Tag Archives: Gobelyn’s Market

Trade Secret – Chapter 2

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Clan Ixin’s Tradeship Elthoria, in Jump

In which Jethri is invited to a party.

The ship is to hold a Festival of its own, sponsored by Ixin, since its schedule won’t take it near any planet-bound Festivals this year. This will be, I think, Jethri’s first experience of an actual Festival; he hadn’t encountered one before he went to Irikwae, and if he’s encountered one since it’s not been mentioned. And as a member of the sponsoring clan, it’s not going to be sufficient for him merely to partake and observe; he’s going to be expected to make a contribution or two of his own to the running of the party. Nothing like being thrown in the deep end.

One of the things that was stated early on about Jethri and Gaenor is that, on top of all the other pleasures of their friendship, he enjoys looking at her, though he’s always been careful to take his pleasure unobtrusively and not presume anything in that direction. With Festival coming on, it’s probably inevitable that there’s going to be development of that side of their relationship – especially if Gaenor keeps practicing sultry looks on him. (I can’t help wondering what response she was hoping for from him.)

Trade Secret – Chapter 1

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Clan Ixin’s Tradeship Elthoria, in Jump

In which Jethri reflects on birthrights.

The prologue having hopefully hooked the reader with the promise of mayhem to come, this is a quieter chapter, largely given over to recapping the state of play for anybody who doesn’t happen to have just this week finished reading Balance of Trade.

Things have progressed somewhat since the end of the previous novel: Norn ven’Deelin has agreed to support Jethri in getting Tan Sim out of his difficulty, but there are still details to be worked out. If it were easy, anybody could do it.

We also get another new detail added to what we already knew: apparently Jethri’s space hair, before he became a Liaden fosterling and had to grow it out, wasn’t just trimmed short as a utilitarian thing, but sculpted in a distinctive pattern.

Trade Secret – Prologue

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Stateroom Number Two
Liaden Tradeship Wynhael, Outbound from Banth, a Backworld

In which Jethri’s story is by no means over.

A new novel!

The prologue gives us Bar Jan chel’Gaibin nursing his grievances, some hints about what’s up on Banth, and Jethri continuing his career but discovering that Old Tech is still going to be a part of his life. The chel’Gaibin seems to have decided to take particular offence against Khat, so no doubt we’ll be hearing more of the crew of the Market along the way. That’s all the major dangling threads from Balance of Trade picked up already – all I ask now is a throwaway line about how Jethri’s moustache management is getting on, and I’ll be happy.

We get quite a detailed portrait of Bar Jan chel’Gaibin in the first part of the prologue. Not a nice fellow, the chel’Gaibin. The description of his debt book is revealing, and so is the bit about the rigged dueling pistols – that latter also saying something about the family he comes from, given that they’re the house’s pistols and not his personally. (I wonder if we’ll be seeing those pistols in action, later.)

We also learn some things about Jethri. The bit about him feeling as if fractins are aware of him is new, though it fits in with what we already had about his knack for salvage items.

Jethri is currently working on a world where they go in for elaborate ceremony, which gives us some interesting new flourishes on the bows. I particularly like the revelation that the language of bows includes a construction for “I realise my sleeves aren’t long enough to do this bow justice”.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 39

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Day 185
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which a few loose ends are attended to.

I had forgotten that in the end Jethri turns all his fractins over to the Scout. (But he keeps the notes which the Scout suspects of being a guide to reading Old writing. That could lead to interesting things in future.)

I had not forgotten that Miandra gets sent off to get trained as a dramliza (I wonder if it’s by anyone we know?). At least, I had remembered that one of the twins did, but it wasn’t until some point in the re-read that I knew it was Miandra; I often forget characters’ names after the first time through, even when they aren’t identical twins.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 35

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Day 168
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae Port

In which there are several beginnings for Jethri and his family.

This is another chapter where I’d probably have a lot to say if I were reading it for the first time, but this time round it’s more the minor details catching my attention.

