Tag Archives: Theo Waitley’s attitude

Saltation – Chapter 4

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Academy Flight GT S14
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which Theo’s day is not great.

A mysterious aircraft pursued and shot down by four others. The urgency with which the Academy called on its own aircraft to get out of the sky suggests that they had some idea what was going on, and some reason to suppose that the four pursuing craft might not limit their attentions to the particular craft they were pursuing.

Theo manages a difficult landing in a sequence I feel probably deserves to be talked about, not just acknowledged, but I don’t have the whatever to appreciate it in detail.

Asu takes a while to notice what’s going on outside her own concerns, but at least when she does notice she seems suitably concerned and has some idea how to respond appropriately. (And the fact that she knows Theo’s tea preferences without needing to ask suggests that she does sometimes pay more attention to other people.) This is not to say that Chelly doesn’t want to help, but he seems like he might be under the kind of stress that hinders, rather than helps, efforts to think about what to do; I can relate.

Saltation – Chapter 3

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Erkes Dormitory
Suite 302
Anlingdin Piloting Academy

In which Theo gets to know her roommates better.

Asu is the scion of a family that owns a fleet of trading ships — famously and prosperously, to judge by her sense of entitlement, her expectation that Theo would recognise her name (and the fact that Chelly does), and her discourse last chapter on the risks of people always trying to find out what one’s family is doing. (I infer that her homeworld’s media have an attitude towards the lives of the famous more like, say, Feinick than like, say, Liad, though without Feinick’s transactional approach.)

Chelly, despite his poor showing earlier, remains impressively reasonable in the face of a mix of deliberate and inadvertant provocation from Asu and Theo. I wonder if his not-exactly-apologetic comment about Wilsmyth being not at his best when he’s not working is also a description of himself.

Saltation – Chapter 1

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Shuttle Approach
Anlingdin Piloting Academy
Eylot

In which Theo arrives at Anglingdin Piloting Academy.

Theo is off to piloting school (and, since it’s apparently still within a year of her time on Melchiza, it looks like she achieved the six month prep time Jen Sar said would be the minimum if she was a good student).

She turns out to be wrong about not seeing the three student pilots again soon, although perhaps the encounter by the luggage will be their last; it’s been a while since I first read Fledgling and I don’t remember. Somehow, though, I doubt it. I do recognise two others who appear or are mentioned in this chapter as people Theo will be encountering again with some regularity.

Fledgling – Chapter 41

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Delgado

In which Kamele and Theo go home.

Immediately, Theo is thrown into a situation that shows how much she’s changed in the six months she’s been away. (Incidentally, considering they spent maybe a week on Melchiza, that means they spent the better part of three months on Vashtara in each direction. Kind of drives home what a serious undertaking the trip was.) The terminal is the kind of chaotic jostling situation that would have been a disaster during her “clumsy” phase, but not only does she not create any disasters, she deftly avoids several that might have been caused by the inattention of the people around her. And the fact that Kamele essentially chose to throw her into this situation by sending her off to get the luggage unattended shows that Kamele trusted she would be able to get through it unscathed.

(On the other hand, the luggage scene also shows Theo with a new habit that’s going to cause her some trouble in Saltation. Continuity!)

Boy, that terminal helper is really inadvertant. Somehow, I doubt that the comment Kamele left on his feedback form was a complimentary one.

I’m pretty sure the reunion in this chapter is the first time in the book we’ve seen the entire family interacting; we’ve had Theo with Jen Sar, Theo with Kamele, and Kamele with Jen Sar, but not all three, for the entire time the family has been living separately. The occasional moments when all three have been in the same place together (such as when Theo showed Kamele and Jen Sar the snake AI) happened off the page — until now, when the family is properly back together.