Tag Archives: Rodale

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 36

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In which everybody has plans for the first day of school.

In the author’s note to one of her books, Connie Willis suggests that all the best stories with heartwarming/uplifting endings have a moment not long before the ending where it seems that every chance of a happy ending has been destroyed. Here we are now at that point in Rys’s story.

The horrifyingly plausible thing about Agent bar’Obin’s revelation is that although we know enough about Rys Lin pen’Chala before he fell into the hands of the Department to know he wasn’t the kind of person who would want to destroy a shipload of Terrans (including a friend) because one of them mistreated him, we also know enough about the Department to know that he might have become such a person by the time they were done with him.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 33

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In which Rys goes for a mug.

There are several things to be suspicious of in this chapter, but I don’t know if I’m suspicious of them only because I know where the story’s going; I can’t remember what I thought of them the first time I read the novel.

Droi’s anger, “anger that was more than half vey“, is interesting, both for the half that is vey (that is, inspired by the gift by which she sees things that others don’t see), and for the half that isn’t.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 32

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In which Kezzi’s mother meets Kezzi’s grandmother.

And now I’m thinking I may have been over-hasty in concluding that my younger self was wrong about which ship Kezzi was interested in; Silain’s reaction suggests that she, at least, is thinking of the Bedel ship. Of course, since Kezzi never actually said anything specific to identify the ship, everybody in the story as well as out is left to make their own conclusions. Perhaps Kezzi was thinking about the Bedel ship, but the Bedel subsequently put their heads together and find a less hazardous ship to be interested in.

It is interesting that the woman who is no friend of Rys was already settled in the bakery before the Bedel arrived: that suggests that she wasn’t merely following them hoping for a chance to speak to Udari, but somehow knew they would be there at that time. (I’m inclined to consider it unlikely that she just happened to be stopping for a bite to eat at that particular moment.) I’m also inclined to consider it unlikely that she has a source of information among the Bedel, or that she learned anything from Nova or from Mike Golden. Recalling who else knew about the meeting in time to be settled beforehand, I could believe that she has some way of finding out what the Patrol is up to, and learned of the meeting courtesy of Mike’s request for backup, but as far as I recall Mike didn’t tell the Patrol who the meeting would be with.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 24

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In which there’s a new boy in the class.

Score one for Ms Taylor, declining to invite trouble by letting Pete and Luce sit close together.

There’s a large chunk of the middle of the novel that I don’t remember from the first time I read it, so I know only as much about Pete and Luce as Syl Vor does at this point, but I don’t like it any more than he does.

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 23

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In which Rys’s brothers give him a hand.

We continue to get to know Syl Vor’s classmates as he does. Kaleb’s family seem to know a thing or two about medicine, though whether it’s professional interest or just practical experience isn’t clear yet. Several of them have grandmothers, which is reassuring considering some of the stories we’ve heard about life expectancy on Surebleak, or cats, or both. I like the way Syl Vor disarms Rudy’s attack.

Rys is worrying again about the missing part of his memory, and how the person he is without it might differ from the person he would be with it. He may be right to do so, considering that even when he thinks he’s got all his memories of yesterday back he’s still missing any memory of his conversation with the lady who recognised him. (And is that his memory sequestering the conversation because it relates to other stuff he’s not ready to face, or did she do it somehow?)

Necessity’s Child – Chapter 19

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In which first impressions are subject to revision.

On the other hand, the location of the school, and considering that the bookkeeper is apparently on first-name terms with her, suggests another possible answer to the question of where Ms Taylor came from.

One of the things about all these geography lessons is that we’re getting a lot of names of Bosses and their turfs. So far it’s been a mix of new and old; as a case in point, in this chapter there’s Boss Cruthers, who appeared in I Dare, Boss Wentworth, whom we were introduced to at Syl Vor’s first geography lesson, and Boss Marriot, who’s entirely new (by the sound of it, his or her turf is some distance off from the area around the Road where the action has mainly been focussed).