Tag Archives: Hakan Meltz

Carpe Diem – Chapter 62

4 Replies

In which Tyl Von sig’Alda makes an approach.

sig’Alda is demonstrating a very closed-minded attitude here: instead of paying attention to new information and adjusting his theories and plans, he’s holding on to his theories and plans and taking in only what information fits what he already believes he knows. Some of it’s definitely indoctrination, like the way he shies away from the possibility that Val Con might be consciously and happily free of the Department’s influence, and some of it is… probably at least partly due to indoctrination, like the way he dismisses everything any Terran does as an irrelevant distraction. But I’m not sure that explains the way he seems to have accepted certain things as facts when they were only ever presented as plausible theories, like Miri’s supposed drug addiction.

One way and another, his inability or disinclination to accept new information is going to come back and bite him sooner or later, when reality fails to match the contents of his head. The question is how much damage he’s going to do before then, trying to impose the contents of his head on reality.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 60

4 Replies

Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

In which Tyl Von sig’Alda comes to Winterfair.

Tyl Von sig’Alda’s impressions of Winterfair are a contrast to Miri’s a few chapters ago. They’re seeing many of the same things, but reacting to them very differently. That even extends to the dateline at the head of the chapter: sig’Alda knows the local name of the planet, but he’s not going to lower himself to using it.

I wonder if sig’Alda was a Scout before he was recruited by the Department; not all the pilots taken by the Department were. His reactions here are certainly not those a Scout would have, but that just brings us back around to the question of how much of his attitude is him and how much was instilled in him by his Department indoctrination.

And once again, the child he encounters is not given any gendered pronouns, and nor is the child’s parent — but, where it felt earlier like the authors were leaving room for the reader’s imagination, here it feels like the reason their genders are not noted is because sig’Alda doesn’t see them as human enough to care.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 59

1 Reply

Vandar
Winterfair

In which the Snow Wind Trio makes its radio debut.

The performance of “Leaf Dance” is another of my favourite moments from the novel. I tend to assume that any attempt to put the Liaden Universe on the screen would inevitably disappoint, but that’s one scene that would be amazing if someone got it right.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 56

1 Reply

Vandar
Winterfair

In which Sergeant Robertson plans the Snow Wind Trio’s assault on the trio competition.

I’m pretty sure that this is the first published mention in the series of hand-talk. It’s interesting that on this occasion it’s described as “Old Trade” hand-talk, and not a pilot thing. Among other things, it brings to mind the chapter in Crystal Soldier where Cantra exchanged hand-talk with a merchant, and I wondered whether they were using the same kind of hand-talk as pilot hand-talk. Partly because of that, and partly because both “Old” and “Trade” sound more like things Val Con would be taught than Miri, I suspect this is another thing Val Con has been teaching Miri along with the Low Liaden and the bows.

This chapter includes another set of minor characters who get in and out without any gender-specific pronouns: the two children Miri talks to at the brazier.

I wonder how Val Con would have finished the interrupted sentence that began by telling Miri she was wasted as a sergeant.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 55

Leave a Reply

Vandar
Winterfair

In which there is an opening for a trio.

Speaking of language lessons, Miri’s a lot more fluent in Benish these days too. It’s an interesting detail that she’s started using Benish figures of speech even when she’s talking to herself in Terran.

I don’t know that it tells us anything new, but as a bit of incluing I admire Miri’s statement that once it starts snowing the place will be just like Surebleak except with happy people.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 54

1 Reply

Vandar
Winterfair

In which the first day of Winterfair passes.

Seems Val Con’s taken Miri up on her promise to learn Low Liaden. (And he’s teaching her bows, too; she recognised the bow he gave the king during the medal ceremony.) Well, she did say she has a lot more free time now the king’s men have taken over repair and upkeep of the farm.

And that brings to mind something else I didn’t pick up on in that chapter: the king says something about having arranged for repairs to the farm because of the rebels having done extensive damage, but Miri made it sound like they repaired everything, including the general dilapidation that she and Val Con had been working on. And it doesn’t seem like the rebels would have had time to do a great deal of damage when they were concentrating on dealing with Miri. So was the state of the farm mostly just the state it had already been in before the rebels showed up? And if so, did someone genuinely think the rebels had caused it because they didn’t realise? Or does the king know what the score is, and is using the rebels as an excuse to help out?

