Tag Archives: van’chela

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 19

Vivulonj Prosperu

In which Aelliana returns.

Okay, so I wouldn’t have been left in the dark much longer about Tolly sharing a background with Inki. (This is far from the first time it’s happened that I’ve wondered about a thing in a blog entry and it’s been answered in the next chapter. That’s a good thing, I figure; it means the stories are well-paced and handing out information at an appropriate rate.)

Given the fact of their shared background, I think that that’s why Inki doesn’t want Haz telling Tolly about the confrontation with Stew. (I suspect the specific detail she doesn’t want Haz sharing is less the bit where she had to convince him with money, but the bit just before that where she frightened a man who wasn’t frightened by an Yxtrang. Or maybe it is the money thing, but because if she’s the legal owner of the ship the Admiral is installed in, that might give her leverage if she decides to run off with him.) She apparently hasn’t told Tolly she’s a Lyre graduate, which is an understandable precaution since he probably wouldn’t trust her if he knew — and so doesn’t help us tell whether she should be trusted, since she’d want to avoid that either way. She’s told Haz that they’re graduates of the same institute, but in a vague way that Haz will probably take to mean that they learned mentoring in the same place. And Tocohl knows Inki is a student of the Lyre Institute, but doesn’t know that Tolly is.

Meanwhile, over in the Daav-and-Aelliana plot line, we have a recap of the Tanjalyre Institute, for the benefit of readers who had forgotten or never knew about it. Among other things. (“could not help but overhear”, forsooth.) For the record, I’m very much enjoying the Daav-and-Aelliana side of the story, but I have less to say about it because its direction is less of a surprise.

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 17

9 Replies

Tarigan
Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop
Berth 12

In which it is time for a rest.

Well, darn. I was beginning to really like Inki. But of course she would be really likeable, if a graduate of the Lyre Institute is anything like a graduate of the Tanjalyre Institute — not to mention, as she said herself, possessed of considerable persuasive abilities. However, I think it’s too much to hope that the Institute could have produced two experienced mentors who both went rogue, and if an AI-stunning weapon is introduced in the second act it’s probably going to go off in the third.

Or is it? Would Inki let Tocohl know she had an AI-stunning weapon if her plans included using it on Tocohl? And we have been told that it was because Tolly was a mentor that he was able to work himself free of the Institute’s control, so if anyone was going to repeat the feat perhaps it would be another mentor. But I’m definitely not going to trust her now. And I wish I knew whether Tocohl knows what it means to be a graduate of the Lyre Institute.

Alliance of Equals – Chapter 9

Dragon in Exile – Interlude 11

2 Replies

Vivulonj Prosperu
In Transit

In which Daav resumes his chair.

Continuing to associate wildly on the name of the Uncle’s ship, the second half is also reminiscent of the name of Prospero, the wizard in The Tempest. I’ll have to think on that some more before I make any decisions about what that might say about the Uncle.

This is the final Interlude of the book, so the next time we see Daav and Aelliana will presumably be when they arrive home on Surebleak, to find a large crowd of people waiting for explanations. Daav will perhaps not be entirely surprised to find Kamele among them; I think he might be more surprised to find that she actually likes Kareen, which is a trick he and most of his friends never quite managed.

Speaking of people arriving home on Surebleak, and of people likely to be wanting explanations, Theo is probably due back soon. Perhaps she’ll arrive at the same time, just to increase the confusion.

Dragon in Exile – Interlude 1

1 Reply

On Luminier Plain

In which Daav and Aelliana go through a different door.

This scene possibly suffers from extra-textual factors: it’s a big emotional moment for Daav, but for the reader (at least, if the reader is me) it’s an exercise in ticking off things we already knew from the last few books. Daav is dying, the door that speaks to him of home is the door to what the Bedel call the World Beyond, the force preventing him from entering it is the Uncle’s attempts to revive him, and the two glowing tunnels represent —

— something that, it occurs to me, I didn’t comment on at the time, because I thought it was obvious, but which should be said at some point. The Tree gave Daav two seed pods, one addressed to Aelliana, and that inspired the Uncle to prepare two rebirthing units. Two doors, as Aelliana says here, for two pilots. The implication is that the end of the process is not only the revivification of Daav, but also the revivification, in her own body, of Aelliana.

(Or will it be her own body? Daav’s a straightforward case, since he’s physically present, but unless there’s something to be got from the puzzle-ring after all these years the rebirthing unit has no physical template for Aelliana. Can it construct a body entirely from memories?)

