Tag Archives: Trilsday

A Day at the Races

In which Val Con scores a victory over a field of skimmers and an aunt.

Speaking of families of consequence, here is Korval again. Anne and Er Thom have died since we saw them last, and Shan is now First Speaker, holding the clan in trust for when Val Con becomes Delm — though Val Con seems no more eager to do that thing and to give up the Scouts than his father was. (One suspects he’s going to find it harder to put off once the “your father was Delm at your age” card enters play, but he has a few years up his sleeve yet before he reaches that age.) For that matter, Shan is not keen on being First Speaker, and looks forward to being able to hand it off to Nova and head out on the Dutiful Passage. (Presumably there’s an age restriction of some kind, else Nova would be First Speaker already; she’s clearly better suited for it temperamentally.) And in the mean time, Shan races skimmers, and Val Con spends time with bartenders…

This is a case where the right ordering of a story is unclear, not because it’s not certain when it takes place, but because it’s certainly taking place at the same time as another story. I chose to put “Shadow Partner” first, since most of that story takes place before this one begins (and this ends after that does, if only by a paragraph or two), but they would not do badly the other way round.


Tomorrow: “Certain Symmetry”

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 7

In which Daav and Aelliana take a scenic route out of Solcintra.

Another incident underlining the idea of Mizel’s house as a foreign and dangerous port is Solcintra Port Control welcoming Aelliana home. It makes sense as a greeting, considering that it’s the port she flies out of, and I don’t expect they’re aware that she’s just come from the place that ought to have been home to her, but I reckon she’ll have noticed the irony of it.

Jon’s twitch at the news of Aelliana accepting Korval’s protection is interesting. I suspect it’s because it’s not the offer he’d been expecting Daav to make and Aelliana to accept, after the way they were the last time he saw them together.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 30

In which there is dinner, dancing, distinction, and a difficult decision.

Aelliana’s speculation about Daav’s ringless finger reminds me that this is a parallel to Local Custom, where Er Thom also spent a significant portion going about without his ring of rank. Or perhaps not so much a parallel as a reflection, because in a way the situation here is a reverse: Er Thom’s lack of ring was a punishment, but Daav’s is more in the way of a much-needed vacation.

And when Aelliana asks him what he has around his neck, and he replies, “A chain”, it’s an obvious dodge into literal-mindedness — but it also works as an honest (perhaps more honest than he intended?) description of how he regards the delm’s ring.

I think I was a bit uncharitable toward Olwen sel’Iprith back in Local Custom. If Frad is any indication, all the members of Daav’s former team are very close, just not the kind of close that, say, Er Thom and Anne are. (Or, as we can confidently say after the happenings of this chapter, Daav and Aelliana.)

And here’s a fun thing I noticed for the first time on this re-read: the authors are ingeniously uninformative as regards the genders of Trilla’s and Frad’s chosen table partners. We learn that Frad’s companion is a redheaded Scout, and Trilla’s companions are both described as dancers, but do we get a single gendered pronoun between the three of them? We do not.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 7

In which Aelliana takes possession of her ship.

I’ve noticed several people referring to Aelliana’s late opponent as “the chel’Mara”. In some places such a distinction might indicate that he was the head of his family Line, but I don’t think I recall any such usage ever being explicitly noted among Liadens, and it seems unlikely in the case of Vin Sin chel’Mara. More likely it is simply an indication that he’s achieved notoriety in a field where no other chel’Mara is to be found.

Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure there’s at least one point in this novel where Aelliana is referred to as “the Caylon”, and that’s definitely in tribute to her distinction as a mathematician and definitely not because of any exalted position in Line Caylon.

Speaking of Aelliana’s distinction as a mathematician, there’s probably something insightful to be said about that, and about Aelliana’s unease at being accorded distinction of any kind, but apparently I’m not the person to say it. (At least not at this time of night and with this head cold.)

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 3

In which Aelliana leaves.

Aelliana-the-teacher, confident in her handling of her students, is an interesting contrast to Aelliana the rest of the time.

In the course of the lesson, we get the most detailed description of piloting math I can recall before Trade Secret was published, including our first mention of the ven’Tura Tables.

It’s an interesting detail that it’s possible to go from Liad to Terra in a single Jump, if one should want to. I wonder how often anybody ever does.

(The second part of the chapter, in which Aelliana has that fateful conversation with Ran Eld, is one of those parts of the series which I appreciate a great deal but not in a way that leads to putting many words together.)

Pilot of Korval

Dutiful Passage en route to Venture
Standard Year 1339

In which Er Thom yos’Galan shows his mettle.

Another jump forward of nearly 50 years, and a significant shift in the focus of the series: we are back with Korval, and there, with only occasional diversions, we shall henceforth remain.

So here is a story that shows us Er Thom and Daav as youngsters, part-formed, but already showing familiar traits. It’s also, if memory serves, the only story with an extensive depiction of Er Thom’s mother in her prime.

I’m never quite sure I’ve correctly untangled the interplay about Er Thom’s status in the family. He’s described as his mother’s heir both by his mother herself and by the narrator, and here he is on her ship, learning her trade; the implication is that when he tells the Juntavas boss that he is of no significance because he has a brother who’s the heir, he’s being flexible with the truth. And yet in Local Custom we hear that he does in fact have an elder brother who’s ahead of him in the line of inheritance.

(One could resolve the puzzle, of course, by guessing that after this story was written the authors found it necessary to discover an elder brother to make the plot of Local Custom work; one might even take a confident guess at which part of the plot was otherwise at risk. But one does prefer, where possible, to believe that the Liaden Universe possesses internal consistency.)

If the Master dea’Cort who is Daav’s instructor at the Academy is the same Scout who came to Bell’s aid in “Phoenix”, he must be getting on in years. (Although not, perhaps, as far on as a Terran of the same age; it’s mentioned in “Sweet Waters” that a Liaden in her fifties would be considered to be in her prime, with many productive years ahead of her.)