Tag Archives: research wire

Fledgling – Chapter 9

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Teamplay: Scavage
Professor Stephen M. Richardson Secondary School
University of Delgado

In which Roni likes to score.

There are a bunch of things in this chapter it’s difficult to talk about because I’m not sure how much of what I want to say is an honest response to what’s actually come up already in this re-read and how much is influenced by remembering from the first time I read the book things that haven’t happened yet. The description of Theo’s clumsiness seems like it would be suggestive to a reader familiar with the wider Liaden universe, but do I only think that because I already know what it’s suggesting? And I’m fairly confident I figured out what was up with the mysterious research project pretty much straight away, but I’m not sure.

Another interesting aspect of the book is seeing Delgado society produce mirror images of familiar bits of male entitlement, like Ella’s eye for a pretty face a few chapters ago, or Roni’s implication here that males aren’t any good at sports. (It may well be that, as Theo suspects, Roni’s complaint is less sincere than a cover for her real source of annoyance, but if so the fact that she chose that particular complaint as a cover suggests that it’s a relatively acceptable thing to complain about.)

Fledgling – Chapter 5

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City of Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo goes shopping.

This is a quiet chapter in terms of what actually happens, but it introduces a lot of details that will crop up again later, especially during Theo’s bus trip.

Theo’s memories of her father in this chapter contain several call-backs to Scout’s Progress and Mouse and Dragon, with his ring and the toasted cheese sandwiches.

Mmmmm, toasted cheese sandwiches. I haven’t had a good toasted cheese sandwich in ages. I don’t seem to be able to find cheese that toasts well, lately.

Fledgling – Chapter 2

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University of Delgado
Faculty Residence Wall
Quadrant Eight, Building Two

In which Kamele and Theo — and Coyster — arrive in their new lodgings.

When I first read Fledgling, Kamele Waitley came as a complete surprise to me. In retrospect, this seems short-sighted even to myself, but it must be remembered that, Theo having said nothing about her mother in I Dare, the only previous reference to her was in “Breath’s Duty”, and that only a brief mention of an unnamed woman whom the authors, lacking space for a more complete explanation, chose to describe as Professor Kiladi’s mistress. That entirely misleading word, combined with the apparent equanimity with which Kiladi took leave of her (which with hindsight I can see as a Liaden presenting a calm face to an unpleasant necessity), produced in me an impression that left me entirely unprepared for Scholar Waitley, Jen Sar Kiladi’s friend and life-partner, when Fledgling presented her full-formed.

In this chapter Theo, who has lived her entire life in Kiladi’s house out in the suburbs, is not adjusting easily to the standard of accommodation in the Faculty Residence Wall. I suspect that Kamele is having similar difficulty, and it’s contributing to her mood; although, if memory serves, she lived in the Wall her whole life before she met Kiladi, she has also lived Theo’s entire life in Kiladi’s house, and young as Theo is that’s plenty of time to have acclimated to a new way of living.

This being a re-read, I know what prompted Kamele to move back to the Wall, and can see that her response to Theo’s question about it contains an actual answer carefully set in a false context constructed from statements that are each true in general but not actually relevant to the particular situation under discussion. (Notice how some of the time she’s talking about what “a scholar” can or should do, and only very briefly about herself specifically.)