Surebleak
In which it’s a new day.
It looks like we’re done with dramatic confrontations for now, and are into the part of the book where things are wound down and tied off. There were a couple more dramatic confrontations I was expecting, but maybe they’re being saved for next time.
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Tinsori Light
In which there is a universe.
I wonder if shutting down life support on the docking area is going to be a problem later. It might make things difficult if they have to evacuate in a hurry — or if more help arrives.
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Tinsori Light
In which Tocohl makes a status report.
I found the jump from where Tolly and Haz were at the end of the previous chapter to where they are when they show up in this one so jarring that I actually flicked back a few pages to make sure I hadn’t accidentally skipped a chapter. Maybe it would have been a short chapter, and amounted to “Everything went according to plan for once”, but it still feels to me like its absence leaves a perceptible gap. Even a sentence or two from Tolly or Haz about what they’d been doing since the end of last chapter would have helped. (Maybe we’ll still get that in an upcoming section, and I just haven’t got to it yet because I stopped to write this entry.)
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In which Tolly suggests a straightforward approach.
Tolly’s plan seems sensible and well-thought-out — as long as the universe obliges him to the extent of the outpost being occupied by the people he expects.
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Tarigan
In which Tolly and Haz clear the air.
Tolly seems to have accepted something he’s been fighting shy of for about a book and half. Things will hopefully go smoother when he’s not constantly trying to persuade Haz not to watch his back.
Haz seems to have accepted something she’s been struggling with, too, although perhaps it’s just that she’s become more comfortable talking about it. (Even then, that she finds in Tolly someone she’s comfortable talking about it with is promising.)
In which Tolly Jones gets a new assignment.
I wonder if Tolly’s ever going to learn that Haz isn’t as easy to manipulate as he keeps thinking she is. (I wonder if he’s not letting himself learn it, because the thing he keeps failing to take into account is her connection to him, and processing that would mean thinking about the implications.)
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Admiral Bunter
In which Hazenthull is observant.
I was a bit harsh about the switching between storylines last time, and as it turns out unfairly so: this time, though I was expecting it to, the pull to continue didn’t cut off when the story switched. It could be that we’ve now reached the point where every storyline’s got going, so even when it switches away from a storyline where things are exciting, things are just as exciting in the storyline it’s switching to.
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In which Tolly offers Hazenthull a game of cards.
Looking back over my past posts, I apparently never got around to remarking on the fact that Nostrilia has almost the same name as Cordwainer Smith’s most famous planet in the universe (as seen in the novel Norstrilia, the short story “Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons”, and others). I’ve been waiting nearly two years for the story to reach Nostrilia so I can see if the two planets have anything in common beyond their names.
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Admiral Bunter
In which the cavalry arrives.
Well, I say cavalry. It’s more like a couple of guys on horses, and they might end up needing to be rescued as much as they manage to do any rescuing.
I like the little echo of Tolly noting that the only way he could get Admiral Bunter more prepared is by feeding military programs directly into his core, continuing the reflecting of concepts back and forth between the story of Admiral Bunter and Tolly and the story of Tocohl and Inki.
In which Hazenthull gets the call.
Well, it’s about time.
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