Tag Archives: Tayzin heirloom

Misfits

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In which Ichliad Brunner’s family finds him embarrassing.

At no point in the story does anybody get around to correcting Tech Brunner’s mistaken impression of who Miri is and what she’s doing; on the contrary, it’s apparently confirmed when she shows up again speaking Liaden like a native. This is amusing for those of us who have read the novels and know Miri’s story, but I wonder how it would look to a reader who hadn’t and didn’t. Would the lack of any explanation of Miri’s behaviour appear as a gap in the story, like the lack of any explanation of what Korval’s up to?

(I also see that Skel’s fate is not mentioned, but I think in that case a reader familiar with the shapes stories take can probably figure it out.)

Neither of the dates at the beginning and end matches up neatly with the dates given in I Dare. The date given for the attack on Solcintra at the beginning is the day after the date given in the novel (though I suppose the attack might have lasted long enough to carry over into a new date, according to the Standard Calendar, and the novel neglected to mention it in the excitement). The final scene, which clearly takes place after Korval is ordered off Liad and decides to migrate to Surebleak, is given a date two whole days before the date on which those things occur in the novel.

(And now it probably sounds like I don’t like this story. I do, really, I’m just not finding words to talk much about the things I like.)

Tomorrow: We return to Theo Waitley – and, at last, to sensible chapter numbers – with Saltation chapter 33.

Plan B – Chapter 10

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Lufkit
358 Epling Street

In which two Eldemas consult on a matter concerning their kin.

Reconstructing the chain of reasoning that might have brought Nova to Liz’s door has left me retrospectively a bit dubious about the Turtles’ thinking in the previous chapter. Nova presumably accessed Miri’s records the same way Sheather did, noticed that Liz was on the same planet where Edger met Miri and Val Con, and came to find out if they’d dropped in on Miri’s old friend and left any hints about their plans. That all makes sense. What doesn’t quite make sense, come to think of it, is the impression I got from the Turtles that they were planning to come and see Liz on the assumption that Miri and Val Con might have come to her after the Juntavas stranded them out in space; the idea that they might go for help to a friend living quietly on an out-of-the-way planet has merit in principle, but surely Lufkit doesn’t count as out-of-the-way when it’s the same planet they’d just run away from.

Plan B – Chapter 4

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Lytaxin
Approaching Erob

In which Miri Tayzin Robertson meets her family.

I suspect Val Con of conscious irony when he says that Korval has never ruled the world, considering how many people over the centuries have glossed Delm Korval as King of Liad. There’s definitely irony, though unconscious on Miri’s part (but conscious on the part of the authors) in Miri’s reassurance to herself that she’s never going back to Surebleak.

Val Con’s address to the child of Jela’s hope is an example of a literary convention that makes linguists and historians wail and gnash their teeth: the use of “thee” and “thy” to indicate archaic formality. The problem is that “thee” and “thy” are actually archaic informality; to the extent that English has ever had something resembling Liad’s distinction between High Tongue and Low Tongue, “thee” and “thy” were Low Tongue, used when speaking with close friends and family — or, depending on context, to address social inferiors. Not the most appropriate of modes for the most junior servant to use in addressing the utmost authority!

I’m willing to buy that the guest apartment Val Con and Miri are staying in is bigger than Zhena Trelu’s house, but I think the bit about the bathroom the size of Lytaxin spaceport is probably an exaggeration.

Val Con’s recitation of his relatives has two or three notable omissions. Two are easily explained: Shan’s lifemating and Anthora’s children post-date Val Con being taken by the Department, so of course he doesn’t know about them. That explanation doesn’t cover the complete lack of any mention of Line bel’Tarda, but that may be covered by the disclaimer that he’s only touching on the minimum necessary to survive the evening’s social event; perhaps Val Con figured that the odds of anyone of Erob mentioning bel’Tarda at the dinner were low enough that they could safely be left, along with the attendant explanations, for another time.

I wonder what it portends that Emrith Tiazan is Delm Erob but Bendara Tiazan is Thodelm Tiazan. Perhaps just that Erob and Tiazan, unlike Korval and yos’Phelium in their present state, are large enough that one person cannot do both jobs well.

Plan B – Chapter 2

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Standard Year 1393
Vandar Orbit and Jump

In which Miri is not keen on sleep-learning.

The timing gets tricky again here: Val Con says that he and Miri have been together on Vandar for eight months, but there’s a solid date near the beginning of Carpe Diem and there’s a solid date near the beginning of I Dare and the gap between them is closer to four months.

