Tag Archives: Mr pel’Kana (Jelaza Kazone)

Dragon Ship – Chapter 27

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Codrescu Station

In which more help arrives.

It’s not clear yet how many of the new arrivals are here following Bechimo‘s example. It might be that some of them were coming anyway, but didn’t have Bechimo‘s head start of already being outward bound when the call came; maybe they had business to settle before they could leave, or thought of useful things to round up and bring with them. (I’m thinking of Varthaven, for instance: do they always have doctors and a clinic on board, or was that something they had to arrange before they came?) Or it could be that every one of them is here because Asu was not only inspired but decided to share the inspiration around. Certainly the way they all arrive at once suggests some level of organization.

As of this chapter, Dragon Ship agrees with Ghost Ship (as one might expect) in declaring that it is currently summer on Surebleak.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 12

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Spwao System Arrival

In which there are several updates on Daav’s condition.

Although the narrator seems to be making a point of not referring to the pilot in the Uncle’s care as “Daav”, or by any other name – the only time he’s named is when the Uncle uses the name by which he knows him – which is interesting, though I’m not sure what the point might be.

Olwen sel’Iprith is another familiar name from the past. As she says, she’s an old colleague of Daav’s who knew him very well indeed; she appears or is mentioned in both the Daav-and-Aelliana books, and plays an incidental but unknowingly influential role in Local Custom.

The Rifle’s First Wife

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In which Diglon Rifle does what he may to help a teammate.

Poker was one of the first new things Diglon was taught after he came under the dragon’s wing, and he showed an immediate aptitude for it, so it’s good to see he’s continuing to develop it. In general, it’s pleasing to see that Diglon is thriving in his new environment – and a bit worrying that Hazenthull apparently isn’t, even now.

I say “even now” because the internal evidence suggests that it’s been over a year since the two of them came to stand with Korval: baby Lizzie, who was not yet born then, has progressed to standing up under her own power.

Lizzie’s development also means that although it’s early spring – “winter having been gone some weeks now” – it’s the spring after the one in which Lizzie was born, and so doesn’t tell us anything useful about that contested spring I’ve been worried about lately.

(It also means that I’ve scheduled this story too early, which is an acknowledged hazard of scheduling a story without reading it first. The actual position would be some time after Dragon Ship – and possibly one or two more novels as well, but since I haven’t read those yet either I’m not going to attempt a definite pronouncement.)

It’s nice that Alara has found a chance to make an alliance with somebody whose company she enjoys and who she has an attraction to, but I do wonder how she’s planning to explain her choice to her delm. It’s all very well saying that Diglon isn’t an Yxtrang any more, but is she going to be able to get away with not mentioning that he was? The delm did specify a “long lineage” as one of the criteria to look for, which means he’s going to want to know about Diglon’s antecedents.

One thing that might help is that, Clan Silari having made the decision to leave Liad, Alara and her clan are themselves, in a sense, no longer what they were either.

Incidentally, I notice that Diam, one of the two people who entertained Diglon on his evening off, is another of those for whom the authors have chosen not to constrain the reader’s imagination by specifying pronouns.

Next: Dragon Ship

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 6

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In which Syl Vor finds something useful to do.

The overheard conversation about Val Con and Nelirikk solidly establishes when this is happening relative to Ghost Ship.

It’s interesting that Syl Vor thinks he might rather face Grandaunt Kareen than Aunt Miri. It’s not because Miri is delm, because melant’i means that she’s only the delm when she’s being the delm, and he’s just finished going through the fact that she’s not being the delm at the moment. It might be a familiarity thing; formidable as she is, he’s known Kareen all his life and has a fair idea what to expect from her, but he met Miri for the first time just recently and she’s still something of an unknown.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 39

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which there is good news and bad news.

Win Ton also knows who Clarence was, which is perhaps not surprising, since Win Ton is a Scout and the Scouts might be expected to have known who was doing what in their home port. What might be surprising is that, knowing who Clarence was, he’s so quick to trust him; part of that is probably that Theo trusts him, but it might also speak to a detailed knowledge of Clarence’s past: merely knowing Clarence’s old job description would probably be a count against him, but there have been better people and worse people to hold that job, and someone familiar with Clarence’s track record would know which side of the scale he was on.

Meanwhile, back on Surebleak, that quiet haven Theo was thinking fondly of while her crew were trying not to get blown up, Val Con has a metaphorical bombshell of his own to deal with…

Ghost Ship – Chapter 35

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Runcible System
Daglyte Seam

In which preparations are made for departure.

This is the first time in a while we’ve had a viewpoint looking at Theo with a fresh eye, and possibly the clearest description we’ve had of the appearance that had people warning her about her “attitude” back at the Academy. It’s interesting how some things are far more apparent to an outside viewpoint than from behind her eyes. (Like when her viewpoint says she “felt a flicker of irritation” and his says she “looked black death”.)