One really trivial detail is that when Jethri’s thinking about all the people at the Tarnia clanhouse he misses already, one of those listed is a “Mrs tel’Bonti” who is not mentioned anywhere else in the book. Presumably the person being referred to is the cook, Mrs tor’Beli, who does not otherwise appear in the list.

Seeli’s news settles it: there’s definitely something going on between her and Grig. I wonder for how long? “A couple of Standard Months” is since they began their stay on Kinaveral, but of course there’s nothing to say they haven’t been carrying on longer than that.

It’s an interesting touch that the Spacers would prefer their baby to be born in space. Seems to me that would mean they’re a long way from help if anything goes wrong, but then again a Spacer’s life consists almost entirely, one way or another, of being a long way from help if anything goes wrong.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 32

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Day 165
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which Jethri and, for a change, Miandra and Grig each have a long and incident-packed day.

Boy, and I thought last chapter was long.

This chapter opens with the first scene in which we’ve seen one of the twins without the other, and it apparently presages that their paths are going to be more distinct from here on in.

As part of that, we get an elaboration of the subtext about Healers and dramliz from Jethri’s first day here. Meicha is a Healer, and a good one, with the rare gift of being able to heal the body as well as the mind. Miandra is a dramliza, which puts her in an uncomfortable position since the people of Irikwae are prepared to accept Healers but abominate the dramliz; Miandra’s grandmother wants her to be safe but thinks the problem can be solved by Miandra restricting herself to being a Healer, a course of action which Miandra is finding increasingly untenable.

(I don’t remember now which comment thread it was, or in what context, that someone mentioned the anecdote about Korval Herself arguing for the survival of the dramliz on Liad, but anyhow this is the chapter where that appears.)

I find myself wondering whether the Healer who gave it as her professional opinion that Miandra couldn’t have held back the storm really believes that, or if she deliberately steered away from officially marking Miandra as a dramliza. (And if so, for whose comfort she did so.)

I like the bit comparing how Jethri expresses himself in Liaden and Terran, now that he’s fluent in both.

Over in Grig’s half of the chapter, he’s having a philosophical disagreement with his family. I wonder whether it’s Grig, or anyhow people who thought like him, whom Val Con and his contemporaries have to thank for their autodocs and suchlike.

Also, there is an unusual and interesting application of the word “brother”. If the byplay about “Arin’s youngest brother”, added to Iza’s insistence on Jethri being Arin’s son alone, means what I think it means, I’m not at all surprised that Iza’s still hacked off about it eighteen years after the event. (It also raises the question of what other ‘brothers’ Arin might have.) Grig’s thought about family resemblances in the elevator seems to suggest that the non-standard definition of “brother” might extend to him and Raisy as well.

(Reading that back, I realise I’ve done that thing again where I leave something out because it seems obvious to me. So, to be clear, the word I’m hearing in this conversation even though nobody says it is “clone”. The implication, as I read it, is that Jethri Gobelyn is a clone of Arin Gobelyn, and that Arin used Iza as a surrogate without her knowledge or consent. I also get the feeling, partly from the word “youngest”, that Arin Gobelyn was himself a clone, and that when his family talk about Arin in this chapter it’s not always Arin Gobelyn they’re referring to.)

I remember wondering, the first time I read this chapter, whether Grig’s Uncle was the same person as Dulsey’s Uncle, seeing as they had certain similarities in personality and interest, and then getting to the bit where Grig’s Uncle has a name, and thinking maybe they weren’t, at least until Dragon Ship came out. (By the time I got here, I’d forgotten that one of Dulsey’s associates was named Arin, or I’d have wondered about that, too.)

