Tag Archives: omnichora

Accepting the Lance – Chapter 75

Jelaza Kazone

In which Emissary Twelve has thoughts about change.

There’s a lot of thinking about the future in this chapter: about what they will do if Boss Surebleak wins, and, perhaps more importantly, what kind of future they will shape if Boss Surebleak doesn’t win.

That makes, I believe two appointments the portmaster has tomorrow, beginning two hours apart. I wonder if they will collide in some fashion.

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 31

Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak

In which a team comes together.

I was wrong about why Val Con found Tocohl’s voice familiar, but at least I was inside the ball park.

It occurs to me that Val Con thinking about his plans for his daughter’s future actually fits in well in the midst of Rys and the free agents planning, because the potential for Talizea to have a future is one of the things they’re fighting for.

Whatever plan they decide on, there’s no chance now they’ll get it done before the end of the book, but that’s no surprise; The Decisive Attack on the Department was always the kind of thing that was going take a whole book to tell.

It’s interesting that the free agents apparently don’t know about Val Con. The Department knows, of course, but it makes sense that a particular agent wouldn’t have been told unless there was some reason they needed to know. After the attack on Solcintra Headquarters, it would have become general knowledge that Korval was acting in opposition to the Department, but perhaps not the details of how that came about.

I wonder if Claidyne, the former director, knows.

Dragon in Exile – Chapter 9

Blair Road
Surebleak

In which Val Con reflects on his dream.

Though I chose other things to talk about last chapter, I was a bit surprised that Miri’s experience of the dream was of being sliced up and reshaped, when the dream is of being an established agent of the Department and doesn’t include the training that shapes a person into a living weapon. I think I get it, now, though: the Department’s training isn’t just about forcing a person into a new shape, it’s also about instilling processes that keep them in that shape, against whatever tendencies and defences might try to return them to themselves after the training is concluded. The trimming and burning and twisting is going on under the surface of every agent of the Department all the time.

On this chapter’s other plot strand, the thought suddenly strikes me: what if Mr Kipler is smart enough to conceal how smart he is, and getting arrested and hauled in front of the Bosses is part of the plan?

Dragon in Exile – Prologue

In which Val Con speaks to his heir.

It’s a prologue. Not much to say about it, really. It reintroduces the key points for new readers, and for returning readers who don’t happen to have just finished reading the preceding novels.

One thing about doing it in a scene like this, instead of just doing a Story So Far narration straight to the audience, is that it also introduces a few characters, not just in the sense of telling the reader that they exist and what their names are, but also by showing what they’re like as people and how they interact with each other.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 14

Tradedesk

In which Theo explores the shopping district and her options.

That’s two different ways the authors have signalled the correct pronunciation of “Bechimo” this book, when most of the names in this series are lucky to be accorded one. I remember thinking when I got this far the first time that the authors must have fielded a lot of queries about it, or had to put up with a lot of mispronunciations, to expend so much effort on making it clear. Or maybe only the first time was for the benefit of the readers, and this time is an acknowledgement that if people who are unfamiliar with the name are liable to get it wrong in the real world the same is true of characters in the story.

I’m going to make note of the bit about the Department being able to implant a hidden course of action into a person’s mind, in case it comes up again later. Well, it has at least once, I guess, if that’s what Agent bar’Obin used to reel in Rys in the written-later Necessity’s Child. And, of course, we might already have seen it in action without knowing it. Though I figure they didn’t use it on the guy they sent to assassinate Miri at the party, or he wouldn’t have been deflected by his personal qualms.

The sections of the story told from Theo’s point of view are increasingly including explicit references to Theo’s temper and the effects it has on others, which indicates an increased amount of self-awareness on her part.

Another interesting moment reflecting Theo’s personal evolution is when, without apparently thinking anything of it, she uses the phrase “back home” to refer to returning to Bechimo.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 4

In which Kezzi listens, and Syl Vor listens.

I like the bit where Val Con tells Syl Vor about Swan Lake, translating the concepts into their nearest Liaden equivalents as he goes.

(I also like the preceding bit with the music, but not in a way I can find specific words for.)

Kezzi summons Malda by snapping her fingers, which is not the way dogs are generally summoned where I live. It might just be a cultural difference without specific significance. On the other hand, remembering that we’ve already been told the Bedel summoning bell was designed to be difficult to hear beyond their walls, it occurs to me that a snap – compared to, say, a whistle or a voice call – would be less likely to carry to unfriendly ears, and less likely to impress itself on such ears as a sound of definitely human origin.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 3

Jelaza Kazone
Liad

In which Delm Korval considers Theo’s problem.

