I’m giving the page a second section because page 1 was starting to behave oddly.
As always, wait at least 30 days from issue of the book before starting to discuss. And give our overseas friends some extra leeway: the distribution system doesn’t reach everywhere as fast!
Great unhappiness. They would try to find somebody else, but it would be hard.
Quick question: I’ve just seen the cover of the new book on Amazon, and the Atevi (which are the best thing in this image) appear to be COMPLETELY covered up by the title. Is this really going to be the book cover, or is it just a draft? I truly hope the cover design will actually show the two Atevi…
So I have been thinking about the Atevi solar system. In Convergence there was a mention of five plants and moons. We know from previous books that atleast one of those five must be Maudit. A planet who I always imagined kind of like Mars mixed with Io, though that is just my guess. A big asteroid belt and/or multiple belts with a lot comets? I don’t think there is a gas giant in the system. Any thing big would have cleaned up the solar system more than what is implied in the books. Thoughts?
Is Maudit a planet? I always thought it was in a resource rich area, like an asteroid belt. I’ve been rereading Foreigner lately looking for details and I haven’t seen anything significant about Maudit yet.
The system is described as a dirty system several time so it does seem likely that there is not a gas giant in the outer system. There could be a hot Jupiter that migrated in near where Mercury is in our system.
Having reread Convergence to get ready for the new book, I’m pretty sure Maudit is a planet. A planet with no atmosphere but a planet. Getting hype for Emergence though. Read the preview can’t wait…
Re-reading the first Foreigner book, Mirage is the 2nd planet from the sun (a G5 star – our Sun is a G2V, a bit warmer/brighter), Maudette is the 4th from the sun (described as a barren world; perhaps it is Mars-like?). The atevi world is the 3rd from the sun with a single moon. (I did have the thought that the original colonists were perhaps shunted to an alternative Earth/universe in their misplaced jump as the planets in the atevi system have the same order as our Solar System.)
They are planning to send cargo down on petal sails. Where are they going to get the resources to build the sails which won’t be coming back? The ship doesn’t want to be used as a mining ship. But what if the ship is used as a one time platform for gathering asteroids and comets.
The ship scans for asteroids and comets with raw materials the station needs. Then it flies out with a team who wrap the asteroid/comet in a strong mesh if its likely to break apart and put robots on it that can mine and process fuel on site which they feed to some sort of propulsion drive such as an ion drive. Then use powerful rocket to give it a big push in the right direction and recover the rockets for future use. Once they’ve set up thirty or so mobile rocks they go home. The rocks then move slowly into the Aveti’s home planets orbit over a period of 2 to 30 years controlled all the way by the station. Smaller rocks take 2 or 3 years huge 1/2 km rocks take 30 years.
The station now has a ready source of raw materials floating in orbit in easy reach of the station. The ship would only need to do this once because the station would have the raw materials it needs to build new mining ships. The ship would also never have to act as a mining vessel. It would simply be a transport ship. Since the ship’s goal is to seed colonies it would be fulfilling its purpose without turning it into a non stop mining transport vessel.
Hmmm. Perhaps the Phoenix will build a string of Atevi/Human stations back toward human space, instead of the Human stations they were supposed to build from their “colony” planet. Assuming the war with the Kyo ends.
Does anyone know why the sending (or is it the publication) of the new Foreigner title has been delayed? I’ve just received a notification (UK) that it won’t be sent until 26 January (was supposed to be the 2nd).
Perhaps they are taking the time to correct the jacket design to make the two Atevi visible in the image? 🙂 🙂
Is there going to be an audio edition? I got notified my Nookbook is here but no audio! I love listening to them!
Nand’ Sleo, there is usually a waiting period between when the print/ebook edition is released and when the audible audio version is released, but they _do_ come out. I don’t know when the audiobook is due out either; sorry; I’m interested also.
Thanks. I saw a post about the print edition in the UK coming later so wondered if it affected audio edition. I love listening to them and like to relisten when a new one comes out.
Book dropped into my reader-space this morning.
Wheee!!!
(Now I’m wondering what nand’ Bren and his aishid will be dealing with next.)
And in chapter 17, about page 4 or 5, where Lucasi is talking to Cajeiri-aiji:
Paragraph ends in “And we should–”
Next one starts with “Antaro paused”
This surely should be Lucasi, as Antaro is on the bus at the time.
Whatever I’m too excited about Bren having groupies in the underground anime club of the University of Mospheira.
Machimi, surely?
Well, yes of course TECHNICALLY it’s machimi, but the parallels can’t be overlooked, at least not by myself, as i have been giggling about it for hours now. perhaps it’s only funny if you went to an uber right wing college where anime was actually banned on campus.
Ah, but do they have one with a spirited suit of armor saying, “Brother!” ? Or perhaps a boy in orange braid-ribbons saying, “Believe it!” ? Or….
OK, that was an even more right-wing college than the one I went to. There was at least a science fiction club and convention, and I think SAC’ers.
‘Nother nit picked:
When nand’ Tatiseigi is showing the hedge-sections to Nomari, he describes the period covered as one thousand twelve hundred thirty-eight years. I think that’s supposed to be one thousand two hundred thirty-eight – it may have been imperfectly corrected from twelve hundred thirty-eight.
And third:
ch 12 –
“The senior twins, Elisabeth and Maarten, helped fund the party in the first place.”
That should be Karl and Holman, as Elisabeth and Maarten are the grandkids mentioned two sentences earlier.
