Tag Archives: red counter

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 7

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Dutiful Passage

In which Apprentice Trader yos’Galan secures her milaster.

Parts of this, with the ‘prentice trader visiting a new planet with the master trader, inevitably remind me of Jethri’s apprenticeship in Balance of Trade. (I also recollect how the numbers being haggled changed from the short story to the novel of Balance of Trade, and note that so far in this novel the authors have managed to avoid committing to specific numbers.)

Being of a nasty, suspicious turn of mind, I intend to assume in the absence of contrary evidence that Technician First Class Higgs is in some way a relative of Airman Third Class Higgs from Girl Genius.

I get the distinct impression that when Shan moves to intervene in the confrontation at the end of the chapter, it’s not his daughter’s health he’s worried for.

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 1

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Dutiful Passage

In which yos’Galan has reason to contemplate the future.

It looks like this is going to be Padi’s book for dealing with the aftermath of Runig’s Rock, the way Necessity’s Child was Syl Vor’s.

Over on Shan’s side of the chapter, we have reminders of Shan’s encounter with Lute, and of Lomar Fasholt and the disturbances in the political structures of those who follow the Goddess. I’m hoping that’s a sign that there’ll be more Lute and Moonhawk in this book.

Pale Wing is not a ship name we’ve encountered before; from context, it’s clearly a Korval ship, and probably one of yos’Galan’s trading fleet. The ship that Tor An yos’Galan brought away from the death of the Ringstars was named Light Wing; perhaps this ship was named after that one, the way yos’Galan’s flagship is named after Quick Passage.

(It’s not strictly part of the chapter, but I couldn’t help noticing that the Acknowledgments feature a thank-you to Dr Linebarger, otherwise known as the SF author Cordwainer Smith. I look forward to finding out why that’s there.)

Plan B – Chapter 31

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Dutiful Passage
Lytaxin Orbit

In which Tactical Defense Pod 77 has a plan.

A couple of things come to mind about this chapter, but they would be better said later, after it has been revealed what is going on.

I’ve been idly speculating, between chapters, about whether it would have done them any good if one of the people on the surface had known about Pod 77 and been able to get it going sooner. Would it have been able to do anything for them that they haven’t done anyway? The strike it’s about to take will be pretty impressive, but it depends a lot on various factors, including timing and the unknowing co-operation of the Yxtrang. It probably couldn’t have done it any earlier, and it’s going to work now only because the Yxtrang have no idea the Pod exists; if it had been active earlier, they might have been able to take measures against it.

Plan B – Chapter 30

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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 27

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Erob’s Boundary
Quarry War Zone

In which the Yxtrang come off second-best in an argument.

I’m glad Dustin survived; I would have felt bad if he’d gotten killed because Shan maneuvred him into taking him back to the lifeboat.

I’m struck by the detail that the Yxtrang have one kind of rifle for ordinary troopers and a different kind for officers. I mean, I know we recently learned that the Commander of the Gyrfalks owns a particularly nice pistol, but that’s presumably because she made an individual decision that she wanted it, and probably saved up some of her own money to get it, not because of a standard rule. I wonder what the difference is between the Troopers Regular Field Long Arm and the Officers Personal Duty Long Arm: Is the officer version functionally the same, just with extra frills? Or do the officers get a weapon that works better than the regular trooper version? Or worse?

Priscilla’s flash of memory is interesting, because I don’t think it’s hers. The involvement of the red counter suggests that it’s an older memory, from Moonhawk or Lute, though none of the stories we’ve yet been told about them has anything to match it.

Plan B – Chapter 24

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Lytaxin War Zone
Altitude: 12 kilometers

In which Shan finds himself in a war zone.

First published description of how the Tree talks, I think, and the most talkative it’s been since the prequels. Maybe it’s significant that this is one of the seedlings; perhaps being talkative is an attribute of the young.

In a moment that relates to something we’ve discussed in the comments, Shan reflects on the traditional differences between yos’Phelium and yos’Galan, and acknowledges that genetically there’s not actually much to choose between them. I wonder how much that extends to un-war-like Cousin Luken; we know Line bel’Tarda has had at least one infusion from relatively-respectable yos’Galan, but I don’t recall any mention of piratical yos’Phelium doing likewise.

