Tag Archives: Polesta

Plan B – Chapter 6

Leave a Reply

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.)

Agent of Change – Chapter 19

8 Replies

In which a Turtle on urgent business is no trifling thing.

Edger demonstrates that, while the Clutch are not inclined to rush into anything, they’re capable of acting rapidly and decisively when the situation calls for it. And that, if they’re slow to come to a conclusion, that just means that they’ve given it a lot of thought, not that they’re stupid.

Every time we get a mention of Val Con’s minor telekinetic ability, I go back and check the chapter near the end of Mouse and Dragon, and every time the chapter stubbornly continues to be about young Pat Rin being discovered to possess a minor telekinetic ability. I don’t see how that could be the result of a confusion, so I suppose we must take it that they both possess a minor telekinetic ability. I still wonder what happened to Pat Rin’s.

I don’t believe a word of the stuff about electron substitution as a basis for Val Con’s enhanced psychic abilities, by the way, but it’s part of a grand tradition in space opera of using post-Newtonian physics as a handwave for all kinds of entertaining nonsense and I’m prepared to run with it. (Since I’ve raised the subject, though, I’d like to take this opportunity to recommend the essay on What Quantum Physics Is Not from Chad Orzel’s book How to Explain Physics to Your Dog, which is educational, clearly written, and features an evil mirror-universe squirrel with a goatee.)

Agent of Change – Chapter 14

2 Replies

In which Senior Commander Higdon does not approve of papers.

The intensity of Val Con’s negative reaction to Polesta’s effrontery gains an extra level in the light of Liad’s traditions and taboos, which have not been mentioned yet this novel but have been covered in some depth in the prequels we’ve already been through in this re-read. By Liaden standards, what Polesta does would have been an astonishing liberty even in private and with a receptive partner; to do it in public, and after Val Con has made it clear he’s not at all interested, qualifies as a major assault.

I have a feeling the authors might have known that already, even if they hadn’t seen fit to mention it yet; on the other hand, I’m not so sure about another thing we know from the prequels that hasn’t been mentioned yet this novel. Lytaxin, the world to which the Gyrfalks are headed, is the homeworld of Clan Erob, Miri’s grandmother’s family. Miri doesn’t know that yet, of course, but Val Con must, and yet he doesn’t show any sign of thinking it might be a good idea to head in that direction. Come to think of it, though, if one learns that a friend’s home is the destination of a troop of mercenaries anticipating “a job of work”, one wouldn’t want to head that direction, at least without an opportunity to approach slowly and sidelong and find out just what’s afoot…