Tag Archives: prime meal

Carpe Diem – Chapter 23

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Liad
Trealla Fantrol

In which Nova learns more about the Department of the Interior.

With Miri and Val Con’s adventure in Gylles over for now, it’s back to see what Val Con’s relatives are doing on Liad. Or have been doing, or will be doing: I’m still not sure how the timelines of the various plot strands line up.

One thing I have realised is that as well as Val Con saying it’s been slightly over a month since their night on the town in Econsey, we have Miri — the previous day — saying that they’ve known each other for less than a month. Maybe Miri is rounding down and Val Con is rounding up, or maybe they’re using different months… in which case, it’s anyone’s guess how long it’s actually been.

That realisation led me to go back over the chapters covering the disputed period, looking for date markers, and here’s what I’ve discovered: if one figures on Miri and Val Con being in the hands of the Juntavas for about four days, and then another four days between that and their landfall on Zhena Trelu’s world (a much more likely period to survive on bread, water, and salmon than two weeks!), that not only fits all the available hints, but it can then be plausibly asserted that (with a single exception) the chapters of the novel up to this point are after all in their correct chronological order.

Imagine that: the authors knowing what they’re doing!

Changeling

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In which a pilot lives and dies in a family of shopkeepers.

Given the way Liaden clans tend to specialise each in a profession, the question of what happens when a child is born whose aptitudes do not suit the family business is one that appears a few times in the series. Clan Obrelt, it has to be said, handles the arrival of a pilot child with considerable grace (more, for instance, than Clan Korval has sometimes shown when handling the arrival of a non-pilot child, if I’m remembering correctly a particular flashback we won’t be getting to for some time yet).

There is no specific date given in the story itself, but the Partial Time Line places it in Standard Year 1390, a few years after Conflict of Honors. This invites speculation about whether Shan would have so readily come to the aid of a Clanless and cast-out person if he hadn’t already had the experience of getting to know the comparably-situated Priscilla. On the whole, I’m inclined to think he would have; Nova remarks in Conflict of Honors that his championing of Priscilla is only the most recent example of an established tendency to pick up stray puppies, and the fact that he’s immediately aware that Ren Zel’s casting-out was no reflection of Ren Zel himself (“politics, not balance”, as Mr dea’Gauss said of Priscilla) would tend to make his attitude toward it less respectful. (And while there are some Liadens who might comfortably treat with an outcast Terran and still feel obliged to shun an outcast Liaden, I don’t think Shan is one who privileges Liaden custom that way.)

On the other hand, the fact that Shan is carrying a single-button-press “crewmember down” emergency signal just might be a result of how many times Priscilla could have used such a thing during her first tour on the Passage.

I like the detail of the medic’s reaction to Shan finding a way through the Code to allow Ren Zel to be treated. Even though he was being Liaden-stoic about it a moment earlier, it can’t have been easy for him to have a man bleeding to death at his feet and not be able to do anything about it.

It only occurred to me on this most recent re-reading that when Delm Obrelt argues for Ren Zel keeping his license on the grounds that it balances Elsu being permitted to keep hers, he’s not just using a technicality in Ren Zel’s favour: he’s taking a veiled poke at Jabun, by alluding to the fact that Ren Zel faces death only because Jabun shielded his daughter from being convicted of misconduct that would have resulted in her losing her license if she’d lived.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 36

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 171
Fourth Shift
16.00 hours

In which Gordy seeks a dragon to accompany his tree.

I think this chapter heading also has an error in it. Several other chapter headings have said 16.00 hours, and they’ve all said Third Shift.

Shan’s approach to teaching piloting reminds me somewhat of his uncle’s in Scout’s Progress (or vice versa, when I’m reading in publication order).

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 28

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 155
Third Shift
12.00 hours

In which Gordy becomes a tree.

A little domestic interlude before the crew meeting, which is no doubt going to have Consequences.

I like the part where Lina is watching Priscilla at work. It adds to the ongoing thing of Priscilla’s friends learning about her, and it’s also a nice example of the technique of having a character compare an unfamiliar thing with a thing that’s familiar to the character but not so much to the reader, and thereby show the reader more about both things.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 27

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 155
Second Shift
6.00 hours

In which Sav Rid Olanek makes a countermove.

Just one of those details one notices: Near the beginning of the chapter, Priscilla wishes she might be told that she’d done something well, rather than the second mate’s understated “okay”. By the end of her chapter, she’s got her wish, although (as is so often the case with wishes) in circumstances that she might happily have foregone if given the choice.

One wonders precisely what instructions the mercenaries were given that their captain summarized as “he wanted you out of the race real bad”. I’d be inclined to assume that meant shoot-to-kill, but we were told earlier that death is not usually considered an appropriate way to achieve Balance, and I don’t think Sav Rid’s that far gone yet. Is he?

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 19

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 143
Third Shift
16.00 hours

In which Shan has some explanations.

