Tag Archives: Suzuki Rialto

I Dare – Chapter 9

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Day 50
Standard Year 1393

Lytaxin
Erob’s Medical Centre
Catastrophe Unit

In which healing goes forth.

Erob’s medical technicians think a lot of themselves, don’t they? To be fair, I suppose they have a right to, most of the time; it’s just that this situation is unlike anything they’ve been trained for.

A couple of unexplained visions occur. Shan gets a vision of Moonhawk to match his vision of Lute last week (I really hope those get elaborated on some day), and Miri gets a vision of Val Con in Jelaza Kazone’s garden. Val Con’s easy enough to explain, given the lifemate link, but it seems unlikely, even given the givens, that he and she have literally travelled all the way back to Liad; perhaps it’s Val Con’s metaphor for some safe space within himself that he retreated to for protection from the damage that was unwittingly being done him. It might not be an inappropriate metaphor, at that; the way the Tree meddles with its mobile branches, it might be personally responsible for Val Con’s survival even if it’s not directly present.

I like the moment where Shan thinks of the room he’s in as the “room of catastrophes”, leaving it open whether it’s a room in which catastrophes are dealt with, per the official designation, or a room in which catastrophes are created.

Plan B – Chapter 26

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Fendor
Mercenary Headquarters

In which Nova comes to an arrangement.

Fendor Merc Headquarters is more closely guarded than the Hall on Lufkit, as befits its more central role and greater importance, but there are touches that tie them together. (I like the echo of “couldn’t keep me away with a battalion”.)

I wonder what business Korval has had with the Gyrfalks in the past. It doesn’t seem like Korval to want anything the Gyrfalks offer; perhaps it was the other way around, and Korval supplied something the Gyrfalks wanted.

Roscoe’s little joke is amusingly seasonal. (A narrow-minded person might argue that it’s a week late, but there’s still at least a week left in the season, no matter what the shops and their Easter egg displays might be telling you.)

Plan B – Chapter 25

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Erob’s Hold
Practice Grounds

In which Val Con, Miri, and Nelirikk go into harm’s way.

Jase presenting Commander Rialto’s pistol to Nelirikk has a message to it, beyond “you’re going into action, you’ll need a gun”. Nelirikk already has a gun; Miri cleared him to carry one days ago. But that was Miri showing that she trusted Nelirikk; this is Commander Carmody showing that he trusts Nelirikk, and by extension committing all the mercs under his command to work with him. Also, between this and his farewell to Val Con, making people promise to bring their equipment back seems to be Jase’s favoured way of asking them to come back safe.

I see that Emrith Tiazan is still clinging to the idea of Yxtrang as inhuman monsters, and I’m not going to say that’s not understandable in the circumstances, although one might hope she’d rein it in a bit when Nelirikk is standing right there. (I guess, though, that if she’s convinced he’s an animal, she wouldn’t see the point in that; who worries about sparing an animal’s feelings?) I can’t remember if she ever does acknowledge Nelirikk as a person later on; if she does, it’ll be interesting to see what the tipping point is.

Plan B – Chapter 23

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Lufkit
Merc Hall

In which Edger and Sheather change course in response to fresh information.

I suppose technically Edger has come to the correct conclusion, but I’m dubious about his premises: surely the same bustle would be afoot without Val Con’s involvement. (Then again, perhaps it wouldn’t. The luck moves in strange ways around Korval.)

I’m struck by the term “blood war”, which more than one merc has now used to describe the Yxtrang invasion, but I don’t think any of the Yxtrang themselves have used. Perhaps it’s a merc term, used to distinguish a conflict with motives other than a nice big paycheque.

Plan B – Chapter 9

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Shaltren
Juntavas Headquarters

In which Edger and Sheather decide to search elsewhere.

Edger and Sheather have apparently been sitting around on Shaltren for the last few months, waiting for any response to the Juntavas danger-tree broadcast. Maybe that doesn’t seem like such a long time to a Turtle, though it’s long enough that even they are getting a bit impatient. I bet it seemed much longer to the Juntavas.

Plan B – Chapter 6

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Lytaxin
Erob’s Clanhouse

In which nobody’s going anywhere just yet.

