Tag Archives: Solcintra Port

I Dare – Chapter 51

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Day 54
Standard Year 1393

Dutiful Passage
Jump

In which various people spend time in transit.

I haven’t been noting it every time a relevant detail has come up, but I think by now we have to acknowledge that in the Liaden universe cats are sapient and capable of dramliz-type abilities. Some cats, anyway. Merlin, at least. (Come to that, I wonder if Val Con knew how appropriate the name was when he chose it…)

I feel like I should say something about the scene with Hazenthull and Nelirikk, but nothing particular is coming to me.

It’s good to see Trilla again.

Plan B – Chapter 34

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Liad
Department of Interior Command Headquarters

In which the Commander of Agents considers his options.

The Department has a tendency to overestimate Korval’s propensity for malicious conspiracy, and I suspect this is because the Department assumes Korval is like itself. (Though, to be fair, Korval’s results probably do look a lot like the outcome of a cunning plan if one is not inclined to believe in the famous Korval Luck.) I think I’ve said that before, but this seems like an appropriate time to say it again.

Another thing this seems like an appropriate time to say, even if I’ve said it before, is that the Commander of Agents is a really unpleasant person, and the way he treats his employees doesn’t bode well for the universe if the Department ever does manage to conquer it. One gets the feeling that at least some of the Agents of Change are just as much victims of the Department as the people they’re sent to enact Change upon.

Breath’s Duty

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Delgado
Leafydale Place
Standard Year 1393

In which Scout Reserve Captain Daav yos’Phelium returns a favour.

Speaking of first published appearances, this is Kamele’s, brief as it is, and it gave me entirely the wrong impression of her until Fledgling came out. I blame the translators’ decision to use “mistress” as a substitute for whatever word they use on Delgado, because while it has the advantage of bypassing a lengthy explanation it fails to capture the actual spirit of Kamele’s relationship with Jen Sar. On the other hand, I admit there were also some failings of comprehension on my part, regarding (a) the actual likelihood of Daav getting in the kind of relationship that “mistress” implies, and (b) the fact, which is mentioned right there in the story, that they’ve been together long enough for her daughter to be grown up.

This may also be, even more briefly, the first published mention of timonioum.

One of the purposes of this re-read was to see what new associations would come out of the stories by reading them in a different configuration: what would come out of a story by reading it near another story I maybe hadn’t read it near before? In this case, a new thing that struck me was the first dissonant detail: after a couple of pages of Jen Sar Kiladi getting ready for a fishing trip, just as he always does, he pauses to run through the Rainbow pattern. Reading the story so soon after Carpe Diem, with everything it has to say about the Rainbow and about the Rainbow being a Scout thing, that really jumped out at me as a sign that Professor Kiladi isn’t the groundhugging academic he appears. It says, if one didn’t already know, a great deal about his background in a very few words.

Another association that I don’t think I picked up before this re-read is that Acting Scout Commander sig’Radia has the same surname as Senior Scout Cho sig’Radia, the friend and mentor of Daav’s daughter. Probably a relative, not the same person; “Phoenix” has established that sig’Radia has a history of producing Scouts, and this story says straight up that Daav doesn’t know her. (I wonder, though: I don’t think Kiladi ever actually met Cho sig’Radia other than through written correspondence, and if he did notice the connection Daav wouldn’t make anything of it while he’s keeping the Kiladi connection quiet; conversely, of course, Cho sig’Radia knows Theo’s father only as Kiladi and has no reason to suspect he’s Daav. And one who was a Senior Scout a few years ago might have progressed far enough to become Acting Scout Commander now — especially since the “Acting” suggests that the Department’s recent actions have resulted in some rapid movement in the line of succession.)

I’m pretty sure I got the significance of the Richard A. Davis Portmaster Aid Foundation first time, though.

I seem to recall there being something I wanted to say about the bit where L’il Orbit casts shade on Kiladi’s piloting skills, but the only thing that’s coming to mind now is that it was never Kiladi, in the old days, who was called “schoolteacher”. And that there’s a bit of an irony in Daav yos’Phelium being named as a reliable pilot considering what happened the last time he was seen piloting a spaceship.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 24

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Liad
Trealla Fantrol

In which Nova Remembers.

We haven’t heard of Lady yo’Lanna since back before Nova was born; I wonder if this is still the same Lady yo’Lanna as it was then. It might well be; plenty of other people of the same generation are still around (as witness Mr dea’Gauss, mentioned in the same paragraph, or indeed Lady yo’Lanna’s kinsman, Ken Rik), and yo’Lanna is not as prone to potentially-life-shortening excitement as yos’Phelium or yos’Galan.

Another thing we haven’t seen recently, though more recently than that, is Nova in the throes of a Memory; we haven’t seen it happen since the very first time, back in “Heirloom”. It appears that, with the Healers’ help, she has gained some measure of control over the manifestation, though only enough to ride it out safely, not enough to prevent it. (I suspect that the Healers wouldn’t teach her to suppress it even if they knew how; it seems like the kind of thing where the only way is through, and pushing it down would only make it pop up harder at a later time.) They don’t seem to have been able to teach her to like her talent, either, which isn’t surprising if all her Memories are of high emotion, disaster, and death.