This is a significant turning point for Shan and Priscilla, with Shan finally explaining what’s going on and the two of them agreeing on a future course of action.

We get another mention of that elusive person, Anne’s brother Richard, and perhaps the most extensive account of him, in Shan’s description of his conflation of Liadens with elves. Shan doesn’t say why Richard picked on Val Con for the role of “king of Elfland”, but presumably it’s because he had heard some account of the Contract which once prompted Anne to accuse Val Con’s father of being King of Liad. In which case, I’m pretty sure this is the first intimation, in published order, of the existence of the Contract.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 18

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 143
Second Shift
10.30 hours

In which Priscilla reviews her contract, and finds it to be not what she expected.

Priscilla reviews her contract, and learns that it contains an extremely broad clause obliging her to “undertake any additional training or duty considered reasonable or just by [the captain]”. Which, to be fair, Shan did mention when he was giving her a verbal summary of the contract, though he might perhaps have laid more emphasis on it. Either way, Priscilla could have got herself into a lot of trouble by not picking up on it then: Shan might, as she decides, be trusted not to abuse a clause like that, but imagine the uses it might be put to in the hands of, say, the Trader or the second mate of Daxflan.

Priscilla learns that her official service record has mysteriously changed, and now contains no hint of blame to her regarding the circumstances under which she parted ways with Daxflan. Another thing for her to ask the Captain about, when he gives her the opportunity.

The central registry office for the service record is said to be on VanDyk, which was also mentioned in Local Custom as the location of the central registry of Master Traders.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 12

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 139
Third Shift
16.00 hours

In which Kayzin Ne’Zame’s suspicion of Priscilla comes to a head.

They’re nearly at Arsdred, and Priscilla hasn’t yet decided whether she intends to remain with the Passage after that. She was being swayed toward staying before she got the sharp reminder that the first mate doesn’t welcome her, and she doesn’t know yet that the captain has required the first mate to mend her ways.

I like the wrinkliness of Kayzin Ne’Zame’s relationship with Shan. She questions his decisions, but it’s because she feels it’s her duty and responsibility to make sure he’s thought them through properly, and when he puts her in her place, she’s mortified for herself but also proud of him for the demonstration of the quality of his melant’i.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t very attached to the hypothesis of 5-hour shifts, because this chapter’s dateline breaks it, too. I think the model of 6-hour shifts best fits the data so far, with the previously-mentioned fudge for the tenth chapter. On that model, Third Shift would run from Twelfth Hour to Eighteenth Hour, with Priscilla’s dinner date at Seventeenth Hour being accommodated by the policy Shan mentions of allowing an hour off to eat.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 10

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 136
Third Shift
11.30 hours

In which the pet librarian works everywhere but the pet library.

Priscilla continues to make friends, and Kayzin Ne’Zame continues to not be one of them. Shan clearly hasn’t been telling his first mate what he’s up to, or she wouldn’t have been surprised to find Priscilla in the comms tower, but I don’t know that I blame him; it’s not strictly something that a captain is obliged to tell his first mate about, and it wouldn’t be a problem except that she’s inclined to be suspicious of Priscilla, which is her problem and not his. It’s uncomfortable for Priscilla, though.

The norbears in the pet library have a mix of names; Delm Briat has a very Liaden name, Master Frodo a very Terran one, and Lady Selph and Tiny could go either way. (Most importantly, though: norbears!)

Tonee sig’Ella is, I notice, one of those characters who occasionally appear in this series for whom the authors have not found it necessary to resort to gender-specific pronouns.

This chapter’s dateline doesn’t fit 7-hour shifts or 6-hour shifts, unless it’s anticipating the beginning of Third Shift at 12.00 hours. Alternatively, it does fit 5-hour shifts, and so does every other dateline we’ve had since Priscilla boarded the Passage.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 37

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In which Daav and Aelliana go to the theatre, and Aelliana chooses to be late.

We’ve reached the moment which, this being a prequel, most of the readers knew was lurking in Aelliana and Daav’s future.

The authors might have avoided it by ending the book a couple of chapters ago, but I think they knew that if they were ever going to tell the story of this day there would never be a better place to tell it than here. It might have been told as a short story, an isolated event between novels like the one we had yesterday and the others we’ll have next week, but I don’t think that would have served it well: this is not an isolated event, and telling it here, at the end of the novel, allows one to look back and see all the things that have been leading up to it.

It’s also, in a sense, the capstone of this duology. I said a few chapters ago that we’d reached the destination of the duology when Daav stood beside his lifemate holding his son – but that was Daav’s destination, not Aelliana’s. For Aelliana, the journey is about taking control of her life, and I’ve pointed out several times that each of the major turns in Aelliana’s life during the duology came of Aelliana’s choice. Here again is a major turn in Aelliana’s life, and shape it takes is determined by the choice Aelliana makes to protect Daav.