Jase’s initial failure to recognize Miri has several faces to it. One, explicitly identified, is that she’s wearing uncharacteristically high class clothes, placing her in a context Jase has never seen her in before. (So is Val Con, which presumably goes some way to explaining why Jase doesn’t recognise him either, though in his case it’s more understandable since Jase only met him the once.) Another is presumably that she’s carrying herself more like a Liaden, thanks to the studying she’s been doing to pass muster with Erob. (Though I suspect her body language would have shown at least a bit more Liaden anyway, after being stranded for months with Val Con.) And then there’s the family resemblance, which, added to the clothes and the body language, not only produces an impression of an unfamiliar person but suggests a specific incorrect direction for Jase to try and figure out how she knows him. (And confirms again, if it were needed, that Miri really is of Erob.)

Carpe Diem – Chapter 41

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Vandar
Fornem’s Gap

In which Miri launches and Val Con dances.

In Miri’s scene, we get a bit more detail about the last days of Klamath. This is the first time she’s mentioned Skel.

In Val Con’s scene, there’s a glimpse of one of the reasons the Clutch have such long names. Each part of the name identifies an aspect of the self; together, they serve as a reminder of who one is.

It’s interesting that the aspect of Val Con’s self connected to his newest name has nothing to do with the actual words which make up the name. The name “Tough Guy” isn’t about him being a tough guy; it’s a marker for the change in Val Con’s life and self that came about as a consequence of meeting Miri, the person who bestowed the name. And in that respect, it’s like the stick-knife which Val Con bestowed on Miri; though Edger and his brothers may have been mistaken about the spirit of the specific gesture, seeing in it a significance not intended by the giver, they were basically correct that underneath it something significant was taking place.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 9

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Liad
Trealla Fantrol

In which Val Con is missed.

Shan observed that Angela Lizardi is a commander who takes an interest in her soldiers, after reading that she helped Miri get her bank loan, but he hadn’t seen the full picture yet: it’s not until later that he gets to the point in Miri’s employment history that reveals the loan was taken a full year after the Lunatics were deactivated and Miri ceased to be one of Angela Lizardi’s soldiers in any official sense. Which shows that Liz had a particular interest in Miri, which we knew already but Shan didn’t.

Another thing we know about that Shan doesn’t yet is Miri’s reminiscence last chapter about having to go into rehab after Klamath, which doubtless explains at least part of the two-year gap between leaving the Lunatics and joining the Gyrfalks, and probably also has a bearing on her sudden need for a large bank loan.

I wonder if Scandal Arbuckle had any relatives named Roscoe.

Agent of Change – Chapter 15

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In which He Who Watches has an unpleasant day.

This chapter shows very clearly how much Val Con has come to care for Miri, even in the short time they’ve known each other. It also gives some indication how much she’s come to care for him, although she’s more reluctant to bring it out where people can see it, or to trust it (and who can blame her?).

Edger’s relation to Watcher, we learn, is that he is the brother of his mother’s sister. Which tells us something about the Clutch’s kinship system, because that’s a degree more specificity than would be necessary or meaningful among humans.

Agent of Change – Chapter 14

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In which Senior Commander Higdon does not approve of papers.

The intensity of Val Con’s negative reaction to Polesta’s effrontery gains an extra level in the light of Liad’s traditions and taboos, which have not been mentioned yet this novel but have been covered in some depth in the prequels we’ve already been through in this re-read. By Liaden standards, what Polesta does would have been an astonishing liberty even in private and with a receptive partner; to do it in public, and after Val Con has made it clear he’s not at all interested, qualifies as a major assault.

I have a feeling the authors might have known that already, even if they hadn’t seen fit to mention it yet; on the other hand, I’m not so sure about another thing we know from the prequels that hasn’t been mentioned yet this novel. Lytaxin, the world to which the Gyrfalks are headed, is the homeworld of Clan Erob, Miri’s grandmother’s family. Miri doesn’t know that yet, of course, but Val Con must, and yet he doesn’t show any sign of thinking it might be a good idea to head in that direction. Come to think of it, though, if one learns that a friend’s home is the destination of a troop of mercenaries anticipating “a job of work”, one wouldn’t want to head that direction, at least without an opportunity to approach slowly and sidelong and find out just what’s afoot…