Tag Archives: Mandrin

Saltation – Chapter 26

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Codrescu Station
Eylot Nearspace

In which Theo becomes a Guild member in good standing.

The bit about Hevelin being more directly inquisitive and seeming to understand more than the norbears in Vashtara‘s pet library accords with what I remember from their respective previous appearances. It’s also interesting, although there isn’t enough information to be sure what it means, if anything. Is it because Hevelin is older than the pet library norbears? Or because they’re “hothouse norbears”, raised in a comfortable environment (by people who think they’re just clever animals) while Hevelin’s been making his own way in the universe? Or perhaps the line of causality runs the other way, and Hevelin’s intellect and personality led him as a young norbear to choose a wandering life instead of settling for a cushy spot somewhere.

Fledgling – Chapter 42

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Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo turns fifteen.

This is one of those cases where I don’t feel inspired to talk about any of the things I might have talked about if I were reading the novel for the first time, and there weren’t many new things I noticed. Although I did notice this time Jen Sar’s fishing trip in the mountains, which I suspect was at least partly intended to lay a foundation for a tale to tell anyone who asks where the idea of the old-style Gigneri came from.

I will note that this is another novel I like more after this re-read than I thought I did after I read it the first time.

It’s not easy to establish precisely when Fledgling takes place, due to a lack of outside referents. From Theo’s age we know that it’s more than fifteen years since Jen Sar came to Delgado at the end of Mouse and Dragon — but, as Theo points out in this chapter, that’s Delgadan years, and we have no indication of whether those are longer or shorter than Standard Years, let alone by how much. All we can say with confidence is that it’s after Jen Sar’s last scene in Mouse and Dragon and before his first appearance in Plan B. (The suggested reading order by internal chronology on the authors’ web site places Fledgling after Plan B, but that’s a clear case of bending chronology for the good of the story flow and reading experience, making it in effect an entire novel-length flashback; there is no possible way Jen Sar’s scenes in Plan B happen before Fledgling.) The positions I’ve given Fledgling and Saltation in this re-read are approximations achieved by starting at the end of Saltation and counting backwards based on my memory of what occurs in them; I’m taking notes as I re-read and hopefully I’ll end up with a less approximate idea of how much time they cover. (But when I publish my own suggested reading order by internal chronology at the end of the re-read, it’s likely I’ll be adopting the strategy of bending chronology for the good of the story flow and reading experience, the good sense of which becomes more apparent to me the further the re-read progresses.)

Tomorrow: Saltation

Fledgling – Chapter 19

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Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo makes use of her research.

So that wasn’t actually the first time Kamele mentioned the upcoming research trip to Theo. With regard to the concerns I mentioned last time, I actually find this the opposite of reassuring, because it means that the trip has been a topic of conversation for several days without Kamele ever once thinking to mention that Theo would be going too.

There’s an interesting narrative subtlety in this chapter: at the moment the intruder is detected, Professor Kiladi disappears from the narrative. Theo’s father exists, and takes appropriate actions, but the narrator declines to attribute those actions to the person named Jen Sar Kiladi. What with the middle section being narrated from the viewpoint of Theo, who regards him simply as “Father”, Jen Sar’s name doesn’t reappear until nearly the end of the chapter. (Readers familiar with the wider Liaden universe — a phrase I will need to find a good shorthand for if I keep using it — will know what name the narrator is not saying. Although I’m pretty sure that the person who provides the answer to Theo’s question about the ring is Aelliana again.)

In the course of writing out the previous paragraph, I’ve belatedly recognised a similar subtlety back in Chapter Twelve. In between Theo meeting up with her father and the conclusion of their conversation about what name she ought to be calling him by, the narrator avoids calling him by any name at all. (Indeed, the moment she decides to continue addressing him as “Father” is visible even before she gives voice to it, because the narrator resumes doing the same.)

Somehow, knowing the history of the Gallowglass Chair and of this particular incumbent, it did not surprise me that the staff of office is a sword cane. I wonder if that’s standard for every Chair endowed by the Gallowglass Foundation, or an individual improvisation. (I don’t for a moment consider the possibility that it might be a custom of this University: this is Delgado, after all. I expect Admin would be horrified if they had the slightest idea one of their professors was walking around with a bladed weapon.)

Fledgling – Chapter 13

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History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which a late evening is unexpectedly extended.

Sinister hooded figures and a threat to the integrity of the entire University? That’s more like it!

And, speaking of things that are suggestive to the reader familiar with the wider Liaden universe: Jen Sar Kiladi’s alertness behind the wheel of his rally car. We know, though Theo doesn’t, that he used to be a pilot, and he’s been grounded for over a decade; racing the car is likely the closest he’s been able to get to flying in all that time. And, of course, the reviving of the pilot he used to be is accompanied by the reviving of other parts of himself that haven’t seen much use in the last few years.

I can see how the Simples fit in as an extreme form of Delgado’s emphasis on teamwork and consensus. That doesn’t make them less sinister, though.

(And a passing thought, brought on by Jen Sar’s Bjornson-Bellevale College and Kamele’s Oriel College: I wonder if those two colleges are named after women, and if the reason Theo’s school gets the full “Stephen M. Richardson” is because otherwise people would assume it too was named after a woman?)

