Tag Archives: cranium

Neogenesis – Chapter 25

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Vivulonj Prosperu

In which the Uncle learns the outcome of his project.

He chose to be amused. The better reaction for everybody, I expect.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 24

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Tinsori Light

In which the relief arrives.

I feel like there’s another small gap in the narrative here, between where we last saw Tocohl, in control but struggling, and where we find her now, of the kind where I feel there should have been something in between even if it was just a form of “and everything went according to plan”.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 19 part I

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Tinsori Light

In which Tocohl makes a status report.

I found the jump from where Tolly and Haz were at the end of the previous chapter to where they are when they show up in this one so jarring that I actually flicked back a few pages to make sure I hadn’t accidentally skipped a chapter. Maybe it would have been a short chapter, and amounted to “Everything went according to plan for once”, but it still feels to me like its absence leaves a perceptible gap. Even a sentence or two from Tolly or Haz about what they’d been doing since the end of last chapter would have helped. (Maybe we’ll still get that in an upcoming section, and I just haven’t got to it yet because I stopped to write this entry.)
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Alliance of Equals – Chapter 20

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Admiral Bunter
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop

In which Admiral Bunter returns.

I like the byplay about Padi using glancing-at-the-notepad as a way of providing appropriate pauses in the conversation, and the way it offers an explanation for her father’s ubiquitous glass of wine. (The glass of wine has a potential strategic advantage over glancing-at-the-notepad, in that the latter might make it look like one doesn’t really know what one is doing.)

It’s also another example of how two plot lines parallel each other within a chapter, because over in the other plot line we have Tolly thinking about how Admiral Bunter needs to learn about providing appropriate pauses in his conversation.

Thematic parallels aside, I still have no idea how, or if, the three plot strands are going to meet up. What has the progress of Dutiful Passage to do with Admiral Bunter, or either to do with the Uncle and Daav and Aelliana? Maybe Padi will accidentally stumble upon the ancient AI that the Uncle and Tocohl are each so interested in finding?

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 18

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Tarigan
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
Berth 12

In which the road to occupying a new body is not without bumps.

And now I’m wondering how much of this foreboding I’d be having if I hadn’t read “Wise Child” first, because there’s quite a bit there about Tolly’s background that hasn’t explicitly come up in this novel yet. I’m pretty sure I’d have made the connection between Inki’s powers of persuasion and her background with the Lyre Institute being similar to the aelantaza and the Tanjalyre Institute, but I’m not sure I’d have spotted that Tolly’s also a graduate, even with all the hints that the novel’s been dropping about how he’s designed to inspire trust and make friends easily. And if I hadn’t realised that Inki and Tolly share a background, I wouldn’t now be worried about Inki stabbing everyone in the back and dragging him back “home”.

(Though I would probably still be worried about her stabbing everyone in the back and abducting the Admiral as soon as he’s stable enough to move.)

Come to think of it, something similar happened with Dragon in Exile, where I was waiting all through the novel for something because it had been mentioned in the short story that was written later but published first. I didn’t with Trade Secret, but I did end up thinking the short story would have made more sense if I’d read it after the novel. So maybe I should make a rule about not reading the new short stories before the new novels? But the short story comes out a whole month before the novel, and it’s difficult to just leaving lying there, and you figure they wouldn’t let the short story be published first if reading it first was wrong…

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 16

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Tarigan
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
Berth 12

In which Tolly has his first in-person meeting with the Admiral.

Work continues on Admiral Bunter. It appears that the transfer does have to be done all in one go, which makes sense, and that Tocohl and Jeeves did plan ahead and pack a selection of things for him to be transferred into, which I suppose I should have expected.

The idea that Bechimo might have chosen to leave Admiral Bunter behind in the active expectation that he would fall apart by himself before too long is not a pleasant one, but it seems enough like something Bechimo might have done before Theo and Clarence started teaching him some consideration that I’m not sure he didn’t do it. (Theo, on the other hand, I don’t think would have done it deliberately. I expect she just didn’t think.)

I’m intrigued by the mention of Inki having mentored a judge. Who uses a machine — especially an illegal machine — as a judge?

I wonder if the theme of people being put in new bodies can be extended to the other main plot strand, back on Dutiful Passage. I can’t see an obvious way to apply it to Padi, but there is Shan — rather than being put into a new body he’s not certain how much to trust, he isn’t certain how much to trust what Lute might be putting into the body he already has.