Tag Archives: Information Systems

Fledgling – Chapter 25

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Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Win Ton takes time out for entomology.

There are some parallels between the two scenes in this chapter. Both involve an artificial device in the form of a living thing: the Snake of Knowledge on the one hand, and the bug on the other. And while Win Ton concludes that the bug is probably working alone, Jen Sar concludes that the Snake probably isn’t.

There’s a careful bit of linguistic footwork here: It would be tempting, faced with a spying device in the form of an insect, to have the characters make something of the fact that both a spying device and an insect may be referred to using the word “bug”. However, the result would be an incongruity, as the characters are not actually speaking English, and whatever language they are speaking is unlikely to have the same homonyms. And so it is that, although the word “bug” does appear in the chapter, it is used only in one sense and not the other.

Fledgling – Chapter 23

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History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which a conspiracy begins to be uncovered.

We’ve been told that Jen Sar and Ella don’t get on, and in this chapter we get to see it. At least part of it is that they approach conversation differently, Ella with her straight talking and Jen Sar with his Liaden tendency to curve unexpectedly, which makes it more difficult to tell if there are also incompatibilities in their underlying personalities.

I kind of wonder if Jen Sar would have thought better of Ella if she had succumbed to the urge to tell him that conversation with an old friend would be nice if only there were one present; it seems like the kind of response he himself might have given in other circumstances. But perhaps Ella’s right; if she had said it, she might have meant it too much.

Something I didn’t notice the first time I read this, when I wasn’t paying such close attention to the interweaving of details: the technician who tells Jen Sar about the “old wire” is doubtless one of Theo’s friend Kartor’s relatives.