Fledgling – Chapter 12

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Cultural Genetics Program
Bjornson-Bellevale College of Arts and Sciences
University of Delgado

In which Theo has dinner with her father.

So, like I was saying, after that brief moment of peace and domestic harmony, comes… more peace and domestic harmony? Whatever storm this is the calm before must be really awful.

With Kartor getting a surname this chapter, all of Four Team Three are now equipped with names both fore- and sur-.

The uncharacteristic clumsiness of Theo’s father is definitely suggestive to a reader familiar with the wider Liaden universe; we saw his old teacher pull the same trick back in Scout’s Progress.

It also brings on an observation which I’m sure is influenced by me remembering things that haven’t happened yet, but I’m going to pass it on anyway: Theo was able to catch both the objects Professor Kiladi dropped without any difficulty. Conversely, every incident of her supposed clumsiness we’ve seen has involved colliding or tangling with a person — a trend reinforced by her self-description in chapter nine. This doesn’t mean that Theo isn’t the problem, since she’s still the common thread among the incidents, but it does suggest that the problem isn’t so much a lack of control of her own movements as a flaw in her understanding of the movements of others. Put her in the middle of a crowd of people and trouble is bound to follow, but give her an inanimate object moving according to the basic laws of physics, and she’s fine.

Fledgling – Chapter 3

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Fourth Form Ready Room
Professor Stephen M. Richardson Secondary School
University of Delgado

In which Theo goes to school and learns something helpful.

It’s the return of our old friend, The Scene Where The Heroine Looks In A Mirror. At least this one does a reasonable job of staying inside the viewpoint character’s head. (And now I’m trying to remember whether we’ve ever had a scene where any of the male characters looks in a mirror for the benefit of the readers. I don’t recall any, but I’m willing to believe that that’s a fault in my memory rather than in the story-telling.)

I’m not sure I approve of that clock. It would depend to some extent on whether everybody is given the same amount of time between the first announcement and the note being made in their file, and what happens to people who are genuinely incapable of getting out of bed quickly. Either way, it’s the first of several details in this chapter that are starting to build up a picture of Delgado as a society that pays really close attention to whether its citizens are doing What’s Good For Them.

Fledgling – Chapter 2

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University of Delgado
Faculty Residence Wall
Quadrant Eight, Building Two

In which Kamele and Theo — and Coyster — arrive in their new lodgings.

When I first read Fledgling, Kamele Waitley came as a complete surprise to me. In retrospect, this seems short-sighted even to myself, but it must be remembered that, Theo having said nothing about her mother in I Dare, the only previous reference to her was in “Breath’s Duty”, and that only a brief mention of an unnamed woman whom the authors, lacking space for a more complete explanation, chose to describe as Professor Kiladi’s mistress. That entirely misleading word, combined with the apparent equanimity with which Kiladi took leave of her (which with hindsight I can see as a Liaden presenting a calm face to an unpleasant necessity), produced in me an impression that left me entirely unprepared for Scholar Waitley, Jen Sar Kiladi’s friend and life-partner, when Fledgling presented her full-formed.

In this chapter Theo, who has lived her entire life in Kiladi’s house out in the suburbs, is not adjusting easily to the standard of accommodation in the Faculty Residence Wall. I suspect that Kamele is having similar difficulty, and it’s contributing to her mood; although, if memory serves, she lived in the Wall her whole life before she met Kiladi, she has also lived Theo’s entire life in Kiladi’s house, and young as Theo is that’s plenty of time to have acclimated to a new way of living.

This being a re-read, I know what prompted Kamele to move back to the Wall, and can see that her response to Theo’s question about it contains an actual answer carefully set in a false context constructed from statements that are each true in general but not actually relevant to the particular situation under discussion. (Notice how some of the time she’s talking about what “a scholar” can or should do, and only very briefly about herself specifically.)

Fledgling – Chapter 1

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Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo Waitley has to leave home.

A new novel, and a new character — and also some old ones, as Theo’s parents are Kamele Waitley and Jen Sar Kiladi, who we last saw newly-acquainted at the end of Mouse and Dragon.

Part of the interest of reading Fledgling the first time, for me, was seeing the way the authors expanded on hints about Kiladi’s life on Delgado that had been given in other stories written earlier but set later: Kiladi’s office; Theo; the family tradition about Delm Korval, which is rather different and somewhat more complicated than the first-published mention of it suggested… and Kamele Waitley, who was honestly a complete surprise to me (for reasons I think I’ll save for when she actually appears).

This chapter also contains the first mentions of several new details about Delgado that will continue to unfold over the course of the novel, including the Office of Safety, the Chapelia, and the matriarchal system in which Theo is her mother’s daughter and Jen Sar’s relationship with them both continues only so long as Kamele chooses to continue it.

With the benefit of knowing what’s coming, I can see and appreciate the clever dance the authors have done to distract the reader from the fact that we’re not shown where Coyster went at the end of the chapter.

Am I alone in really wanting to read those books on Theo’s shelf?