Tag Archives: Seth Johnson

I Dare – Chapter 33

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Liad
Jelaza Kazone

In which Anthora has an announcement to make.

Things are moving quickly now, in more ways than one. Nova appears to have been correct to a fear a vogue for precipitate lifematings, at least as far as her kin are concerned. This one sets a record for precipitate that’s going to be hard to beat.

The fact that Ren Zel was cleared to open locked doors and wander through secured areas floated past in the dreamlike nature of that scene, but in daylight one does have to wonder how the house computer ended up with instructions to admit him. Anthora doesn’t seem to have done it, and Jeeves’ phrasing suggests he didn’t do it. Anthora seems to suspect Merlin, but – and I know I said Merlin and the Tree seemed to have been stage-managing the meeting – I find it hard to believe either a cat or a tree could have been able to access the house computer. Surely?

On the other hand, I do wonder how much Jeeves knows. The enquiry as to how well Anthora slept might be more than just a routine pleasantry, and I find myself wondering about the remark about the new napkin being “appropriate to her station”: does that mean he is aware of her station having changed? The idea of Merlin having recruited Jeeves as an accomplice is only slightly less bemusing than the idea of Merlin having updated the house computer personally, but Jeeves has indicated in the past that he understands what the cats tell him…

I Dare – Chapter 13

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Day 50
Standard Year 1393

Dutiful Passage
Lytaxin Orbit

In which Nova greets her sister.

Ren Zel’s impressions of Nova as she entered the ship reminded me of Liz’s first impressions of Nova when she entered her house, not because they are similar but because they aren’t: a reminder that the same person can be quite different things in the eyes of different people. Shifting between tall and short without any physical change is perhaps only the most obvious. A more subtle one is Ren Zel noticing that she speaks with “the accent of fabled Solcintra”; apart from the obvious point that Liz’s familiarity with spoken Liaden doesn’t extend to recognising such details, it’s a reminder that Ren Zel himself, though Liaden, is not from Liad.

This chapter has another case of one person being quite different things, this time depending on which hat she wears. Shan’s sister Nova yos’Galan is glad that he and Priscilla have declared lifemates, even though Shan’s First Speaker Nova yos’Galan has her doubts about the timing and is not impressed about not being consulted first.

For a moment, both of the novel’s plot strands revolve around the concern of Korval being left without a pilot to be Delm, which does go some way to weaving them together despite their large separation in space and time.

Plan B – Chapter 24

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Lytaxin War Zone
Altitude: 12 kilometers

In which Shan finds himself in a war zone.

First published description of how the Tree talks, I think, and the most talkative it’s been since the prequels. Maybe it’s significant that this is one of the seedlings; perhaps being talkative is an attribute of the young.

In a moment that relates to something we’ve discussed in the comments, Shan reflects on the traditional differences between yos’Phelium and yos’Galan, and acknowledges that genetically there’s not actually much to choose between them. I wonder how much that extends to un-war-like Cousin Luken; we know Line bel’Tarda has had at least one infusion from relatively-respectable yos’Galan, but I don’t recall any mention of piratical yos’Phelium doing likewise.

I don’t remember now what I made of Shan’s encounter the first time, before I’d read the short stories about Lute. Re-reading it now, with those under my belt, two things occur to me. One is that Lute and Moonhawk have unfinished business in this when that is going to catch up with Shan and Priscilla sooner or later. The other is that I like the bit of business with the dagger; it’s very Lute.

Plan B – Chapter 21

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Dutiful Passage
In Jump

In which the Passage is welcomed to Lytaxin.

Another chapter where much happens, but all I can find to talk about is minor details like this:

The message signed by Grandmother Cantra establishes that Plan B is very old. It’s even older than the Council of Clans, which wasn’t chartered until the sixth year after Planetfall.

Plan B – Chapter 12

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Dutiful Passage
Jump

In which the crew of the Passage investigate the capabilities of the new weapon pods.

Okay, that settles it: the Passage has been in orbit around Krisko all this time.

There are several possibilities for the author of the message with the chess-based code, but I lean toward the Krisko Portmaster, whom the authors made a point of describing near the beginning of the chapter as an old chess partner of Shan’s.

Plan B – Chapter 5

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Dutiful Passage
In Orbit

In which Priscilla learns some history.

The dateline doesn’t say what Dutiful Passage is in orbit around. It might be Krisko, since that’s what they were in orbit around the last time their location was mentioned, and they were loading extra weapons then and they’re loading extra weapons now. There’s been the dramatic business with Shan going to speak to Val Con in between, but there’s no reason that couldn’t have happened in orbit around Krisko too; all things considered, it didn’t actually take very long.