The message of this particular Memory is perhaps that sometimes the best thing one can do is to wait and see how events unfold, and not push too hard to see them ahead of time. Or it might, considering the description of the material Nova was reading when the Memory arrived, be a specific warning about trying to arrange some matters while missing important information, with particular relevance to her attempt to force a certain future on Shan.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 13

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Liad
Solcintra Port

In which Cheever McFarland has a delivery for the First Speaker of Clan Korval.

I have a feeling I’m going to be spending a lot of this tetralogy marking off occasions where something appeared for the first time in the Liaden Universe. Here’s one: first published appearance of the Tree.

Among several other firsts, of course, including the first appearance (in order of publication or of internal chronology) of Cheever McFarland.

If Shan says that Nova is in a meeting with Mr dea’Gauss then I’m sure it’s true, but I wonder if they wouldn’t have arranged some such thing in any case, so that Shan might have an excuse to talk to Cheever first. He’s definitely taking the opportunity to try and get an idea of who Cheever McFarland is and how he came to be involved in the present situation.

Cheever is undeniably very struck by Nova’s appearance, but it’s difficult to say whether that’s significant. Maybe he’s in a particularly susceptible frame of mind because he’s so tired. Maybe she just has that effect on everybody. (We already know that she’s accounted a beauty among Liadens. What impression she usually makes on Terrans, we don’t have enough data to say.)

A Day at the Races

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In which Val Con scores a victory over a field of skimmers and an aunt.

Speaking of families of consequence, here is Korval again. Anne and Er Thom have died since we saw them last, and Shan is now First Speaker, holding the clan in trust for when Val Con becomes Delm — though Val Con seems no more eager to do that thing and to give up the Scouts than his father was. (One suspects he’s going to find it harder to put off once the “your father was Delm at your age” card enters play, but he has a few years up his sleeve yet before he reaches that age.) For that matter, Shan is not keen on being First Speaker, and looks forward to being able to hand it off to Nova and head out on the Dutiful Passage. (Presumably there’s an age restriction of some kind, else Nova would be First Speaker already; she’s clearly better suited for it temperamentally.) And in the mean time, Shan races skimmers, and Val Con spends time with bartenders…

This is a case where the right ordering of a story is unclear, not because it’s not certain when it takes place, but because it’s certainly taking place at the same time as another story. I chose to put “Shadow Partner” first, since most of that story takes place before this one begins (and this ends after that does, if only by a paragraph or two), but they would not do badly the other way round.

Tomorrow: “Certain Symmetry”

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 39

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In which Daav plans his Balance against the enemy which took Aelliana.

I’m interested by the implication that the thoughtfulness of Daav’s Balance here owes something to his previous experience of loss and Balance, which taught him the limitations of the method of direct reprisal.

Using that Diary entry as the chapter heading also provides another more subtle bookend: the last time it was used was on the chapter in which Daav and Aelliana first met.

It’s a bit difficult to know how much to talk about what else happens in this chapter when it hasn’t been explicitly called out yet, even though as a re-reader I know — and, since this is a prequel, even on the first read I knew — what’s going on. I think I’ll save that for next time.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 37

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In which Daav and Aelliana go to the theatre, and Aelliana chooses to be late.

We’ve reached the moment which, this being a prequel, most of the readers knew was lurking in Aelliana and Daav’s future.

The authors might have avoided it by ending the book a couple of chapters ago, but I think they knew that if they were ever going to tell the story of this day there would never be a better place to tell it than here. It might have been told as a short story, an isolated event between novels like the one we had yesterday and the others we’ll have next week, but I don’t think that would have served it well: this is not an isolated event, and telling it here, at the end of the novel, allows one to look back and see all the things that have been leading up to it.

It’s also, in a sense, the capstone of this duology. I said a few chapters ago that we’d reached the destination of the duology when Daav stood beside his lifemate holding his son – but that was Daav’s destination, not Aelliana’s. For Aelliana, the journey is about taking control of her life, and I’ve pointed out several times that each of the major turns in Aelliana’s life during the duology came of Aelliana’s choice. Here again is a major turn in Aelliana’s life, and shape it takes is determined by the choice Aelliana makes to protect Daav.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 34

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In which Delmae Korval acts for the best good of the clan.

This chapter shows Aelliana settling into her new role, and showing that she is as capable of taking decisive and appropriate action to protect her clan as to protect her ship. (I don’t seem to have anything clever or original to say on this theme, but I would have been remiss not to mention it.)

It’s also a bit of a showcase for Daav and Clarence being Totally Not Friends, Honestly.

One of the things about re-reading the series and taking notes is that I’m paying more attention to the incidental characters, which is how I come to notice that Ongit’s restaurant is run by “the elder Mr Ongit” and “the second Mr Ongit”. (I can think of three possible interpretations without really trying, and no doubt there are more.)

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 25

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In which Aelliana takes decisive action in response to Mizel’s message.

I said in an earlier entry that one of the things worth noting about Scout’s Progress was the way it wasn’t a story about Aelliana being rescued, but a story about Aelliana rescuing herself. Even though she is now, for the most part, rescued, Mouse and Dragon has continued to be a story in which Aelliana makes the decisive moves in her own life. She was the originator and driving force of the idea of going for courier, and each time her personal relationship with Daav has tightened a notch, it’s been her making the move. (Which is an important thing, for a person whose life was for so long out of her control.) That continues here: the proposal that they cry lifemates comes from her, unbidden, when she’s ready and not before.