Four Standard months, that is: Val Con doesn’t say what kind of months he’s thinking of, and since they’ve only just left Vandar, maybe he’s thinking of Vandar’s months — and if that’s so, and a Vandar month is about half the length of a Standard month, it all fits together.

If this is the case, it would also neatly solve the puzzle in Carpe Diem where Val Con said it had been slightly over a month since they left Lufkit and Miri said it was less than a month and the best estimate I could come up with said it was about 20 days. If Val Con was already thinking in local months (which would make sense for a Scout who’s trained to pick up local customs) and Miri was thinking in Standard months (which would make sense for an untrained person who was struggling to pick up the local language), that fits together too.

It’s a good thing I enjoy figuring out how much smarter than me the authors are, considering how often it happens.

Something else I’ve been wrong about, that I need to make a note of because it’s come up in the comments before: I’d always thought before this re-read that autodocs and sleep-learning units were the same thing, but every time I re-read a bit that I thought supported that impression I turn out to have misunderstood it. This chapter is where the confusion started for me; it’s the first time in publication order we see someone go into a sleep-learning machine, and I thought it was the same device as the autodoc Miri was in a few chapters ago, partly because Miri lies down in both and partly because Val Con gets her tested by the autodoc to see if she’s ready to try sleep-learning. On this re-read, I’m picking up the differences, like the autodoc having an entrance hatch on the side that cycles open and closed and the sleep-learner having a lid on the top that raises and lowers.

Carpe Diem – Chapter 5

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Orbit
Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

In which Miri and Val Con take a break.

Miri’s store of personal valuables has shrunk a bit since she took stock back on Lufkit. Probably the rest of it is still in her box, safe and sound on Edger’s ship, and this is just the stuff that was so important to her that it was in her belt pouch even for what she expected to be a short expedition. In which case it’s interesting to ponder what’s here (her grandmother’s House Badge, the jewelry Val Con gave her, the harmonica, and a cloudy sapphire whose story we’ve never been told) and what isn’t (several more bits of jewelry of unknown provenance, some papers, and the key whose story we will get later).

This is the first time Val Con’s mentioned Grandmother Cantra, and only the second mention of her in publication order (the first being when Shan told Priscilla about his family in Conflict of Honors).

Agent of Change – Chapter 6

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In which Miri and Val Con discuss family history.

One of the interesting things about Miri’s family tree is that, if Val Con’s calculation of the year named Amrasam is accurate, Miri’s grandmother was born within a year of Val Con’s father. Daav yos’Phelium waited until relatively late in life to marry and have a family, but Miri Tiazan, as we will be told later, had her daughter young, and her daughter seemingly did the same.

It may be that, in this, Daav is the odd one out. There’s a cultural imperative for every Liaden to have at least one descendant, and many Liadens who appear in the series are shown to have opted to do it early to get it out of the way. What the cultural imperative is on Surebleak I don’t know for sure, but a ghetto world with a short life expectancy would probably also tend toward young parenthood. Miri Tiazan didn’t live to see the age at which Daav yos’Phelium started seriously considering his posterity.

Agent of Change – Chapter 4

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In which Val Con and Miri make some calls.

Miri and Val Con are clearly starting to relax into each other’s company: they’ve begun bantering.

Val Con speaks more truth than he realises when he promises Liz he will take the best care of Miri he can, for as long as he can.

Here’s an interesting exercise for a writer: the character has a small box containing everything most valuable to her in the world — what, specifically, is in it? To answer the question for a character who’s only been in the story for four chapters would require either a considerable knowledge of parts of her backstory that haven’t made it into the story yet, or a certain talent for improvisation together with a willingness to assume explanations will present themselves as needed. Or both, mixed in some proportion. (Explanations for some of Miri’s keepsakes will subsequently become apparent, but not all. Which is as it should be; a character whose past can be entirely told is likely a character lacking in depth.)

Signs that this novel was written in the 1980s: the primary medium for data storage and retrieval is tape.

Fighting Chance

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In which Miri Robertson begins the adventure of her life.

This is a story I think I’d have more to say about if I were reading it for the first time, and if the characters were new to me instead of already familiar from other stories written earlier but set later.

As it is, the main thing that occurs to me to say is that I wonder about Katy Tayzin’s determination not to go offworld. We learn more about her family history later, but as I recall it we don’t ever learn anything specific to explain that.

Tomorrow: “To Cut an Edge”