Tag Archives: scuppin

Prodigal Son

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In which Scout Commander yos’Phelium returns to the scene of the crime.

I haven’t read this story since a while before the first time I read Ghost Ship, and there’s quite a bit more to it than I remembered. I remembered the mirrored scenes with Miri at the beginning and end, and I remembered everything that happened at the Explorers Club, but the entire middle section I’d completely forgotten about. It’s a much better story with the middle in.

(I recognised the bits with Nelirikk that were included in Ghost Ship, of course, because I’ve just finished reading that, but I remember thinking both times I read Ghost Ship that those must have been new additions to the course of events.)

Speaking of the mirrored sections at the beginning and end, I noticed on this re-read that the opening scene is also reflected in the middle, with Hakan and Kem taking the places of Val Con and Miri, and the place of the rocking chair being taken by a different rocking chair.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 43

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Springbreeze Farm

In which Miri and Val Con are reunited.

Ah, you can tell Val Con’s recovered: they’re bantering again. I love the banter in this series.

And after all this time we get an answer to the question of who gets which coloured napkin, though no indication of whether it’s a definite or a contingent answer. Is the blue napkin always for Val Con, or only under some circumstances, or does anybody get whichever colour they want?

This is a fairly significant chapter for the series, in that it contains the first-published detailed description of the lifemate’s bond or wizard’s match. (Which I still think is a consequence rather than a cause of people getting together, even though Val Con here recalls hearing stories about intended lifemates finding each other through their bond. Stories may be made up or distorted, especially so in a context that encourages a romantic spin on the material.)

Carpe Diem – Chapter 33

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Springbreeze Farm

In which there is danger and Miri is home alone.

Things are heating up, with two hazardous situations developing in parallel. Although I don’t think they’re actually occurring simultaneously; I have a feeling the Edger subplot might be getting stretched out through the book instead of occurring at a consistent pace.

The radio news report Miri doesn’t listen to is presumably connected to the Bassilan rebels that were mentioned in passing the first time Zhena Trelu took Val Con and Miri in to Gylles.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 29

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Springbreeze Farm

In which Priscilla’s message is received.

Val Con mentions that Korval has been led by “thirty-one generations of yos’Pheliums”. If we assume a round figure of a thousand years since the founding of the Clan, that gives an average spacing of 30-35 years between generations, which is not unreasonable and accords with the information we have about the ages at which various yos’Pheliums have become parents.

It does, however, contrast interestingly with the information established elsewhere that the number of actual Delms to date has been 85. That works out to an average of 2-3 Delms per generation, and each Delm holding the post for an average of slightly over a decade. And we know that there have been stretches where there was only one Delm in each generation, and Delms who have borne the ring for as much as fifty years, so there must also have been periods when the turnover was even more rapid than the average suggests.

The message from Priscilla, with its implication that Korval is enquiring into matters relating to the doings of the Department, leaves Val Con determined that they must do something, and soon. It remains to be seen, however, what can be done.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 20

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Springbreeze Farm and Environs

In which Borril is not pretty.

The language lesson in this chapter is one of my favourite parts of the novel.

It is apparently just over a month since Val Con gave Miri the stick-knife in Econsey, which occurred a day or two before they left Lufkit on the 242nd day of the year, so this is somewhere in the vicinity of day 270 (and Edger’s interlude on Kago, instead of happening a week after they landed on this world, as the placement of the chapter suggests, happened a week before). That leaves, between their captivity with the Juntavas and their landfall on Zhena Trelu’s world, about two weeks for trying to get the derelict yacht working, Jump, and scouting from orbit. It didn’t feel like that long when it was happening, but I suppose it’s not impossible, though it is an awfully long time to be living on pretzel-bread, water, and salmon.

Miri, arranging the breakfast things, is described moving with surprising swiftness, an attribute which in this series is usually a sign of a pilot, or at least one with pilot potential. Miri isn’t a pilot, and has never mentioned having the potential or the interest, but given the life she’s led it’s not unlikely that the possibility has never occurred to her.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 16

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Springbreeze Farm

In which Val Con shows Miri the Rainbow.

This the first we’ve heard of Clonak ter’Meulen in a while — indeed, since before Val Con’s father left to pursue his Balance, and that was a very long time ago. It won’t be nearly so long until we hear of him again.

Val Con’s thought implies that he hasn’t been into his own mental safe-space at the end of the Rainbow in a long time, perhaps since he fell into the hands of the Department; it seems like the the kind of thing the Department would want to keep a person from having access to. When he tried to run the Rainbow in Agent of Change, he got diverted into one of the programs the Department bolted onto his brain before he got to the point where the stairway and the door appear.

I mentioned, back when Justin Hostro was showing off his wealth by having a Belansium planetscape, that I’d never before managed to make the connection between that and the Belansium planetscapes in “Phoenix”. I’d also never managed to make the connection between either of those and Miri here discovering that her mental safe-space includes a Belansium. (And consequently, I’d never quite understood why she was worried, which is presumably that she knows she lacks the means to have acquired a Belansium legally.) I’m pretty bad at names generally, unless they’re repeated several times in a context which says to pay attention to them, so it’s totally normal for me to have forgotten a name that was mentioned in passing many chapters ago even if I’m reading a series all at once. Or perhaps especially if I’m reading a series all at once, when each new name is quickly followed by others demanding attention. I’m doing a lot better at connecting names during this re-read partly because I’m spacing the chapters out (which gives each set of names a chance to settle into memory before the next lot arrive), partly because I’m specifically looking for connections, and perhaps mostly because I’m taking extensive notes.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 12

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Springbreeze Farm

In which Meri and Corvill stay for the night.

Sometimes it seems like every time I choose to make a general observation not specifically inspired by the particular chapter at hand, it turns out I’d have done better to wait until the next chapter, either because it invalidates the observation or because it turns out to be an even better occasion to have made it.

(In other words, no eloquence will be forthcoming regarding the emotional and character aspects of this chapter either.)

And now it’s time for another general observation that hopefully I won’t regret when I get to the next chapter:

Because this is a re-read, I know already that it will eventually be established that the so-called Department of the Interior is a rogue organization with friends in high places but no official standing. So it’s been interesting, re-reading Agent of Change and now Carpe Diem, that so far there’s been no indication that the Department is not an office of the Liaden government, carrying out that government’s policies. (The one hint in that direction, perhaps, is Shan mentioning that he’s never heard of the Department — but then, to be unheard of is only what one might expect from a covert organization.) Val Con’s recollection here, in particular, definitely gives the impression that the Department was an authority that could require obedience — or at least that it had succeeded in convincing Val Con that that was what it was.