Tag Archives: Oriel College of Humanities

Ghost Ship – Chapter 33

History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which Kamele explains her reasoning.

…and, just to keep the tension going, the progress of the party is interrupted with a chapter set somewhere completely different.

There’s a thing the authors of this series do that I’ve been noticing and appreciating on this re-read, where the reappearance of a character is preceded, a chapter or two earlier, by somebody mentioning that character, to remind the reader of the character’s existence. In this case, we have the return of Ella ben Suzan, whom Theo happened to mention last chapter.

(That mention might have been confusing for a first time reader, since Theo referred to her as “Aunt Ella”, after having told Kareen in a yet earlier chapter that she had no aunts on Delgado… except that she also, in that same chapter, remarked on the fact that sometimes people get called things like “Aunt” or “Grandfather” by people they’re not technically any such relation to. That’s craftsmanship, that is.)

Fledgling – Chapter 23

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.

Fledgling – Chapter 14

History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which Kamele receives bad news and confusing news.

There’s a remarkable amount of world-building texture packed into the two paragraphs of Professor Beltaire’s family history.

If, as Kamele mentions, the University regards diversity of thought as a positive good, there’s likely to be some conflict with the Chapelia, which seems from what we’ve seen so far to incline toward the one-Path-fits-all attitude. On the other hand, there must be some kind of common ground, or at least lines drawn, otherwise the Chapelia would be busy at all hours accusing everyone in the University of consorting with complexity.

It occurs to me that we haven’t actually been told what happens to people the Chapelia choose to teach a lesson, though the message has been loud and clear that it’s not something to look forward to.

I find myself wondering where the Chapelia stands on the equality of the sexes. Are there male Simples? If so, are they treated the same as female Simples? Does it matter that their get-up obscures gender markers, or is that just a consequence, not significant in itself, of the general attempt to obscure all individual differences? The thing about only women being able to buy their children out of trouble may be only an acknowledgement about wider Delgado society’s view about who is responsible for children, and doesn’t necessarily show anything about the Chapelia’s own opinion of the matter.

Fledgling – Chapter 13

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 6

History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which the EdHist Department comes to a decision.

In this chapter we start to get a clear picture of what Kamele’s motives are: she suspects that the scholar recently disbarred for falsifying sources is only part of a larger, yet-undiscovered problem, and has moved back into the mainstream of University life so that she can tackle it in a direct and timely fashion. (With, humming along underneath, the thought that maybe, if she hadn’t chosen to live outside the Wall, she might have noticed something before the problem got so bad.) Career advancement for its own sake, the part of her explanation to Theo where she resorted to general statements, isn’t a particular concern for her, but makes a plausible explanation for general inquiry, since it would be unwise to talk widely about her suspicions until she knows how bad the problem really is, and preferably has a solution in hand.

We also get, in passing, an explanation for Professor Appletorn’s mood in Theo’s class, which I appreciate. It would have been easy to write a bad-tempered teacher making Theo’s life difficult for no particular reason just because that’s what teachers in books do; having something behind it doesn’t, given the nature of the something, make him a better person but it does make him a more rounded character. And being another consequence of Kamele’s move helps build up Theo’s difficulties from the move and the feeling that the characters’ actions have consequences beyond the obvious.

The mention of the Antonio Smith Method of forensic literature analysis jumped out at me rather, the first time I read this chapter. It’s not that there haven’t been references to other SF works in the Liaden series before (there’s a Christopher Stasheff shout-out later in this same chapter), but most of those are older works; this one is striking because it’s a reference to a character, in a work, in a medium that are all younger than the Liaden series itself. ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST (the block capitals are mandatory; Smith is the kind of hero who doesn’t so much introduce himself as announce his presence) made his debut in the webcomic Narbonic in August 2000, when the Liaden universe was already a decade old.

Most of Kamele’s colleagues are new, but her friend Ella has already appeared once in this re-read, at the reception where we first met Kamele, and Kamele first met Jen Sar. Which leads us nicely into Kamele’s moment of retrospection…