Tag Archives: Porlint

Prodigal Son

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In which Scout Commander yos’Phelium returns to the scene of the crime.

I haven’t read this story since a while before the first time I read Ghost Ship, and there’s quite a bit more to it than I remembered. I remembered the mirrored scenes with Miri at the beginning and end, and I remembered everything that happened at the Explorers Club, but the entire middle section I’d completely forgotten about. It’s a much better story with the middle in.

(I recognised the bits with Nelirikk that were included in Ghost Ship, of course, because I’ve just finished reading that, but I remember thinking both times I read Ghost Ship that those must have been new additions to the course of events.)

Speaking of the mirrored sections at the beginning and end, I noticed on this re-read that the opening scene is also reflected in the middle, with Hakan and Kem taking the places of Val Con and Miri, and the place of the rocking chair being taken by a different rocking chair.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 69

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Winterfair

In which Hakan sees a thing that he cannot have seen.

The first published description of an autodoc in action, and one of the more detailed explanations of what it is an autodoc actually does.

The autodoc’s analysis indicates that Miri caught a bit of the MemStim that felled sig’Alda, which presumably explains why she’s been reliving Klamath all the way to the ship. (Not that it needs a memory drug for a gravely injured person to be reliving a past trauma, but it might otherwise have been a bit of coincidence that she was reliving precisely that one.)

It probably says something about sig’Alda that he didn’t bother to hide the footprint trail from his ship. Even given an out-of-the-way location, it might have been better tradecraft to make it less easy for someone to stumble across if they happened to be passing. I have a nasty suspicion that he didn’t bother because he figured any local who found the ship would be done in by the security system, and as far as he was concerned that was a satisfactory state of affairs.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 51

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Vandar
Winterfair

In which Cory and Meri and Hakan are Heroes of the Realm.

I wonder if the king’s doing Zhena Trelu as much of a favour as he’s presumably trying for; she mentioned a while back that she was thinking of selling the farm and moving into town once it had been fixed up enough to be marketable, and now she’s pretty much stuck with it. With free upkeep and a guaranteed income, admittedly, which makes it less of a burden, and maybe a few months with Val Con and Miri around have added enough good new memories to the place that she’d have reconsidered anyway. Whatever she might think of the arrangement, she clearly knows that there’s no point arguing about it once it’s been publicly announced.

And then Val Con gives the king the bow between equals, which is interesting. Presumably the Benish don’t know precisely what it signifies, but from the zhena’s reaction it still reads to them as being not as respectful as they’d expect. Or is the zhena’s reaction because Miri, following Val Con’s lead, bows instead of curtseying?

I like the bit about the quarterweight of hontoles; it gives the investiture of the Heroes of the Realm a feeling of being a tradition that’s been around for a while. I wonder if a quarterweight of hontoles is worth more these days, or less, than when the first Hero of the Realm was invested.

The king is another of this series’ minor characters who makes a brief but impressively deep impression. I always feel like there’s more going on with him than we ever get to see.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 40

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Hellin’s Surcease

In which Porlint is not much like Surebleak.

Miri’s comment to Hakan and Kem, that when they are together long enough they will know when something is not right with the other, has got me trying to remember how much has been established at this point in the series about the nature of the link she shares with Val Con, and whether it is something that she might expect Hakan and Kem to share too. Already this re-read we’ve had a lot of detailed backstory about the wizard’s match and nature of the connection, but I think all of that was published later, and when this novel was first published Miri and Val Con’s link was the first of its kind in the series and as yet lacking in a wider context.

Even given the context later established, it’s not impossible that Miri might suppose the link to be more common than it is, since her upbringing wouldn’t have included any relevant information and she, knowing her education has many gaps in it, might assume that the thing she has with Val Con is a common thing that nobody bothers to mention. (Val Con, having a more complete education, might not have made the same remark.)

This is not related to anything in this chapter, but it’s just occurred to me that the gossipy Athna Brigsbee’s name is an irony: the Earth name it most closely resembles is “Athena”, a name associated with wisdom and justice. I can’t think of a similar association for Estra Trelu, unless “Astra”, which means “star”.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 20

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Springbreeze Farm and Environs

In which Borril is not pretty.

The language lesson in this chapter is one of my favourite parts of the novel.

It is apparently just over a month since Val Con gave Miri the stick-knife in Econsey, which occurred a day or two before they left Lufkit on the 242nd day of the year, so this is somewhere in the vicinity of day 270 (and Edger’s interlude on Kago, instead of happening a week after they landed on this world, as the placement of the chapter suggests, happened a week before). That leaves, between their captivity with the Juntavas and their landfall on Zhena Trelu’s world, about two weeks for trying to get the derelict yacht working, Jump, and scouting from orbit. It didn’t feel like that long when it was happening, but I suppose it’s not impossible, though it is an awfully long time to be living on pretzel-bread, water, and salmon.

Miri, arranging the breakfast things, is described moving with surprising swiftness, an attribute which in this series is usually a sign of a pilot, or at least one with pilot potential. Miri isn’t a pilot, and has never mentioned having the potential or the interest, but given the life she’s led it’s not unlikely that the possibility has never occurred to her.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 16

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Springbreeze Farm

In which Val Con shows Miri the Rainbow.

This the first we’ve heard of Clonak ter’Meulen in a while — indeed, since before Val Con’s father left to pursue his Balance, and that was a very long time ago. It won’t be nearly so long until we hear of him again.

Val Con’s thought implies that he hasn’t been into his own mental safe-space at the end of the Rainbow in a long time, perhaps since he fell into the hands of the Department; it seems like the the kind of thing the Department would want to keep a person from having access to. When he tried to run the Rainbow in Agent of Change, he got diverted into one of the programs the Department bolted onto his brain before he got to the point where the stairway and the door appear.

I mentioned, back when Justin Hostro was showing off his wealth by having a Belansium planetscape, that I’d never before managed to make the connection between that and the Belansium planetscapes in “Phoenix”. I’d also never managed to make the connection between either of those and Miri here discovering that her mental safe-space includes a Belansium. (And consequently, I’d never quite understood why she was worried, which is presumably that she knows she lacks the means to have acquired a Belansium legally.) I’m pretty bad at names generally, unless they’re repeated several times in a context which says to pay attention to them, so it’s totally normal for me to have forgotten a name that was mentioned in passing many chapters ago even if I’m reading a series all at once. Or perhaps especially if I’m reading a series all at once, when each new name is quickly followed by others demanding attention. I’m doing a lot better at connecting names during this re-read partly because I’m spacing the chapters out (which gives each set of names a chance to settle into memory before the next lot arrive), partly because I’m specifically looking for connections, and perhaps mostly because I’m taking extensive notes.