Tag Archives: Scouts

From Every Storm a Rainbow

In which Sinit safeguards the clan’s treasures.

I’m always pleased to have another opportunity to spend time with Sinit, who’s one of my favourite characters in the series.

It’s also (speaking now as the presumptuous author of a suggested chronological reading order) something of a relief after the last few stories to have one that says up-front exactly where it fits chronologically.
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Our Lady of Benevolence

In which the bakery goes forward.

I had forgotten that we already knew of a character called “Our Lady of Benevolence” until I was re-reading the earlier bakery stories in preparation for this new one. (Well, actually, the authors’ foreword gave it away, but if not for that it would have been re-reading “Fortune’s Favors” that did it.)
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Dark Secrets

In which the crack team of Kilsymthe and yo’Dira deal with some unfinished business.

Being that this story involves an entirely new cast of characters at an entirely new location, it’s a bit short of indications about where it fits in relative to the main series. It’s more recent than the Jethri books, since the team-up of a Terran spacer and Liaden is unpopular in some quarters but not considered a remarkable innovation. The bit about “the asterisked end-notes in the ven’Tura Tables” might indicate that it’s before the Tables were properly revised. Caerli uses the technique called the Smuggler’s Ace; the earliest mention we have of that is in Scout’s Progress, but I don’t think we know how old it already was then, so that doesn’t help much.

The list of customers at the drinkery includes two women in “librarian’s robes”, which I’m not sure what to make of.

Preferred Seating

In which Can Ith yos’Phelium finds a new seat.

I see an irony in the description of Can Ith’s preferred seating: “with his back against the wall, and most of the room before him”. Presumably, it’s the being able to see most of the room that makes it his favoured way of sitting, but on this particular occasion it suits him because he has his back against the wall in more ways than one.
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Trader’s Leap – Chapter 35

Healspace

In which there is an exchange of gifts.

I don’t feel like I have anything new and insightful to say about the events of this chapter. And I don’t want to sit around hoping for an insight to show up, because I want to see what happens next.

Trader’s Leap – Chapter 26

Tarona Rusk
Daglyte Seam

In which Tarona Rusk has business elsewhere.

This chapter’s mostly filling in details that haven’t been mentioned in this book yet, without much in the way of new information.
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Trader’s Leap – Chapter 9 (V-IX)

Dutiful Passage
Millsap Orbit

In which Padi has a long day.

Shan has a plan: to visit the Redlands, which it turns out is not one country, or even one planet, but a system with three inhabited planets.
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Trader’s Leap – Chapter 6

Tarona Rusk
Auxiliary Services

In which Section Head Tarona Rusk catches up on the news of her department.

More details about the consequences of the Healing of Tarona Rusk, and more things whose absence was felt in Accepting the Lance. It’s going to be interesting, at some point in the future, to re-read this stretch of the series with Trader’s Leap included in chronological order, and see how much that changes how I feel about Accepting the Lance.
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Trader’s Leap – Chapter 4

Dutiful Passage
Approaching Jump

In which the Master Trader and his apprentice return to work.

According to my notes, this is the first substantial mention of Gordy — not counting a couple of times when people have mentioned him while running through the members of Clan Korval — since I Dare. I hadn’t realised it was that long.
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Trader’s Leap – Chapter 2

Tarona Rusk
Langlast Departure

In which Tarona Rusk takes stock of herself.

I think that when Tarona Rusk assumes that Shan intentionally set her up as a weapon against the Department, she’s making the usual mistake of the Department-trained of projecting their own methods and motives onto Korval. As accounted in Alliance of Equals, the two motivations for his actions that she dismisses out of hand are the two that were most on his mind at the time, and far from expecting her to take on the Department he expected her to want help staying away from them.
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