(Hey, I notice these, because my brain insists on fixing them. Too many years doing quality control.)
Might be easier to make clear that Karl and Holman are the grandkids, as Elisabeth and Maarten are mentioned again later on as the older generation in power over Aslund/Asgard, contemporaries with the slightly younger Simon who runs the space division and whom they have an unknown disagreement/quarrel with.
They’re referred to earlier as “the twins” and “the older generation”. Elisabeth and Maarten are the younger ones; this is where we first ‘meet’ them. (Keeping track does get hard. So many new names!)
May I add another? In chapter 6, when Bren meets the tutors (whose style of dress reminds me of Carl Sagan with braids), they give their names as Karl, Lyle, and Evan. A bit later, there’s a Kurt in there.
Current headline at Science News:
Spaceships could use blinking dead stars to chart their way
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/spaceships-could-use-blinking-dead-stars-chart-their-way?tgt=nr
(They’re talking about pulsars.)
12 hours later, and I’ve closed the book after my first read through. Emergence was a slow, thoughtful and emotional read, with just enough action to make a few points.
It was beautiful. So beautiful.
Those last few chapters though… someone is cutting onions in here, but I find that I don’t mind.
My heart is full.
I was re-reading the last several, starting with Protector, and notice that before the kyo show up, Tatiseigi-nandi is talking to nand’ Bren about the Kadagidi lordship, and saying that he has an elderly cousin who would take it as a favor, to put said cousin’s daughter (a scholar) in the line of succession, and that her husband is a hunting-preserve manager.
in the month, roughly, of in-universe time since then, that seems to have gotten lost.
I don’t think their ready for a new lord of Kadagidi yet. The guild is still in charge of it and searching for evidence. I would think that the guild would try to find any assassins left hanging around before they put a new lord in the line of fire.
that wasn’t brought up – it was during a discussion set during one of the debates in the legislature, and was just them talking about who might be proposed, as the Kadagidi are kind of out of closer options.
Can I ask a totally off the wall question?
How does a mecheiti’s tusks grow? From the upper jaw? From the lower? Are they parallel or perpendicular to the jaw? I know only that they are relatively short- just the length of an (atevi) mans hand. And they must be sharp, on account of needing peace-caps. Also that they are upright, which suggests a sharp curve to point the tips upwards.
Lower jaw, I believe. (Most of the descriptions certainly seem to imply that location.)
I was pondering this further, and started wondering where they were positioned in the mouth as well. At the front of the mouth? from the middle or rear of it?
I’ve been studying tusk shape, location and positioning in earth animals, and trying to imagine a skull shape in my head for the mecheiti. (I’m drawing concepts of them based on book descriptions.)
Rooting tusks – any tusks, really – pretty much have to be toward the front, I’d think, or be a real hazard to the bearer. I get the impression they’re something like overdeveloped canines, but animals with rooting tusks, like boars and warthogs, likely wouldn’t be needing a lot of rear teeth. (It’s so not my field.)
According to what I read on the Encyclopedia Brittanica page, they are elongated incisor teeth.
More information is here: https://www.britannica.com/animal/elephant-mammal#ref800406
Quibble: When Bren reconnects with Sandra Podesta it is noted that he remembers her as having 2 kids, but she now has 4. Emergence only talks about her kids being older than the Reunioners but younger than the university student tutors. Bren has only been out of touch with Sandra for a few years. Her younger kids must be infants or at most kindergarten age but they seem to be totally missing from the Heyden House equation.
Sandra Johnson and Sonja Podesta. The youngest is 3, she could have been pregnant with the youngest when she sent the note to Bren before the trip to Reunion, no particular reason to mention it in her note. Maybe she had twins!
I may be mixing two characters up but when Sandra comes in with the cake in the last book, it’s mentioned that she’s never seen an Aveti in the flesh. But I remember that at one point she had traveled to the continent and saw a live play as a gift from Bren for helping him.
Yeah that was the epilogue from Inheritor. I suspect that whole epilogue got retconned out at some point, even if it was not intentional. Toby met Geigi during that time, according to that section also, but when they met in Deceiver it was supposedly to be the first time they had met.
Also, were Ben Feldman and Kate Shugart ever Ragi translators in the current universe or did that fall by the wayside since Precursor?
Must be adopted. My notes say she has 2, but weirdness happens.
Ben and Kate have some Ragi, as do some folk active in coastal smuggling, but were never officially sanctioned by the Department of Linguistics.
It pretty well happened when Homura and Momichi declared for Bren in Tatiseigi’s foyer. He had no way to take them on.
I clearly missed that bit. I’ll have to go back and read it again.
Somewhere (Precursor?) there was a conversation regarding children in a great house- were the staff only allowed to have children after the lord/lady of the house had theirs?
No, but the atevi birth rate is not as high as humans, and in the case of Tirnamardi, governed by Tatiseigi, many of the staff who are married are older, children long grown. They now have Seimei to spoil…or will have on visits. Keeping her from spoilage is going to be a chore.
Is the lower atevi birth rate a socially/culturally driven result, or is it just biological? I was wondering at the gestation time Damiri was going through. It seems she was pregnant much longer than a human would be.
Biological. Humans have expanded their population in the world much more rapidly than atevi have.
That seems likely to become an ominous problem in the future.
It can become so. But they are space-capable. And Tabini isn’t giving an inch in his territorial position. Atevi thrive BECAUSE their population pressure is low—their whole economy works that way—and they are generous up TO a point, but not over. Yep, don’t know if I’ll get there, but it is a potential problem.