SPOILER THREAD: Dragon Ship eArc

[rolanni]

In case you missed yesterday's excitement, the eArc for Dragon Ship, the Fourth Book of Theo Waitley, is now available from Baen. To recap:

Download it here.

Dragon Ship art by David Mattingly

This topic is for those ambitious souls who have already read the book and who are bursting to talk about it.

There will be spoilers here! You have been warned.

I ask those who wish to discuss Dragon Ship, to, please, keep to this topic and not spill out into others. Your courtesy is appreciated.

Comments

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

It's dread and anticipation seeing the chapter counter advance on a Liaden Universe (TM) book, on the one hand, there will be the tying up of plot elements of the key plot(s) in the book, on the other hand, with the end of the book, comes the end of the book, and there won't be more until the next book which gets released, and the next book in that universe coming out, isn't the sequel to Dragon Ship.... there's Necessity's Child, and there's the sequel to Balance of Trade, and then there will be the two Carousel sequels, before there can/will be a Dragon Ship sequel.
DS threads tied off include:
1) Win Ton's healthy again, rebuilt without the Department of Interior contamination.
2) Kamele has found out what happened to Jen Sar Kiladi, having safely arrived at the (relocated) Korval Clan House, having outwitted the DoI agents out to collect her and perhaps make her a hostage to use again Theo and Korval.
3) Kara is out of reach of the Eylot's xenophobic groundhogs and a member of the crw of Bechimo, at the cost of exile/being persona non grata on her home planet, and possibly being estranged from her Clan, perhaps even declared ritually dead as had been done to Ren Zel, Anthora's lifemate. Since the readers have never gotten to read any scenes with Kara's relatives in them and Kara interacting with them, what her sattus in her clan is, is unclear... Ren Zel's legal death was due to politics, his late, reckless contract wife's powerful Clan required it. Priscilla Mendoza, a Terran, was also declared dead to family and banished for political reasons.
4) Miri and Val Con have a healthy rambunctious daughter, showing family initiative....
5) A DoI stronghold's been identified and Bechimo successfully got the hell away from it
6) Laughing Cat has started building up trading partners and a loop, and has provide Korval highly worthwhile business information on the current status of worlds and stations in the region of space convenient for trade with Korval being situated relocated to Surebleak.
7) Under Master Trader Shan yos'Galan's direction/tutelage, Shan's cousin and business partner Theo Waitley (I'm recalling that Shan has a fully Terran cousin on Dutiful Passage who was in training as a Trader on Dutiful Passage way back in Conflict of Honor) is learning practical Trading.
8) Bechimo at long last has bonded with a Captain, has crew, and has meaningful journeying to do and humans to protect and them to in turn to help maintain him and keep him company and provide purpose for him.
8) Bechimo is coming to terms dealing with ambiguities and with inconsistencies between his original programming directing him to abvoid/stay clear of Korval, and discovering that the Captain he chose/agreed to when/after Win Ton boarded Bechimo and Bechimo offered Win Ton the Lesser Pilot's position (an early part of Ghost Ship, if I recollect correctly, was from Bechimo's perspective, and showed Bechimo actively choosing to offer Win Ton the Lesser Pilot's position/key, -not- the Captain's key... and Bechimo approved when Win Ton provided the Captain's key to Theo Waitley), was of Korval and furthermore was negotiating a deal to be under contract to Korval. In Ghost Ship Bechimo acceded to the proposed contract, in Dragon Ship, Bechimo accepted the conditions.
9) The Uncle's accepted that Daav yos'Phelium's original body and spirit are so injured, that a rebirth is necessary--and has seen fit to have both of the remastering units on his ship set to reconstruct not only Daav yos'Phelium, but whoever/whatever the second Tree nut is for (and the question arises, just how much does the Uncle know about the Tree and its species?

[rnjtolch.livejournal.com]

Re Kara, item 3: I would not be surprised to read that Kara's clan has relocated to Surebleak (through the fast talking of Shan and Priscilla's mind-bending skills) and is now happily wielding wrenches at Binjali's.