Tag Archives: Riaska ter’Meulen

Plan B – Chapter 35

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Lytaxin
Erob’s Clan House

In which Val Con’s kin start arriving.

This chapter is still just as affecting, even though I knew what was coming.

The mention of Nelirikk wearing an arm scarf as a sign of troop affiliation reminds me that Miri wore an arm scarf when Val Con first met her, which got mentioned a few times and then never again. (I figure it maybe got left behind on Edger’s ship; if not that, perhaps when they had to leave Vandar in the Benish clothes they stood up, or in Miri’s case couldn’t stand up, in.) Makes me wonder if that was a marker of affilition too, and if so to whom.

Tomorrow: I Dare

Plan B – Chapter 13

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Lytaxin
Erob’s Combat Practice Grounds

In which Jason has somebody Val Con needs to talk to.

There are some interesting resonances in the various reactions to the captured Yxtrang. The Yxtrang collectively have done some undeniably unpleasant things, but the way Emrith Tiazan dehumanizes the captive, calling him “it” and “that thing”, has unpleasant echoes of several instances when less sympathetic Liadens have applied the same attitude to Terrans. I’m also reminded of Val Con’s remark to Miri, way back near the beginning of Agent of Change, that it’s more useful to think and speak of particulars — “Val Con”, “Miri”, “Edger” — than groups like “‘the Liadens’, ‘the Clutch’, ‘the humans’, or even ‘the Yxtrang’.” Of course, in this case, Val Con has a head start in that he’s already met and spoken with an individual Yxtrang — but then again, the fact that he even attempted such a conversation is a sign he already held that attitude.

I also note that all the way through, Jase is referring to the prisoner as a person as if that’s an entirely uncontroversial thing. As a merc, I expect he’s had experience at distinguishing individual soldiers from the armies they serve, and remembering that the former are people no matter what inhuman things the latter do. But from from what we’ve seen of him, I kind of think he might in any case have been the kind of person who assumes people are people until they prove otherwise.

Plan B – Chapter 4

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Lytaxin
Approaching Erob

In which Miri Tayzin Robertson meets her family.

I suspect Val Con of conscious irony when he says that Korval has never ruled the world, considering how many people over the centuries have glossed Delm Korval as King of Liad. There’s definitely irony, though unconscious on Miri’s part (but conscious on the part of the authors) in Miri’s reassurance to herself that she’s never going back to Surebleak.

Val Con’s address to the child of Jela’s hope is an example of a literary convention that makes linguists and historians wail and gnash their teeth: the use of “thee” and “thy” to indicate archaic formality. The problem is that “thee” and “thy” are actually archaic informality; to the extent that English has ever had something resembling Liad’s distinction between High Tongue and Low Tongue, “thee” and “thy” were Low Tongue, used when speaking with close friends and family — or, depending on context, to address social inferiors. Not the most appropriate of modes for the most junior servant to use in addressing the utmost authority!

I’m willing to buy that the guest apartment Val Con and Miri are staying in is bigger than Zhena Trelu’s house, but I think the bit about the bathroom the size of Lytaxin spaceport is probably an exaggeration.

Val Con’s recitation of his relatives has two or three notable omissions. Two are easily explained: Shan’s lifemating and Anthora’s children post-date Val Con being taken by the Department, so of course he doesn’t know about them. That explanation doesn’t cover the complete lack of any mention of Line bel’Tarda, but that may be covered by the disclaimer that he’s only touching on the minimum necessary to survive the evening’s social event; perhaps Val Con figured that the odds of anyone of Erob mentioning bel’Tarda at the dinner were low enough that they could safely be left, along with the attendant explanations, for another time.

I wonder what it portends that Emrith Tiazan is Delm Erob but Bendara Tiazan is Thodelm Tiazan. Perhaps just that Erob and Tiazan, unlike Korval and yos’Phelium in their present state, are large enough that one person cannot do both jobs well.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 31

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Liad

In which Shadia Ne’Zame has the garbage run.

First-In Scout Shadia Ne’Zame is a new character, though we’ve met at least one member of her family before. Clonak ter’Meulen is an old character whom I’m very pleased to be re-acquainted with. (At least, he is in chronological order. I believe this is his first published appearance, though Val Con mentioned him a few chapters ago.)

This is a difficult chapter to say anything about, partly because it’s so short and partly because the things I do want to say — regarding Auxiliary Headquarters and the fact that the garbage run, these days, is not so boring as Scout Ne’Zame believes — come from remembering things from earlier readings that we haven’t got up to yet in this re-read.

I do wonder how Shadia and Clonak came to be such close friends as their banter suggests. It’s made clear that they’re quite different in age, so it’s unlikely that they were anything so obvious as classmates at the Academy.