As usual, the links here are Amazon affiliate ones, which could,
in theory, earn money for me should you enter the store through one.

==

Fair Trade (Liaden Universe Book 25)
by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
https://amzn.to/4jrYxzC

I mentioned a few months back that I was behind on the Liaden books,
and I have at least partially put that to rights, though there is
still a way to go.

Fair Trade picks up again the story of young Jethri Gobelyn some
several hundred years before the ongoing Korval saga. Jethri is a
Terran (sorta) who has been adopted into a Liaden clan, and has
risen to to be a full Trader (though certainly not a "Master"
Trader!) and is pioneering the integration of Terran and Liaden
trading organizations. This is certainly not without its problems
as large, entrenched, interests in both the Liaden & Terran camps
like things just the way they are.

Apart from his longterm plans & prospects, Jethri's immediate problem
is one set for him by his father: To help preserve the small Terran
"loop" ships which provide circuit based Trade to the Seventeen
Worlds, a grouping of planets whose future is in doubt with the
slow incursion of "Rostov's Dust" into their spacelanes. Once the
dust reaches sufficient density in a system, large ships are
interdicted from calling due to the difficulties in "achieving
locality" it causes with their FTL drives. Jethri has some ideas
for an organization of loop ships, his father called it an Envidaria,
which could work around this problem, but it is a large enough task
to have become political in scope, and he will need the backing of
the bulk of Terran traders against the opposition of the the organized
combine "Terra Trade". Fortunately the South Axis Trade Fair is
due soon, and looks to be an ideal place to organize.

Of course there are complications... Jethri's main ally is frail
and unable to help as much as expected, Jethri makes an enemy of
the main Terra Trade representative (refreshingly painted as not
evil, just opposed), an unexpected ship full of unknown players &
full of Old Tech is in dock during the fair, and mistake Jethri for
his "Uncle", who also shows up, as manipulative in the new Universe
as the Old, the power players in Liaden trade are setting Jethri
an impossible task to defend his new status, and the grey-traders
who did Jethri a life-saving dockside favor some months back are
in trouble along with their Norbear ambassadors (last seen in
"Out Of True").

Along the path, as is the Liaden way, there is Love, tea & pastries,
and for one unsuspecting Liaden, a Vancian encounter with french fries:

Tan Sim's surprisingly animated face caught Jethri's
appraisal: this was a confident man, well pleased with his
life, certainly much improved in situation compared to their
very first meeting when both had been not only younger, but
in peculiar peril from Tan Sim's clan.

It was a confident man who waved Practical Al's server to
their table side, using his chin to point toward Jethri.

"This trader will order for both," he said in confident
Terran. "We are entirely at your mercy as we have neither
one eaten for a ten-day!"

The waiter looked them over and smiled with Terran ease.

"Yes, I see all the signs of incipient starvation! Put your
faith in me, Traders; I've completed many successful rescues
in my career. First, of course, you'll be wanting drinks..."

Jethri ordered station-made ale for both, ran an eye down
the menu, and, heeding the promptings of what might have
equally been nostalgia and honest hunger, ordered long-missed
delicacies.

These he brought to Tan Sim's attention when the tray
arrived--which it did with commendable speed.

"This," he murmured, indicating the plate of crispy logs
in the very center of the tray, "is eaten with the fingers,
so."

He reached for the condiment tray, and bestowed a generous
amount of red paste onto his tray before reaching to the
communal plate, plucking up a log in his naked fingers. He
dipped it into the paste before conveying it to his mouth.

Flavor exploded in his mouth, and he sighed.

Tan Sim, however, was frowning. Liadens were fastidious
eaters. A race that had produced a twenty-four piece formal
setting as an improvement upon the work-a-day twelve piece,
and which looked with horror, as he had been led to believe
by Stafeli Maarilex, on the haphazard chaos of a six-piece
setting that might serve at a working meeting between the
traders on Elthoria--that race was in no way prepared for
the informality of Terran dining.

"Is that grease?" Tan Sim asked, looking up, the frown more
pronounced. "And eaten with one's fingers? You would not
be having me on, Jethri?"

"Not a bit of it," Jethri assured him, dipping another log
in the sauce.

