Tag Archives: Group Space

Fledgling – Chapter 14

History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which Kamele receives bad news and confusing news.

There’s a remarkable amount of world-building texture packed into the two paragraphs of Professor Beltaire’s family history.

If, as Kamele mentions, the University regards diversity of thought as a positive good, there’s likely to be some conflict with the Chapelia, which seems from what we’ve seen so far to incline toward the one-Path-fits-all attitude. On the other hand, there must be some kind of common ground, or at least lines drawn, otherwise the Chapelia would be busy at all hours accusing everyone in the University of consorting with complexity.

It occurs to me that we haven’t actually been told what happens to people the Chapelia choose to teach a lesson, though the message has been loud and clear that it’s not something to look forward to.

I find myself wondering where the Chapelia stands on the equality of the sexes. Are there male Simples? If so, are they treated the same as female Simples? Does it matter that their get-up obscures gender markers, or is that just a consequence, not significant in itself, of the general attempt to obscure all individual differences? The thing about only women being able to buy their children out of trouble may be only an acknowledgement about wider Delgado society’s view about who is responsible for children, and doesn’t necessarily show anything about the Chapelia’s own opinion of the matter.

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 6

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History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which the EdHist Department comes to a decision.

In this chapter we start to get a clear picture of what Kamele’s motives are: she suspects that the scholar recently disbarred for falsifying sources is only part of a larger, yet-undiscovered problem, and has moved back into the mainstream of University life so that she can tackle it in a direct and timely fashion. (With, humming along underneath, the thought that maybe, if she hadn’t chosen to live outside the Wall, she might have noticed something before the problem got so bad.) Career advancement for its own sake, the part of her explanation to Theo where she resorted to general statements, isn’t a particular concern for her, but makes a plausible explanation for general inquiry, since it would be unwise to talk widely about her suspicions until she knows how bad the problem really is, and preferably has a solution in hand.

We also get, in passing, an explanation for Professor Appletorn’s mood in Theo’s class, which I appreciate. It would have been easy to write a bad-tempered teacher making Theo’s life difficult for no particular reason just because that’s what teachers in books do; having something behind it doesn’t, given the nature of the something, make him a better person but it does make him a more rounded character. And being another consequence of Kamele’s move helps build up Theo’s difficulties from the move and the feeling that the characters’ actions have consequences beyond the obvious.

The mention of the Antonio Smith Method of forensic literature analysis jumped out at me rather, the first time I read this chapter. It’s not that there haven’t been references to other SF works in the Liaden series before (there’s a Christopher Stasheff shout-out later in this same chapter), but most of those are older works; this one is striking because it’s a reference to a character, in a work, in a medium that are all younger than the Liaden series itself. ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST (the block capitals are mandatory; Smith is the kind of hero who doesn’t so much introduce himself as announce his presence) made his debut in the webcomic Narbonic in August 2000, when the Liaden universe was already a decade old.

Most of Kamele’s colleagues are new, but her friend Ella has already appeared once in this re-read, at the reception where we first met Kamele, and Kamele first met Jen Sar. Which leads us nicely into Kamele’s moment of retrospection…

Fledgling – Chapter 4

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Scholarship Skills Seminar: Advertancy
Professor Stephen M. Richardson Secondary School
University of Delgado

In which Professor Appletorn is late.

I don’t know if Advertance, as defined here, is an original concept, but it was new to me when I first read this novel and I’ve found it a useful concept on several occasions since.

It’s already been mentioned a couple of times that Theo is a member of Learning Team Three; in this chapter we begin to get an idea of what that involves. Each team attends classes together, and if one member of the team falls behind the whole team gets marked down, because the expectation is that the team members will support each other. Having been selected for a mix of abilities, so that a student weak in a particular aspect of scholarship may learn and improve from the example of more able teammates, they’re not necessarily friends, as evidenced by Roni last chapter choosing to spend her free time with another team. Or maybe that’s just Roni, whose weak point is evidently teamwork.

Here’s a thing: Professor Appletorn addresses his female students as “Miss Waitley”, “Miss Grinmordi”, etc., but the Safeties address the same students as “Ms. Waitley” and “Ms. Grinmordi”. I wonder if that’s significant.