Not sure what to make of Theo thinking that Val Con looks familiar for some reason other than resembling their father. She hasn’t met any of the other relatives yet, and I’m pretty sure she’s never seen his mother — or has she? They talked about the Caylon at the Academy, but I don’t remember if it was ever mentioned them having pictures of her. (And of course if that’s it Theo wouldn’t be able to place the resemblance, because nobody’s mentioned to her who Val Con’s mother is.)

As for her assessment of Val Con as biddable and lacking in spark, it’s a choice between politely suppressed laughter and a wide-eyed Bugs Bunny “She don’t know him very well, do she?”

Until Val Con mentioned it, I don’t think I’d thought about the fact that Korval doesn’t just have its house and Tree to get off-planet, but all of the many ships it’s collected over the years (those that aren’t elsewhere already). I suppose it will have to allow its several shipyards to be seized – unless they’ve already been sold off or otherwise passed into other hands – but Korval never leaves a ship behind.

I Dare – Chapter 9

Day 50
Standard Year 1393

Lytaxin
Erob’s Medical Centre
Catastrophe Unit

In which healing goes forth.

Erob’s medical technicians think a lot of themselves, don’t they? To be fair, I suppose they have a right to, most of the time; it’s just that this situation is unlike anything they’ve been trained for.

A couple of unexplained visions occur. Shan gets a vision of Moonhawk to match his vision of Lute last week (I really hope those get elaborated on some day), and Miri gets a vision of Val Con in Jelaza Kazone’s garden. Val Con’s easy enough to explain, given the lifemate link, but it seems unlikely, even given the givens, that he and she have literally travelled all the way back to Liad; perhaps it’s Val Con’s metaphor for some safe space within himself that he retreated to for protection from the damage that was unwittingly being done him. It might not be an inappropriate metaphor, at that; the way the Tree meddles with its mobile branches, it might be personally responsible for Val Con’s survival even if it’s not directly present.

I like the moment where Shan thinks of the room he’s in as the “room of catastrophes”, leaving it open whether it’s a room in which catastrophes are dealt with, per the official designation, or a room in which catastrophes are created.

Plan B – Chapter 30

Erob’s Boundary
War Zone

In which Val Con has a plan which is too audacious to fail.

Over the course of this book, I’ve been having trouble figuring out what it means for a Liaden to be one of “the line direct”. Earlier, Nova said that Miri’s heirloom showed her grandmother was one of the line direct and that would make her easier to identify, and I thought maybe that meant the line direct was whichever family line a clan’s delm was chosen from: Line Tiazan in Miri’s case, or Line yos’Phelium in Korval. But here is Shan counting himself and Priscilla as members of the line direct, so at least in Korval’s case it’s not just yos’Phelium.

But now that I’m thinking about it, I recall a scene back in Scout’s Progress where the term is used to distinguish between someone who might wear Korval’s crest because they’re actually a member of the clan and someone who might wear Korval’s crest because they’re an employee in one of Korval’s businesses. So, I guess that’s what it means, and that does fit the bit with Miri’s heirloom: knowing that her ancestor was an actual member of Clan Erob and not just someone who happened to work for them at some point would make it easier to narrow down who she is. (I’m not sure I see the usefulness of the concept in general: wouldn’t every person be in the line direct of their own clan? But then again, Liadens don’t really do “in general”; there’s always a context. Whenever a Liaden says “the line direct”, the meaning would always be outlined by who’s speaking, who they’re speaking to, and what hats they’re wearing.)

Plan B – Chapter 6

Lytaxin
Erob’s Clanhouse

In which nobody’s going anywhere just yet.

Jase’s initial failure to recognize Miri has several faces to it. One, explicitly identified, is that she’s wearing uncharacteristically high class clothes, placing her in a context Jase has never seen her in before. (So is Val Con, which presumably goes some way to explaining why Jase doesn’t recognise him either, though in his case it’s more understandable since Jase only met him the once.) Another is presumably that she’s carrying herself more like a Liaden, thanks to the studying she’s been doing to pass muster with Erob. (Though I suspect her body language would have shown at least a bit more Liaden anyway, after being stranded for months with Val Con.) And then there’s the family resemblance, which, added to the clothes and the body language, not only produces an impression of an unfamiliar person but suggests a specific incorrect direction for Jase to try and figure out how she knows him. (And confirms again, if it were needed, that Miri really is of Erob.)