Still Tan Sim hesitated, and Jethri felt that some encouragement
was in order.

"A delicacy, on Elthoria's honor."

Tan Sim half-laughed.

"Who am I to disregard such weighty assurance?"

He placed red sauce on his plate as Jethri had done, reached
to the diminishing plate of logs, chose one, dipped it, and
brought it to his mouth.

He chewed, his eyes grew wide; again he dipped and again
he ate.

"Jethri."

"Tan Sim."

"This is very good. You must tell me what it is called so
that I may demand it at every meal for the remainder of my
life."

Jethri grinned and reached for another log.

"This is a taterlog," he said. "The sauce is crushed pomidor
with spices." He dipped, ate, sighed.

"You have missed this food, from your former life," Tan Sim
said gently.

"I have. Understand, it's not something we'd have every
day, but when more than one family ship was together on
port, or at shivary, for certain." He shook his head, feeling
his mouth bend in a wry smile. "I haven't had the nerve to
ask the kitchen on Elthoria to add it, even though they're
perfectly capable, of course."

"Of course," Tan Sim said, without irony, which was really,
Jethri thought, quite a trick. "There is the matter, too,
of it being a true delicacy, meant to be served on premier
occasions."

"Yes," Jethri admitted. He'd forgotten how perceptive Tan Sim was.

His partner helped himself to another taterlog, dunked it
in the sauce like he'd been doing it all his life, and ate
it with relish.

"Then there is the danger of this food spreading throughout
the tradeships and coming at last to Liad. Only think of
the horror."

"I don't see that," Jethri countered, "once they got past
deciding whether to eat it with tongs or the small two-pronged
fork." He cleaned his fingers on the napkin and leaned
toward the tray.

"This, now, is a bun-burger."

"Let me guess. It is also eaten from the hand?"

"You're getting good at this," Jethri told him.

Good fun as usual.


BAD ACTORS: Adventures in the Liaden Universe Number 33
by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
https://amzn.to/4h91PWY

According to the introduction, this short story collection was not planned
to feature characters on the greyer end of the Liaden spectrum, but that's
how it worked out:

"Excerpts from Two Lives"

This story follows the parallel lives of two lovers in "The Confederation", a polity neither Liaden, Terran nor Yxtrang, about which I don't believe we
have heard of before. From the little information we get, it seems very militaristic (though not recently successful), and somehow connected to the
Old Universe though not through Cantra's exodus.

Now separated by circumstances, one of the lovers, the Confederation's
chief Naval commander brings the fleet's last battleship to the
system where the other of the pair is chief science officer on a
space station pioneering the use of Old Tech to "terra-form" the
world below. Unfortunately her hubris is such that she not only
seeds Old Tech, which you can sometimes get away with in the Liaden
Universe if your heart is pure, but *Sherika* Old Tech -- That trick
never works, and the commander can only watch as his love faces her consequences and by extension as the Confederation's plans go up in smoke.

On the plus side for everyone else, it doesn't appear that the
Confederation will be an ongoing threat after this.

"Dark Secrets"

A small courier ship and its crew of a Terran & defrocked Liaden
Scout bring trouble to a space station when it turns out that the
package they were delivering was illicit Old Tech, and the Scout's
past has caught up with her as well. Fortunately the Terran doesn't
give a whit about his partner's belated notions of honor & balance.

Less fortunately, that past which caught up may well blow up the station...

Not a big story, but interesting in that everybody starts out shady and
ends shady, and life goes on.

"Revolutionists"

This is interesting in that it takes place well after _Fair Trade_
(a hundred years or more) and we see that Jethri Gobelyn did establish
his "Envidaria" system of Trade (which seems to have turned into a
Constitution of sorts as well), but now that Rostov's Dust is moving
out of the Seventeen Worlds, the system is breaking down. It's
interesting as well in that when we last saw Jethri, he looked to
be becoming a one-woman man, but we learn here:

Jethri Gobelyn, a peripatetic traveler and trader, left his
mark in many ways; his genes are said to be widely dispersed
in and around the Seventeen World trading nexus.