It’s also intriguing to have Clarence imply that her father has a similar attitude, since we’ve pretty much always seen him through his own eyes or the eyes of others who are familiar with him or at least with his family. Now I think of it, though, I can think of a few moments which support the point.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 32

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which the housewarming party begins.

I recognise from their descriptions some of the party guests whose names Theo doesn’t know – the man with the eyeglasses is certainly Penn Kalhoon, and I’m reasonably confident that the lady in the crimson jacket is Ms Audrey – but I’m not sure about the man in the lab coat talking to Shan. Of course, it may well be someone we haven’t been introduced to yet ourselves.

More foreshadowing is coming together: We’ve had several interludes remarking on the campaign to sabotage the road repairs and school building, with one last chapter establishing that the policy of sabotaging machinery but leaving people unharmed – in spite, as we were reminded, of Surebleak’s usual more direct response to disliked persons – was deliberate and insisted on by the campaign’s mastermind (who was not named, but in context and given the reported attitude is very likely an agent of the Department). And now we see that Val Con and Miri are perhaps letting their guard down a bit on the assumption that people who have made a policy of not hurting anybody will continue to do so – which is, I suspect, the intended effect of the policy. It is not only Korval who does things in layers.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 29

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Theo meets more relatives.

It occurs to me that, as out-of-place as Kareen might have seemed as an expert on the Code in a family widely seen as a Code unto themselves, it pales next to being an expert on the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct in a family that’s never going to set foot on Liad again. That’s going to be something she’s going to need to work out for herself – is she a Liaden in exile, upholding the standards of Proper Conduct among rag-mannered barbarians, or would she be truer to herself if she set herself with equal diligence to learning what’s proper to her new situation?

(The rest of the family, I think, has less of an adjustment, because they’re pilots and familiar, at least in principle, with the variation of local custom. And there’s always been that level on which Korval always considered itself not really Liaden, just temporarily resident on Liad.)

There’s a lot of foreshadowing going on: mysterious people about on mysterious jobs, dubious ships in orbit, and so on. Some of it will doubtless come out at the “housewarming party”; that, dramatically speaking, is what important diplomatic events are for.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 28

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which there are conversations on the way to dinner.

Luken’s reassurance to Theo – “You are among kin, now, and the House will be vigilant for you” – has, I think a double meaning. On one level, it’s the same thing people have been saying ever since she was invited to guest, that the house has good security and she’ll be protected from physical danger; on another level, I think it’s a reminder that as her kin it’s within their melant’i to protect her from the less obvious dangers attendant on making a social error.

It belatedly occurs to me that Jeeves has lately been referred to only as the head of house security, and not as a butler; of course this makes sense, since Trealla Fantrol no longer has need of a butler and at Jelaza Kazone the job is already ably filled by Mr pel’Kana.

It’s said of Luken that he is “grandfather to no one in this room”, which is less definite than I thought I remembered, leaving open the possibility that he has grandchildren elsewhere. One thing we can say about them, if they exist, is that they’re not counted as children of Korval, or they’d have appeared on a roster by now or been mentioned somewhere in all the arrangements resulting from the declaration of Plan B; perhaps their parent, Luken’s child, married out of the clan.

The scene with Pat Rin and Penn at the end seems like a bit of abrupt shift after the rest of the chapter, but I notice a thing which ties the scenes together (apart from them presumably happening on the same evening): the one scene has Theo remembering to be polite among Liadens by not shaking hands, and the other scene has Pat Rin remembering to be polite among Terrans by shaking hands.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 24

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Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which Delm Korval receives a letter.

It feels a bit weird, having spent the last while reading short stories, to come back to a chapter that’s only six pages long and doesn’t have a proper beginning or ending. Which is, no doubt, one of the reasons that sensible people don’t take breaks in the middle of novels to read short stories.

I find myself sidetracked by the mention of Kareen moving back into the rooms she once occupied, which apparently haven’t been put to any new purpose since. The same was said about Daav’s rooms a few chapters back, but it’s actually more impressive in Kareen’s case; she left Jelaza Kazone years before Daav did, even if she didn’t go so far as to leave Liad entirely. (Come to think of it, the fact that a yos’Phelium made her home away from Jelaza Kazone says something in itself about Kareen’s relationship with the clan.) I suppose that the house has enough rooms, and few enough occupants, that it’s possible for rooms to be kept as Father’s Room and Great-Aunt’s Room and so on, until every room is occupied by either a warm body or a memory, by which time some of the memories might be faded enough to be displaced by the next warm body to come along.