Tag Archives: Concierge

Ghost Ship – Chapter 3

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Jelaza Kazone
Liad

In which Delm Korval considers Theo’s problem.

Not sure what to make of Theo thinking that Val Con looks familiar for some reason other than resembling their father. She hasn’t met any of the other relatives yet, and I’m pretty sure she’s never seen his mother — or has she? They talked about the Caylon at the Academy, but I don’t remember if it was ever mentioned them having pictures of her. (And of course if that’s it Theo wouldn’t be able to place the resemblance, because nobody’s mentioned to her who Val Con’s mother is.)

As for her assessment of Val Con as biddable and lacking in spark, it’s a choice between politely suppressed laughter and a wide-eyed Bugs Bunny “She don’t know him very well, do she?”

Until Val Con mentioned it, I don’t think I’d thought about the fact that Korval doesn’t just have its house and Tree to get off-planet, but all of the many ships it’s collected over the years (those that aren’t elsewhere already). I suppose it will have to allow its several shipyards to be seized – unless they’ve already been sold off or otherwise passed into other hands – but Korval never leaves a ship behind.

Fledgling – Chapter 32

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Melchiza

In which accommodations are reached.

So, Clyburn’s family lives on Melchiza, and he’s not only counted a native but accorded a considerable amount of respect by the people responsible for keeping visitors in line. Isn’t that interesting?

Hafley’s crack about Theo being only good enough for Team Three because she’s not properly attentive doesn’t accord with any of what we’ve learned about how Learning Teams are actually allocated. A sign, perhaps, of how properly attentive Hafley was during her own schooling?

Fledgling – Chapter 26

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Vashtara
Mauve Level
Stateroom

In which Win Ton explains.

Win Ton, in his desire to have everything set out clearly and plainly, produces an explanation that’s a marvel of not getting to the point. It is well for the calmness of the conversation that Kamele is an advertant scholar who waits for all the information to be in before she advances a hypothesis, because it was pretty obvious that Win Ton was giving her entirely the wrong impression about the “mature self-discovery” he’s been sharing with Theo.

It would appear that Roni’s sense of self-consequence and poor grasp of teamwork is shared with her mother, who is now revealed to be part of a conspiracy that offers personal advancement at the expense of the integrity of the University. I wonder how offended Professor Mason would be to learn that Jen Sar considers her the easier and less challenging of his potential targets.

The description of Jen Sar’s location offers a passing detail that, if I noticed the first time I read this, I didn’t retain: that the Residence Wall was built after the original campus of the University burned down. It makes one wonder just how much excitement is concealed behind Kamele’s description of the Founders being “a little too optimistic about human nature”.

Fledgling – Chapter 23

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History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which a conspiracy begins to be uncovered.

We’ve been told that Jen Sar and Ella don’t get on, and in this chapter we get to see it. At least part of it is that they approach conversation differently, Ella with her straight talking and Jen Sar with his Liaden tendency to curve unexpectedly, which makes it more difficult to tell if there are also incompatibilities in their underlying personalities.

I kind of wonder if Jen Sar would have thought better of Ella if she had succumbed to the urge to tell him that conversation with an old friend would be nice if only there were one present; it seems like the kind of response he himself might have given in other circumstances. But perhaps Ella’s right; if she had said it, she might have meant it too much.

Something I didn’t notice the first time I read this, when I wasn’t paying such close attention to the interweaving of details: the technician who tells Jen Sar about the “old wire” is doubtless one of Theo’s friend Kartor’s relatives.

Fledgling – Chapter 9

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Teamplay: Scavage
Professor Stephen M. Richardson Secondary School
University of Delgado

In which Roni likes to score.

There are a bunch of things in this chapter it’s difficult to talk about because I’m not sure how much of what I want to say is an honest response to what’s actually come up already in this re-read and how much is influenced by remembering from the first time I read the book things that haven’t happened yet. The description of Theo’s clumsiness seems like it would be suggestive to a reader familiar with the wider Liaden universe, but do I only think that because I already know what it’s suggesting? And I’m fairly confident I figured out what was up with the mysterious research project pretty much straight away, but I’m not sure.

Another interesting aspect of the book is seeing Delgado society produce mirror images of familiar bits of male entitlement, like Ella’s eye for a pretty face a few chapters ago, or Roni’s implication here that males aren’t any good at sports. (It may well be that, as Theo suspects, Roni’s complaint is less sincere than a cover for her real source of annoyance, but if so the fact that she chose that particular complaint as a cover suggests that it’s a relatively acceptable thing to complain about.)

Fledgling – Chapter 2

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University of Delgado
Faculty Residence Wall
Quadrant Eight, Building Two

In which Kamele and Theo — and Coyster — arrive in their new lodgings.

When I first read Fledgling, Kamele Waitley came as a complete surprise to me. In retrospect, this seems short-sighted even to myself, but it must be remembered that, Theo having said nothing about her mother in I Dare, the only previous reference to her was in “Breath’s Duty”, and that only a brief mention of an unnamed woman whom the authors, lacking space for a more complete explanation, chose to describe as Professor Kiladi’s mistress. That entirely misleading word, combined with the apparent equanimity with which Kiladi took leave of her (which with hindsight I can see as a Liaden presenting a calm face to an unpleasant necessity), produced in me an impression that left me entirely unprepared for Scholar Waitley, Jen Sar Kiladi’s friend and life-partner, when Fledgling presented her full-formed.

In this chapter Theo, who has lived her entire life in Kiladi’s house out in the suburbs, is not adjusting easily to the standard of accommodation in the Faculty Residence Wall. I suspect that Kamele is having similar difficulty, and it’s contributing to her mood; although, if memory serves, she lived in the Wall her whole life before she met Kiladi, she has also lived Theo’s entire life in Kiladi’s house, and young as Theo is that’s plenty of time to have acclimated to a new way of living.

This being a re-read, I know what prompted Kamele to move back to the Wall, and can see that her response to Theo’s question about it contains an actual answer carefully set in a false context constructed from statements that are each true in general but not actually relevant to the particular situation under discussion. (Notice how some of the time she’s talking about what “a scholar” can or should do, and only very briefly about herself specifically.)