Tag Archives: rugs

Fledgling – Chapter 5

7 Replies

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

5 Replies

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.)

Intelligent Design

16 Replies

In which Trealla Fantrol gets a new butler.

This is another story where I wonder how it comes over to a reader who hadn’t read any of the later-set novels featuring yos’Galan’s robot butler, and who therefore didn’t know where it was going from the moment Roderick Spode appeared. (I’m not sure what we’re supposed to make of Roderick Spode. The story gives us no cause to suppose that that wasn’t actually his name, but it seems like a bit of a tidy coincidence if it was.)

Incidentally, I notice Jeeves is not the only inhabitant of Trealla Fantrol mentioned here with a name from a Terran story: the cat Merlin, mentioned as an earlier beneficiary of Val Con’s hunches, is another. Presumably that means he’s a more recent arrival than Anne.

It’s interesting that Val Con’s sense for a person in danger responds just as much to a machine person as to a living creature, but it cuts in both directions. There’s the obvious implication that the retired unit is a real person despite being composed of wires and code. But there’s a complication introduced in the fact that he was sending out a distress signal at the time Val Con got his hunch: assuming for the sake of discussion that it’s not just a coincidence, the idea that the distress signal might have actually been what triggered the hunch suggests that on some level technological signals and psychic communication might be the same thing. And after some of the sufficiently-advanced-technology shenanigans that went on the prequel duology, I definitely suspect the authors of doing this deliberately.

This is one of the stories that doesn’t have a definite position in the chronological order. Shan is not yet 20 Standard Years old, which is about the most solid indicator in the story. It’s set approximately around the same time as “Heirloom”, and I take it to be somewhat after, since there’s mention of Nova serving an apprenticeship with Luken and she didn’t seem in “Heirloom” to have had much previous involvement with Luken’s trade.

Tomorrow: “A Matter of Dreams”

Heirloom

9 Replies

In which Pat Rin receives some advice, a history lesson, and a treasure.

With this story, we return to Liad, and Korval, about a decade after we last saw them. Nova yos’Galan is now twelve, and Pat Rin yos’Phelium, whom we last saw as a child on the day of her birth, is now a young man, and considering how he might make his way in society.

Reading these in chronological order does mean that the last time we saw Pat Rin was the day of Nova’s birth, which was also the day he demonstrated to his aunt an uncanny facility with dice — which makes it seem odd that in this story we’re told he’s been tested by the Healers and found to have no psychic talents of note. Perhaps in the intervening years the facility has faded away, or been redirected in another direction, or gone into hiding. While we’re on the subject, though, I did say I’d be watching whether he had much to do with dice when he took up his career as a gamester, which he does in this story, so I’ll note that his game of choice appears to be the card game piket, and no mention of dice at all.

Another trivial note, one of those connections the discovery of which are among my motivations for this project: Pat Rin’s new landlord is a textile merchant named bin’Flora, presumably a descendant of that bin’Flora to whom Jethri made his first sale way back in Balance of Trade.

I’m not sure what to make of Pat Rin’s dream at the beginning. It’s possible that it is, despite everything said against it, a prophetic dream foretelling Nova’s danger later in the story, but I don’t find that a compelling interpretation. I’m more inclined to think, given Pat Rin’s history, that if the endangered child in the dream had a face it would be Pat Rin’s own.

Tomorrow: “Intelligent Design”

Local Custom – Chapter 18

1 Reply

In which Er Thom has no appetite at nuncheon.

The unique hand-woven rug is the more impressive for the detail about it breaking around the fireplace, which suggests that it was made – hand-made, over many years – specifically for this room.

Crystal Soldier – Chapter 18

15 Replies

On Port
Ardega

In which Cantra goes shopping.

Cantra and Jela are getting comfortable working together in their roles as legitimate traders, and both occasionally having trouble remembering that their association is only a temporary arrangement of convenience (or least practicable inconvenience, perhaps, from Cantra’s point of view).

The rug merchant gives Cantra a hand-signal meaning “I’ll be there soon”, which is described the same way pilot hand-talk has been, but I’m not sure if that means the merchant is also a pilot or maybe merchants have their own hand-talk which Cantra, as a trader, also knows.