Right now, I’m not sure whether Uncle Yuri is the same man as The Uncle, though it seems he’s pursuing the same line of work. Perhaps he is The Uncle’s younger brother…

(I’ve compared the physical descriptions of the two Uncles, which was unhelpful to a point that seems almost suspicious. They have very little overlap in which details they focus on: only one mentions an eye color, only one says anything useful about hair color, and so on. The only details that coincide are that both are tall and lean, and many men are both of those. Grig, for one, as we were reminded a few pages earlier – and that makes me wonder, for the first time, whose younger brother he might be.)

Balance of Trade – Chapter 31

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Day 161
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which Jethri and Khat each have a long and incident-packed day.

Well now, this is a long chapter.

Khat’s day brings her to Banth, an inhospitable planet which a surprising number of Liadens seem to want to visit. And among them, the chel’Gaibin and her son, who reacts badly to encountering one of Jethri’s kin. I really like the sequence with Khat’s friend Keeson and his sister, which probably wasn’t strictly needful to the plot but adds a lot of texture to the story.

Jethri’s day, in between encounters with tailors and dancing instructors, takes him out to the vines, teaches him a few things about the local fauna, and leads to a possibly unwise bright idea involving the device Grig called a “weather maker”.

It’s been alluded to previously, but this is the first time the Code of Proper Conduct has been mentioned by its full title. Also mentioned is that it’s currently three volumes long, a state of affairs that I seem to recall does not maintain itself indefinitely.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 30

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Day 158
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which the twins enquire into the sustenance of Jethri’s kin group.

This is a useful trick for an SF writer to know: when a character compares her culture’s customs to those of another culture unfamiliar to her, both cultures are illuminated for the reader.

What’s also illuminated for the reader in this case is some of the lingering questions regarding Jethri’s cousins, like why some of them don’t seem to be attached to any particular parent. (For that matter, it answers the same question regarding the twins.)

If I’m getting this right, Jethri’s two siblings are both children of his mother, but neither of them are children of his father; he’s the only Gobelyn who is Arin’s son. (Which, apart from anything else, answers another lingering question I had, regarding Seeli and Grig.)

The game of piket is interesting. I’m pretty sure it was first mentioned (in publication order) in one of the two prequels that are most often compared to Regency romances, and the name is reminscent of the game piquet which is often played in your actual Regency romance. (It can’t be precisely the same game, though, if all three of them propose to play at once; piquet is set up for only two players at a time.)

And then we get the tale about using Old Tech to remain youthful, which apart from the purpose it serves in this chapter is another instance of the trick of slipping an idea into the reader’s head a while before it becomes important.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 27

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Day 140
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which the twins give Jethri the benefit of their vast, sorrowful experience.

When the twins are telling Jethri about how much Pen Rel loves his vines, they tell a story about the “mother vine” that echoes the events of “Necessary Evils” and the scholar’s hearsay in Crystal Dragon. Where those were reports of contemporary events, though, now it is just a legend of “the old days, when such things were possible”.

That’s a connection I didn’t make the first time I read it, probably because I hadn’t read “Necessary Evils” yet. If memory serves, I read all the novels Meisha Merlin published before I read any of the short stories.

The other thing I didn’t realise the first time I read it was that Jethri’s confidence that it wasn’t within his power to match the twins’ devastation of the vines was a sign of trouble to come.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 26

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Day 140
Standard Year 1118

Kinaveral

In which someone wishes to trade for fractins.

Less a plot development than a hint that one might be forthcoming, this.

I wonder who this guy is, who apparently knows enough about Gobelyn’s Market to be aware of it as a possible avenue for trade in fractins, but doesn’t know enough to be aware that the trader has been dead and the avenue closed for years. I wondered for a moment if he approached Seeli because she’s Arin’s daughter, but I think it’s probably just that she’s listed on-port as Admin and primary contact since Iza shipped out. If he was solid enough on the details to know the names of Arin’s children, he ought to be aware that none of the remaining crew of the Market share Arin’s enthusiasm.

Seeli certainly doesn’t; from the aside about over-abundant nuisances I gather that she doesn’t even know about the distinction between counterfeit fractins and genuine, or else regards it as a distinction without a difference.