Volmer
In which yos’Galan makes connections.
I can’t remember the last book in which we had so many bows in so few chapters. The last few books have either been set on Surebleak or involved people being off having adventures among the Terrans, so there hasn’t been so much opportunity for Liadens interacting.
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Dutiful Passage
Millsap Orbit
In which Padi has a long day.
Shan has a plan: to visit the Redlands, which it turns out is not one country, or even one planet, but a system with three inhabited planets.
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The Happy Occasion
Langlastport
In which some things are coming to a close, and some things are just beginning.
Tolly’s arrow completely fails to find its mark. It’ll be interesting to see the conversation where Haz explains to him where his judgment failed him. Part of it, no doubt, is that she’s at least as determined not to let him get killed or worse as he is to protect her. And it occurs to me that Tolly’s never really seen Hazenthull when she’s on mission; even when she was on duty as a Port Security officer, that was a dialled-down version of her. Full-throttle Hazenthull is the Hazenthull who ignored orders, misappropriated supplies and personnel, crossed hostile territory and behaved in an unprecedented fashion in the face of the enemy in an attempt to save the life of her senior partner — which, come to think of it, is not so unlike what she’s attempting now, so her motivation would also include a measure of this time I will not fail.
Meanwhile, it’s going to be a rough journey for Tolly, because he’s convinced that he’s on his own, and that he’s dealt an injury to his best friend to keep her from following. That’s something that’s going to weigh on him, even with his attention bent on talking the Admiral around.
I had wondered why Inki had mentioned her shared background with Tolly to Haz; it seemed like an obvious slip at the time. But the explanation that it was a hint meant to be recognised only in hindsight makes sense. Likewise the mention of the directors in her final message; though it’s not quoted here, that was accompanied by a reminder of the shared background.
Padi’s uncertainty about Ms Hartensis’ reaction is presumably a consequence of the block Shan placed last chapter. I did wonder, a block on what? but it makes sense that it would be a block on her ability to pick up the emotions of the people around her, which would otherwise be a distraction and a source of stress and which she hasn’t yet learned to block out herself.
(A minor continuity thing: Last chapter, the assistant caterer was wearing a long red apron over white clothes. This chapter, the long apron is white. Perhaps on Langlast there’s a custom of wearing different aprons for tidying up than for serving?)
And just when it seemed everything was smoothing out with Padi and that things might be resolved without too much further trouble, we get that very worrying final scene…
Dutiful Passage
In which Apprentice Trader yos’Galan secures her milaster.
Parts of this, with the ‘prentice trader visiting a new planet with the master trader, inevitably remind me of Jethri’s apprenticeship in Balance of Trade. (I also recollect how the numbers being haggled changed from the short story to the novel of Balance of Trade, and note that so far in this novel the authors have managed to avoid committing to specific numbers.)
Being of a nasty, suspicious turn of mind, I intend to assume in the absence of contrary evidence that Technician First Class Higgs is in some way a relative of Airman Third Class Higgs from Girl Genius.
I get the distinct impression that when Shan moves to intervene in the confrontation at the end of the chapter, it’s not his daughter’s health he’s worried for.
In which Master Lute gives a friend more help than he knew he was capable of.
It’s amazing, the details one notices when one starts paying attention. As for instance: this story is also in the wrong place; I had never realised before, but it goes between “Where the Goddess Sends” and “A Spell for the Lost”. (I’m beginning to think that when this big re-read is over, I’m going to have to do another smaller one, just the Moonhawk and Lute stories, to get them straight in my head.)
Moonhawk and Lute have been travelling together for just a few days, and Moonhawk has just mastered her first piece of Craft Magic. She’s already started snarking about how he’s a terrible teacher, and he about how she’s a disrespectful apprentice. And he’s already started offering her new perspectives on the relationship between the Temple and the towns.
The anecdote about Rowan learning to read also says something about the way society works on Sintia. (Incidentally, this is the first story, in the order we’ve been reading them, to explicitly name the setting as Sintia.)
More characters named after plants (though this time with some orthographic variations), including merlot (a grape varietal used in winemaking), vervain, rowan, and juniper. (This Rowan is the second we’ve encountered recently; the Witch of Dyan Circle who was hunting Lute down in “Moon’s Honor” also bore that name.)
Speaking of plants, the association of rosemary with memory is a piece of folklore of long standing. (“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.”)
These stories do really well at the atmospheric spell-casting scenes.
I like the way Lute’s attempt to help Veverain turned out. It’s got some interesting implications (and I bet this is another story Priscilla’s teachers didn’t tell properly if they told it at all).
I like the story about how Tween the cat came to be named.
In fact, I like this story period. It’s my favourite of the Moonhawk and Lute set.
In which Moonhawk and Lute meet for the first time… again.
Well, I gave it my best shot and I blew it: Now I’ve read Moon’s Honor, I’m pretty sure it’s set after the existing trilogy of Tales of Moonhawk and Lute.
So, if you haven’t actually read it yet, you might consider leaving it for now and coming back to this post in three days. (Or not. Up to you.)
The other thing you might want to know if you haven’t read it yet is that Moon’s Honor was originally conceived as the beginning of a novel, so while the immediate situation is resolved at the end there are lots of loose threads left dangling.
(Apparently the authors couldn’t find a taker for the full novel; according to the foreword, Meisha Merlin and then Baen were more interested in more Korval novels, and everybody else they tried before Meisha Merlin just wasn’t interested. I can kind of see why, I think; I want to know what happens next, but my interest in the characters and situation got a head start from already knowing something about these people and places from other stories, and I can’t say for certain that I’d have been interested if I’d come to it cold.)
Here we have a Moonhawk and Lute recognisably similar to the pair from the Tales, but also different. They’re still on Sintia, which I had wondered whether would be the case. They’re brought together by the call of the Goddess, but this time it’s Lute who is called to where Moonhawk is. This Moonhawk is still a priestess, more advanced in some ways (and less so in others). This Lute is still a magician whose power lies more in the quickness of the hand than in supernatural gift, but instead of a lone wanderer he’s a member of a widespread guild. (One wonders whether, if it were possible to trace the chain of apprentices and masters back to its beginning, one would find the earlier Lute and the apprentice he took in “Where the Goddess Sends”.) He also seems to have more supernatural gift than that earlier Lute; it’s seductively easy to create a trend out of two data points, of course, but I do wonder if part of the planned arc of the Moonhawk and Lute stories is/was that each successive Lute had more of the supernatural at his beck than the one before. (And then again, Plan B suggests a third data point, and the trend still holds.)
Speaking of the overall arc, it’s also interesting that the embodied Moonhawk and Lute have a tendency to find a pattern with Lute as mentor and Moonhawk as student, considering that with the original Moonhawk and Lute it was Moonhawk who was usually in charge.
We see more of the Temple than in any other story than perhaps “Moonphase”, and there are signs already of what it will have become in that story, in the incidental stories about some of the priestesses’ attitudes, and in that very pointed exchange about where Lady Rowan’s loyalty lies.
I think Master Lute’s interplay with the Lady Rowan may be my favourite part of the story; for my favourite part of my favourite part, it’s a toss-up between the exchange about loyalty and the result of Lady Rowan commanding Lute to be silent.
An odd incidental detail that might or might not have been elaborated on had the novel been completed: in addition to the Moon, the night sky here contains two fast-moving objects referred to as the Hounds.