Geral Jethri Quai-Hwang is one of the recipients of those widely
dispersed genes (which are seen as precious probably for reasons
_Fair Trade_ touches on a bit but which haven't done Geral any
good), and is working station security during the final breakdown
of the Envidaria which is heralded by an invasion from the cheese
worlds. With multiple factions on the station claiming the right
to his loyalty, he must choose sides, when none of them may be
"right", or make his own way, perhaps following in the footsteps
of his former girlfriend, who may herself be in the invasion fleet.
In the end, one guy in a spacesuit is not going to make any difference
to anyone, except perhaps himself.


Skulduggery Pleasant -- The Haunted House on Hollow Hill
by Derek Landy
https://amzn.to/40oqAqW

This is an unusual Skulduggery Pleasant outing, more of a novella
than the usual generous length adventures. The point of view is
also different. Generally in an SP book, we will have rotating
third-person viewpoints, sometimes a good number, sometimes just a
few, and while in each viewpoint will have access to the viewpoint
character's thoughts and perceptions. This time we have a limited
third person narration for the duration of the whole story wherein
we see events and hear dialogue, but never anybody's thoughts.
I thought at first it was an experiment on Landy's part, but looking
at the Amazon blurb, I see that this may be the novelization of
an SP podcast (which would still make it an experiment of sorts
I suppose).

During a terrific storm, Skulduggery and Valkyrie arrive at the
most haunted Hotel in England. Naturally there's a murder, but why
& how? And who will be next? And of course there will be a next
as keeping people from being killed is not something that our heroes
are as good at as perhaps might be hoped. As is required in this
sort of story, everybody at the hotel has dark secrets, and nobody
is quite as innocent as you would hope were you booking a room.

I would say I'm not sure the mystery is entirely fair play and
as is typical lately is more complicated than it needs to be,
but seeing Skulduggery and Valkyrie from the "outside" is fun,
and at the shorter length the story does not wear out its
welcome.


Hell of a Witch: Urban Fantasy Action with Witches and Demons
(Tear Down Heaven Book 2)
by Rachel Aaron
https://amzn.to/40Dz7Yd

After some initial success the team of Sumerian demon Bex and
Blackwood Witch Adrian find themselves in a bit of a rut. Bex is
still finding and freeing enslaved demons which is certainly
worthwhile, but that's a retail operation, and they need to go
wholesale to have any hope of taking the fight to Gilgamesh and
bringing down his corrupt system.

Fortunately Adrian has a plan: If they take out Gilgamesh's Seattle
Anchor Market it would get them credibility as a group worth backing,
hurt Gilgamesh's prestige and actually diminish his power on Earth
(they think -- nobody is quite sure what the Anchors really do...)

OK, it's more an idea than a plan. There are a number of steps
that have to happen before they can even make a plan, including
raising the dead (sorta), making poly-juice potion (sorta), going
on a date (sorta) and meeting Adrian's mom.

This is another fun outing where we learn a bit more about the
universe's cosmology, and what exactly happened when Gilgamesh rode
in. If the "Noble Bex gives up her love" plotline runs a few pages
longer than something that we know is temporary needs to, we have
Adrian's post-facto reaction seeing her events unfold to balance
it out.

The next book is to be the last and I'm definitely in.


Catalyst: A Space Opera Adventure (The Lost Fleet Book 5)
by Sarah Hawke
https://amzn.to/42mkbyS

This book brings to an end, for now, the story of Commander Zeris
and his fight to both repel the genocidal Dowd and make his polity
one worth saving. Given that he is something of a cultural ambassador,
at least in so far as having pretty much a woman of every local
humanoid species in his harem, it's not surprising that he is able
to bring several new fleets into the fight, but I have to say the
ending felt a bit rushed and flat and I wish that something better
for the Dowd might have been found than a Smithian Fenachrone/Chloran
fate.

We get hints of a new series in the offing, and news from the main
galaxy that suggest that the Lost Fleet books may be happening about
the same time as the "Wings Of The Seraph" series. Given that that
series ended inconclusively I would guess we have a "restoration"
cross-over storyline coming up. I would say this sequence was
solid, but not up to the "Wings Of The Seraph".
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)