Tag Archives: Galandasti

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 32

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Surebleak is invaded.

Some of the annoying tourists doubtless are just annoying tourists, and some, as Quin suspects, come to test Korval’s melant’i, but there’s also the possibility that somebody might be planning to use the horde of tourists as a diversion while they attempt to do some real damage. I think Jeeves’s emergency declaration indicates that he has also considered this latter possibility.

Quin’s particular annoying tourist has a Solcintran accent, which indicates that even though the tour is being offered by a somewhat disreputable outworld, some of those who have taken it up are from Liad itself. One does not need to be from an outworld to be somewhat disreputable.

I wonder if this is going to turn out to be connected in some way to the still-unresolved question of whether the Council of Clans has been encouraging people to act against Korval.

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 16

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Surebleak Port

In which Quin has breakfast, and Miri is given something to chew on.

Tef Lej pen’Erit shows courage in approaching Quin for help. To some extent, it’s driven by necessity; as he says, Quin is literally the only person he knows here. But the circumstances of their previous meeting weren’t exactly friendly, so he couldn’t be sure of the reception he’d get.

It’s not clear exactly what’s going on between Villy and Quin. Partly it’s because Villy is like that with everybody, at least to some extent, but I also suspect the authors are being deliberately difficult. There’s no way, for instance, that the earlier conversation about their “date” wasn’t the result of the authors deliberately shaping the words to be misleading. But, of course, just because nothing of that sort was going on that time, doesn’t mean that nothing of the sort is going on at all.

A few weeks have passed during the interludes, so apparently that meeting I was worried about happened without incident. See? I’m terrible at predicting how a Liaden novel is going to go.

If the Citizens’ Heavy Loads Committee is serious about not liking being fined if they’re caught with a load over the limit, they’re really not going to be happy about a regular system of tolls based on load weight.

Roving Gambler

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In which Quin yos’Phelium finds occupation.

Oh, so that’s what a nerligig does.

It strikes me that “Roving Gambler” is very much about what the Code calls “proper conduct”. It’s full of people facing the question of what would be the correct thing to do in the circumstance, and as like as not finding that it’s not an easy question on a world like Surebleak, which is continually being challenged on what answers it did have. The kinds range from small domestic questions involving a father and his son to big policy issues involving the Boss of Bosses (and in classic melant’i fashion, the extreme ends of the spectrum involve the same people wearing different hats).

Korval has it particularly bad, as Pat Rin points out at the end, because they’re used to living on Liad and having the Code to consult on questions like this, but now they’re on Surebleak and the answers are different. (Something that’s foreshadowed all the way through the story, as Quin keeps finding moments where proper Liaden behaviour doesn’t quite fit the circumstance.) I’m not surprised that it was Kareen who’s been given the job of figuring out their situation; if anybody knows about proper conduct, it’s her. It’s interesting, though, that she’s specifically stated to have been ordered by the Delms to study the question: Is that just them putting an official stamp on the enterprise, or did they find that she was unwilling to get started?

I suppose if there’s any course of study that might help prepare one for running a planet, Generalist might be it. It’s been a while since we’ve encountered a professional Generalist; I’m pretty sure the last one was Quin’s many-times-grandfather Jela.

On the question of Surebleak’s seasons, I find this story inconclusive; all we hear about the weather is that it’s recently turned good after a long bad stretch, which doesn’t say much on a planet with weather like Surebleak’s, and anyway it’s not clear precisely how long after Ghost Ship it takes place, so there’d be no way of comparing.

Tomorrow: “The Rifle’s First Wife”