I’m being somewhat unfair, I realise, and not every reader is going to have the same reaction as me. Not everybody who reads this novel will have just recently finished reading the previous books. For some readers, this is re-establishing details they haven’t thought about since Dragon Ship came out, three years ago. There are even likely to be readers, sooner or later, who picked this book up first, and for whom all of this needs to be explained for the first time.

I think it’s worth noting something that’s brought to mind by mentioning the Bedel’s idea of the World Beyond where a person is free from the injuries and troubles of life, and which the story itself has gestured to both in this chapter and in one of the chapters of the Uncle overseeing Daav’s resurrection: hauling Daav back to the land of the living serves necessity, but it may not be doing Daav a kindness.

Dragon Ship – Chapter 26

5 Replies

Bechimo

In which Theo introduces Kara to her ship and crew.

I’ve been passing up several opportunities to comment on earlier, more subtle hints, but it’s pretty obvious now that there’s something going on between Theo and Kara. Good for them, though it’s not entirely consistent with the way their friendship was depicted in Saltation.

Perfection, the ship Asu is serving on, is now revealed to have the full name Asu Perfection. Or is “revealed” the wrong word? The obvious assumption is that its crew habitually shorten the name, in the manner of Shan and the crew of the Passage, but another possibility is that the ship was actually renamed to recognise a member of the Diamon family taking charge.

Ghost Ship – Chapter 42

Ghost Ship – Chapter 6

1 Reply

Surebleak Spaceport

In which cold Surebleak offers Delm Korval a warm welcome.

Jen Sar Kiladi has “been lost”, which might add to the awkwardness if Kamele ever takes it into her head to demand his safe return. One might say that it offers instead the opportunity to tell Kamele, with some degree of accuracy, that Kiladi has died, but I don’t think that would work for long and in any case I’m confident Daav knows as well as Theo does that he owes Kamele the whole truth. His reluctance to tell her so far has been about trying to spare her the further trouble of being dragged into Korval’s orbit at a dangerous time, not about shirking his duty.

It does raise the question of why Kiladi has slipped away. Perhaps he felt, or whatever part of Daav keeps him working, that he’d served his purpose: Daav has said more than once that he’s completed the Balance in which Kiladi was such a useful tool, and he’s also fulfilled his original purpose in the sense that he was only supposed to stick around until he was discovered, which he now has been. And letting go of Kiladi presumably means there’s more room in Daav’s head for Aelliana. But I find myself remembering that Aelliana’s most striking recent increase in ability was associated with Daav eating one of the Tree’s seed pods, and wondering: Did Kiladi-Daav make the decision that Kiladi’s time was done, or was the decision made for him?

That’s an intriguing background detail, the hint at friction between the Pilots’ Guild and the Federated Trade Commission. I don’t think we’ve heard of the Federated Trade Commission before, at least by that name; perhaps it’s descended from the trade commission that was around in Jethri’s time. I’m tempted to speculate, on the basis of no evidence whatever, that it’s a Terran organisation that takes issue with the Pilots’ Guild because, as we know, the latter is a case of harmonious collaboration between Terrans and Liadens. But then again, we know from various bits with Shan that he was certified as a Master Trader by a Trade Commission that is likewise a collaboration. (I’m sufficiently attached to my hypothesis to wonder if there’s more than one Trade Commission. Perhaps the Federated Trade Commission is a smaller federation of traders who don’t want to be involved in anything that requires collaboration with Liadens. But now I’m really speculating.)

I Dare – Chapter 37

5 Replies

Day 51
Standard Year 1393

Departing Lytaxin

In which Daav and Aelliana go on a journey with several surprises in store.

I find myself wondering when Edger found time to acquire the new shuttle and have it fitted to the ship of the clan. The months he and Sheather spent waiting on Shaltren to see if the Juntavas could find Val Con and Miri seem most hopeful, except that they didn’t have the ship with them, it having gone on to Volmer and them having opted to go straight to Shaltren on a Terran vessel.

That also gets me wondering how they got from Shaltren back to Lufkit to visit Liz, and then from there to Lytaxin. They must have switched back to the ship of the clan at some point, since they arrived at Lytaxin in it.

Perhaps when Edger and Sheather left Lufkit for Shaltren, Edger sent Handler, Selector, and Watcher ahead to Volmer, to secure the ship of the clan, make arrangements for the addition of the shuttle, and await them there. Then after Sheather’s visit to Liz, Edger and Sheather went to Volmer, collected the upgraded ship, and proceeded to Lytaxin. That seems to cover everything, except that we’re still left with the question of where Handler, Selector, and Watcher are now.

Reading Liad

from Dragon Tide to Dragon Ship, and beyond