Tag Archives: Tommy Lee

The Gate That Locks the Tree – Act 1, Scene 2

In Vertu’s taxicab
Enter Yulie, Mary, Anna, Rascal

In which everyone is going to the same place.

Apparently the hill at the end of the Port Road is now named Undertree Hill — or perhaps that’s just what the Bedel call it and Yulie has picked it up from them.
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The Gate That Locks the Tree – Act 1, Scene 1

In the house of the taxi driver
Enter Vertu and Cheever

In which Vertu Dysan greets the new day.

The story is subtitled “A Minor Melant’i Play for Snow Season”, which offers a hint at what it’s likely to be about. Melant’i plays involve dramatic consquences revolving around points of correct behaviour; the examples we’ve had described seem to generally end with dead bodies, and sometimes with buildings burning to the ground.
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Accepting the Lance – Chapter 6

Jelaza Kazone

In which Theo has breakfast.

I wonder if we can read anything into the order that names come to Theo’s mind when she’s thinking of who she’d miss if she severed ties with Korval. Probably not much that we didn’t already know. Her father was obviously always going to be first, and she spent a lot of time hanging out with Luken last time she stayed at Jelaza Kazone, so it’s not surprising that he’s second.

Accepting the Lance – Chapter 4

Jelaza Kazone

In which Theo isn’t getting enough sleep.

For a short chapter, there’s a fair bit packed into it about Bechimo, his crew, and the relationships between them.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 23

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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Neogenesis – Chapter 20 part IV

In which Val Con and Miri have a busy morning.

I like “a salute so smart it could have driven itself into town”. And Val Con’s interactions with the cat.
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Neogenesis – Chapter 20 part III

In which Val Con and Miri are not getting much sleep tonight.

Chapter 20 is shaping up to be a long chapter, to the point that I’m almost wondering if I need to subdivide the sections even further. Makes sense, though, since this is the chapter where a whole bunch of plot strands come together, not just from this book but from the four books preceding it.
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Code of Honor

In which Tommy Lee goes home.

It can be tricky placing a story in chronological order without reading it first, as we’ve seen already in this project, but I think I did all right with this one. It’s definitely set somewhere during Ghost Ship; a bit further on than where I’ve put it, I suspect, but we were already stopping here to read two other short stories, so doing “Code of Honor” as well means that after this we can finish off Ghost Ship without any further interruptions.

Putting it next to “Kin Ties” also produces a nice bit of synchronicity, since this story, too, turns out to be concerned with the question of bad delms and where duty lies for those burdened with them.

I have my doubts that it’s within any clan’s reach to take Korval’s proverbially unique place aside-but-not-among the Fifty High Houses; surely the fact that Korval is in a class by itself is the very point of the proverb. (For that matter, I would think that no clan would want that place, if they’d really thought about what it meant to be aside but not among the High Houses.) But I suppose that when ambition talks there’s always somebody willing to listen.

I appreciate the detail that Tommy needs his aunt to point out a flaw in his plans for his future. He’s clever enough to think his way out of a very difficult situation, but he doesn’t think of everything.


Tomorrow: We resume Ghost Ship at Chapter 24.