Book 23 of the 2025 Read Your Hoard Challenge and Book number 539 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
I adore the Liaden Universe. The characters are tough, smart, optimistic, and oh so polite! Master Trader Shan yos'Galen and his daughter, Trader Padi, have been sent by their Delm to establish new, profitable trade routes to replenish the family coffers. They have set up offices on the planet of Colemeno, one of the places which has recently re-emerged from the Dust. They suspect that permanence and profit are possible, but there will be a lot of work to be done to determine that.
On planet, they are faced with the Ambient, a condition on Colemeno which wears on those with Gifts. Gradually, they learn to eat frequently to replenish their energy. The ubiquity of cake moves from being a joke of the trade team to being a necessity. This is not their only obstacle—Colemeno has a segregated society, consisting of the Civilized (those with controlled psychic talent), the Haosa (wild talents), and those known as Deaf, who are vanilla humans with no psychic talent. Needless to say, wherever there are three chimpanzees or three humans, there are politics. Both the Civilized and the Deaf live in the city, under the Grid, protecting them from the full power of the Ambient.
Young Padi's Gifts shine too brightly to be clearly viewed and quantified. She has at least learned not to bottle them up, but she would much rather concentrate on trade. Colemeno may not allow her a choice, but has given her the comfort of a member of the Haosa as a possible life companion. Padi is part of the third generation of Clan Korval that these novels have encompassed and I find myself just as entranced as I was with their elders.
In her Afterword, Sharon Lee states her intention to continue to write, working with ideas that she and her partner Steve Miller had planned out before his death. His name will continue to grace the covers, as his contributions are part of the basis of the Universe. I follow Ms. Lee on social media and must confess that I look forward to future volumes with great pleasure.
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