I don’t remember now what I made of Shan’s encounter the first time, before I’d read the short stories about Lute. Re-reading it now, with those under my belt, two things occur to me. One is that Lute and Moonhawk have unfinished business in this when that is going to catch up with Shan and Priscilla sooner or later. The other is that I like the bit of business with the dagger; it’s very Lute.

Plan B – Chapter 21

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Dutiful Passage
In Jump

In which the Passage is welcomed to Lytaxin.

Another chapter where much happens, but all I can find to talk about is minor details like this:

The message signed by Grandmother Cantra establishes that Plan B is very old. It’s even older than the Council of Clans, which wasn’t chartered until the sixth year after Planetfall.

The Wine of Memory

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In which Master Lute gives a friend more help than he knew he was capable of.

It’s amazing, the details one notices when one starts paying attention. As for instance: this story is also in the wrong place; I had never realised before, but it goes between “Where the Goddess Sends” and “A Spell for the Lost”. (I’m beginning to think that when this big re-read is over, I’m going to have to do another smaller one, just the Moonhawk and Lute stories, to get them straight in my head.)

Moonhawk and Lute have been travelling together for just a few days, and Moonhawk has just mastered her first piece of Craft Magic. She’s already started snarking about how he’s a terrible teacher, and he about how she’s a disrespectful apprentice. And he’s already started offering her new perspectives on the relationship between the Temple and the towns.

The anecdote about Rowan learning to read also says something about the way society works on Sintia. (Incidentally, this is the first story, in the order we’ve been reading them, to explicitly name the setting as Sintia.)

More characters named after plants (though this time with some orthographic variations), including merlot (a grape varietal used in winemaking), vervain, rowan, and juniper. (This Rowan is the second we’ve encountered recently; the Witch of Dyan Circle who was hunting Lute down in “Moon’s Honor” also bore that name.)

Speaking of plants, the association of rosemary with memory is a piece of folklore of long standing. (“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.”)

These stories do really well at the atmospheric spell-casting scenes.

I like the way Lute’s attempt to help Veverain turned out. It’s got some interesting implications (and I bet this is another story Priscilla’s teachers didn’t tell properly if they told it at all).

I like the story about how Tween the cat came to be named.

In fact, I like this story period. It’s my favourite of the Moonhawk and Lute set.

A Spell for the Lost

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In which Moonhawk and Lute, pooling their varied resources, find that which is lost.

Moonhawk and Lute have been travelling together for a month now. Underneath all the teasing banter, Lute has come to regard Moonhawk highly, surprising Moonhawk when she gets an idea of how worried he is for her safety. What she thinks of him is not as clear, since he doesn’t do anything to frighten her the way she frightens him.

Speaking of frightening, the scene where Moonhawk is working her spell is very atmospheric.

We learn that Moonhawk is from Dyan City (like that other Moonhawk, and that settles the question I had about whether Dyan and Huntress are the same). One of the undercurrents of these stories makes another appearance with Lute’s comment about the differences between life in the cities and elsewhere.

The people in this story are named after plants: Cedar is a tree, and Laurel, Aster, Senna, and Tael are flowering plants. (Tael, being a plant that doesn’t exist on Earth, is carefully introduced in passing a few pages before the girl’s name is first mentioned.) The mention of Laurel, Moonhawk’s old teacher, is reassuring; it’s evidence that this kind of theme naming is widespread, and that Tael and Cedar had a better basis for their relationship than the coincidence of both having parents who named their children after vegetables. I also hope that Senna was named for one of her namesake’s more congenial properties than the one that first came to my mind; medicinally, senna is useful but unpleasant, which is not bad for a plant but would be an unhappy reputation for a person to bear.

You know who Lute reminds me of in this story? Shan yos’Galan. They have the theatrical mannerisms in common, of course, but the resemblance isn’t usually so strong. I think maybe it’s the lounging about with a glass of wine in his hand that does it.