t already know.