In which Sinit safeguards the clan’s treasures.
I’m always pleased to have another opportunity to spend time with Sinit, who’s one of my favourite characters in the series.
It’s also (speaking now as the presumptuous author of a suggested chronological reading order) something of a relief after the last few stories to have one that says up-front exactly where it fits chronologically.
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In which the crack team of Kilsymthe and yo’Dira deal with some unfinished business.
Being that this story involves an entirely new cast of characters at an entirely new location, it’s a bit short of indications about where it fits in relative to the main series. It’s more recent than the Jethri books, since the team-up of a Terran spacer and Liaden is unpopular in some quarters but not considered a remarkable innovation. The bit about “the asterisked end-notes in the ven’Tura Tables” might indicate that it’s before the Tables were properly revised. Caerli uses the technique called the Smuggler’s Ace; the earliest mention we have of that is in Scout’s Progress, but I don’t think we know how old it already was then, so that doesn’t help much.
The list of customers at the drinkery includes two women in “librarian’s robes”, which I’m not sure what to make of.
In which two dead men are awaiting rescue, transport, or skillful habitation.
Well, here’s a couple of people I wasn’t expecting to see again so soon, if ever.
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Volmer
In which yos’Galan makes connections.
I can’t remember the last book in which we had so many bows in so few chapters. The last few books have either been set on Surebleak or involved people being off having adventures among the Terrans, so there hasn’t been so much opportunity for Liadens interacting.
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Tarona Rusk
Her Proper Business
In which Tarona Rusk repays a debt.
There’s a bunch of stuff packed into this chapter, but I don’t feel like I have much to say about it; most of it is new details of things we already knew about.
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Dutiful Passage
In which Mar Tyn pai’Fortana answers some questions.
When Mar Tyn offered to let Priscilla bind him, I completely missed the implication until it was spelled out; I was thinking of handcuffs or similar.
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Dutiful Passage
Millsap Orbit
In which Padi has a long day.
Shan has a plan: to visit the Redlands, which it turns out is not one country, or even one planet, but a system with three inhabited planets.
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Dutiful Passage
Millsap Orbit
In which Padi and Shan commune with inanimate objects.
This is a surprisingly long chapter and I’m up against a deadline, so I’m going to do it in two parts.
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Millsapport
In which the Healers of Millsap are unhelpful.
That went… about as well as I was expecting, really.
There were moments when I had hope it would go better, but the point at which I became convinced it was going to go off the rails was when Healer Ferin chose to ask the question “What did you do to deserve this?”, which is never an appropriate thing to say to a trauma victim under any circumstances and especially not when one is treating them for that trauma.
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Civilization
In which the Warden is told to expect visitors.
The Warden’s residence is apparently called the Wardian, which makes me think of the Edwardian era, or perhaps that’s just because Bentamin and his aunt remind me just a little bit of Bertie Wooster’s forceful aunts. (Not that Bentamin is much like Bertie Wooster, based on what we’ve seen so far.)
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