Carpe Diem – Chapter 51

1 Reply

Vandar
Winterfair

In which Cory and Meri and Hakan are Heroes of the Realm.

I wonder if the king’s doing Zhena Trelu as much of a favour as he’s presumably trying for; she mentioned a while back that she was thinking of selling the farm and moving into town once it had been fixed up enough to be marketable, and now she’s pretty much stuck with it. With free upkeep and a guaranteed income, admittedly, which makes it less of a burden, and maybe a few months with Val Con and Miri around have added enough good new memories to the place that she’d have reconsidered anyway. Whatever she might think of the arrangement, she clearly knows that there’s no point arguing about it once it’s been publicly announced.

And then Val Con gives the king the bow between equals, which is interesting. Presumably the Benish don’t know precisely what it signifies, but from the zhena’s reaction it still reads to them as being not as respectful as they’d expect. Or is the zhena’s reaction because Miri, following Val Con’s lead, bows instead of curtseying?

I like the bit about the quarterweight of hontoles; it gives the investiture of the Heroes of the Realm a feeling of being a tradition that’s been around for a while. I wonder if a quarterweight of hontoles is worth more these days, or less, than when the first Hero of the Realm was invested.

The king is another of this series’ minor characters who makes a brief but impressively deep impression. I always feel like there’s more going on with him than we ever get to see.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 43

Leave a Reply

Vandar
Springbreeze Farm

In which Miri and Val Con are reunited.

Ah, you can tell Val Con’s recovered: they’re bantering again. I love the banter in this series.

And after all this time we get an answer to the question of who gets which coloured napkin, though no indication of whether it’s a definite or a contingent answer. Is the blue napkin always for Val Con, or only under some circumstances, or does anybody get whichever colour they want?

This is a fairly significant chapter for the series, in that it contains the first-published detailed description of the lifemate’s bond or wizard’s match. (Which I still think is a consequence rather than a cause of people getting together, even though Val Con here recalls hearing stories about intended lifemates finding each other through their bond. Stories may be made up or distorted, especially so in a context that encourages a romantic spin on the material.)

Carpe Diem – Chapter 40

Leave a Reply

Vandar
Hellin’s Surcease

In which Porlint is not much like Surebleak.

Miri’s comment to Hakan and Kem, that when they are together long enough they will know when something is not right with the other, has got me trying to remember how much has been established at this point in the series about the nature of the link she shares with Val Con, and whether it is something that she might expect Hakan and Kem to share too. Already this re-read we’ve had a lot of detailed backstory about the wizard’s match and nature of the connection, but I think all of that was published later, and when this novel was first published Miri and Val Con’s link was the first of its kind in the series and as yet lacking in a wider context.

Even given the context later established, it’s not impossible that Miri might suppose the link to be more common than it is, since her upbringing wouldn’t have included any relevant information and she, knowing her education has many gaps in it, might assume that the thing she has with Val Con is a common thing that nobody bothers to mention. (Val Con, having a more complete education, might not have made the same remark.)

This is not related to anything in this chapter, but it’s just occurred to me that the gossipy Athna Brigsbee’s name is an irony: the Earth name it most closely resembles is “Athena”, a name associated with wisdom and justice. I can’t think of a similar association for Estra Trelu, unless “Astra”, which means “star”.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 39

3 Replies

Vandar
Hellin’s Surcease

In which Val Con is not the only one who can sense danger and come to the rescue.

It’s not just the Loop, then, or if it is, it’s using Val Con’s own insecurities against him. The mission he let the genie out of the bottle for is to ensure Miri’s safety, and on some level he still believes that she’ll never be safe as long as she’s around him. Though Miri’s working on that, and has made significant progress by the end of the chapter.

Val Con’s hope that Miri would not be able to hear him the way he hears her is, it seems, to be disappointed, except in the narrow sense that she, being more visually-oriented, doesn’t hear music but sees a pattern. Which may be why he missed it when she alluded to the fact; he doesn’t have the right metaphor in place to immediately catch what she was talking about. Or it may well just have been that he had other things on his mind at that precise moment.