If Shan was seventeen when he recruited Seth, then Seth has been with the ship around twenty years. The story of that recruitment has echoes of Shan’s rescue of Ren Zel dea’Judan (“That’s my man, sir”), and for that matter of his hiring of Priscilla (“Always need a good pilot”, even if there’s no vacancies).

I was going to say that I was surprised Shan didn’t pass his discovery on to Nova and save her some trouble, but then I remembered that Plan B is effect and he doesn’t know where Nova is now.

We don’t, I think, know any of the people involved in the last contract between Korval and Erob, when the child came to yos’Galan. The only yos’Galan child of that generation we know of is Petrella, Shan’s grandmother, but we know both her parents and neither was of Erob, so there must have been another yos’Galan who died untimely.

All this talk about the close ties between Korval and Erob has brought on the realisation that they have similar designs for their clan badges: each has a dangerous winged creature flying over something tall and enduring. I wonder if the founders of Erob did that deliberately.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 29

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 155
Third Shift
12.30 hours

In which there are consequences of the encounter at the jump point.

When Kayzin Ne’Zame suggests to Shan that Priscilla should be promoted to second mate, I suspect that’s Shan being a trader and allowing himself to be reluctantly persuaded into the course of action he already wanted to take.

This chapter contains a hint that there’s an actual practical reason for Shan to carry that glass of wine with him everywhere. As he told Priscilla, he does drink from it sometimes. The rest of the time is perhaps so that the times when he needs it don’t stand out, to give away something that might produce a disadvantage.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 25

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 148
Fourth Shift
20.00 hours

In which even a Mendoza of Sintia must deal with graceless people at parties.

Though Priscilla welcomes the intercession of Mr dea’Gauss and Judge Zahre as divine intervention, she might reasonably be inclined to doubt that that was what it was after it results in Ambassador Grittle’s outburst. And yet, I wonder; we know from the Moonhawk stories that the Goddess is not averse to steering her children through uncomfortable moments on the path to good outcomes, so it’s possible that there was a divine intervention and that the outburst was as much an intended part of it as the intercession. (Indeed, there are times when I suspect that the entire course of Priscilla’s life from that day in Diablo’s has been part of divine plan that we have yet to see the end of. It’s a hard road she’s been walking, but certain people seem to have spent the last few centuries building roadblocks over all the easy ones.)

Speaking of roadblocks, I take it that Shan’s shadowed expression in the last scene of the chapter is due to the reminder that, for all that they’re able to be comfortable and joke together, Priscilla still thinks of him first of all as Captain yos’Galan, with all the limits that implies on how they might interact. If she’d understood that she had the option of replying to her friend Shan instead of to her captain, and if she’d chosen to exercise that option, the conversation might have proceeded very differently.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 22

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Arsdred Port City
Midday Bazaar

In which Mr dea’Gauss arrives on the scene.

I don’t think there was ever a time when I didn’t like Mr dea’Gauss. This was my first introduction to him, and he makes a good impression right out of the gate.

Incidentally, he’s about seventy Standards of age, here. That’s not as old for a Liaden as it would be for one of us, but it’s old enough for a distaste for being flung across the galaxy at high speed to be quite understandable. (Though given his personality I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr dea’Gauss has had a distate for being flung precipitously across the galaxy at every age.)

It’s difficult to estimate just how speedily he’s been flung from Liad to Arsdred, since the chapter heading doesn’t include a date; that will have to wait until Mr dea’Gauss arrives on Dutiful Passage and the chapter heading returns to Shipyears and Tripdays.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 21

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 144
First Shift
1.30 hours

In which the long arm of the law reaches toward Dutiful Passage.

The nature of the accusations against Shan’s ship offer food for speculation. The one about “illicit pharmaceuticals” might be a sign that Sav Rid Olanek has somehow got wind of Lina and Rusty’s thwarted venture with that remarkable perfume, or it may just be the old trick of accusing one’s adversary of one’s own sins. We don’t get any elaboration on the “proscribed animals”, but I’m inclined to look toward the norbears in the pet library; we know from Mouse and Dragon that they are proscribed on some worlds, though presumably Lina or somebody would have checked what the rule is for Arsdred and filed whatever paperwork was necessary to let them sit in orbit for the duration of the Passage‘s visit.

Trellen’s World has previously been mentioned, during Er Thom’s visit to the Passage in Local Custom, in a context that links it with Arsdred but doesn’t shed any light on why Budoc finds the thought of it so impressive here.

It would appear from Shan’s complaints of him that Val Con has inherited his father’s reluctance to settle for a temporary marriage to secure an heir. (Or perhaps he’s just too busy not-being the Delm-in-waiting.) Shan, on the other hand, apparently has no such troubles; this chapter also contains the series’ first mention of his daughter Padi.