Customer Reviews

The Crystal Variation (Liaden Universe Novels)

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Crystal Soldier was the first Liaden Universe novel I read -- just picked it out from a new books shelf at the library. Then came the search to find the other novels, which weren't always easy to come by after the demise of the original publisher. Years passed, and the library no longer had a copy of Crystal Soldier, and it, like several of the other novels, even became hard to get through inter-library loan.

As the others have been republished, I've bought them, and the same for the newer Fledgling/Saltation/Ghost Ship series. But until now, I haven't had a chance to revisit Crystal Soldier or Crystal Dragon. And when the new omnibus arrived yesterday, I sat down and started reading. While I liked the books well enough first time through, this time -- having read the others -- there was so much more. If you also read these books out of order, or many years ago, you may similarly find richness and depth and background that makes far more sense today. It was a deeply enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, an evening, and most of the next day. Some day, I hope Lee & Miller come back and write about the early days of Liad.

I've been fortunate enough to have Balance of Trade in a trade edition for a while now, so this is just a bonus copy in the omnibus. It is a fabulous story, and one of my favorites in the Liaden Universe.

My only issue with the omnibus is that I wish they had issued in in hardcover. I'll take good care of it, but that big a book, with that kind of binding is inherently a little fragile. But, the price is tough to beat, and the stories within will probably keep you up just as they did me.

The Crystal Variation (2011) is an SF omnibus in the Liaden Universe series. It containing three prequel novels: Crystal Soldier, Crystal Dragon, and Balance of Trade. The initial work in this sequence is Agent of Change.

Crystal Soldier (2004) is the first SF novel in the Great Migration duology and the earliest work in the sequence. It is set millennia before the events within Agent of Change.

In this volume, humanity lives in a different universe within the multiverse. The inhabitants of Sherieka have transcended into a higher state. Unfortunately, they did not lose their emotions during their evolution.

The Sheriekas felt that other humans were hindering their progress and decided to purge them from the universe. They constructed many large and powerful machines and biological entities to destroy lower humans. These other humans have been fighting the Sheriekas for millennia.

In this story, Jela is stranded on a desert world. He had attacked an enemy vessel to protect the Trident. His light-duty vehicle has been holed multiple times in the battle.

The Trident and the enemy vessel had fled the system while his craft landed on the planet. His craft is damaged enough that it cannot make orbit, so he has to wait for rescue. Meanwhile, he is exploring the planet with a rescue beacon in his pocket.

The world obviously contains something of interest to the Sheriekas. It had been a normal planet with a pleasant environment, but the enemy had turned it into desert. Only the remains of giant trees are left of the original biosphere.

The giant trees grew in the foothills, but a line of dead trees extends toward the seacoast. Each tree had fallen toward the coastline and deposited a single seed for the next tree. The tree remains grow smaller as the line approaches the coast.

As Jela follows the tree line, he gradually realizes that the trees have displayed intelligence in their effort to survive. Furthermore, he decides that the trees have somehow held back the Sheriekas. He begins to think of them as allies.

When Jela reached the last dead tree, he discovers that a sapling is still alive. He waters it from his dwindling supplies and provides it with shade. As he sleeps near it, Jela begins to have dreams.

Jela is finally rescued and insists on taking the sapling with him. His stubbornness is resented by the other soldiers, but he doesn't relent. When he gets back to the Trident, Jela finds that he is the senior survivor of his wing.

Many of his fellow soldiers resent -- and are envious of -- Jela. Then he gains an ally in Do Gayda. She offers him choices for his future and he takes the most demanding one.

Cantra has loaded cargo on Faldaiza and will leave port in the morning. Her recent voyage was long for a solo pilot and she yearns for food, company and rest. She books a room in a good hotel and goes out for a decent meal.

She tries several restaurants, but none are quite right. Then she finds The Alcoves and likes the look of it. She asks the host if any pilots have registered a wish for a tablemate.

Jela has made such a request and she is taken to his alcove. The server informs him that a pilot would like to dine with him and he agrees. Cantra is introduced and is seated by Jela.

After the meal, Jela accompanies Cantra on a walk. They are attacked, but destroy the attackers. Then they discover that the attackers had visited The Alcoves before confronting them.

Everyone in the restaurant seems to be dead. Then Cantra hears a thump and finds Dulsey within a hide. Afterward, Dulsey accompanies them to the Dancer. Nothing they say to Dulsey dissuades her from traveling with them.

Crystal Dragon (2005) is the second SF novel in the duology. It starts within Sherieka space, where a young aspiring dominant is watching the zaliata flying within an aetherium. They travel along the ley lines feeding on the energy. She moves closer and closer until the containment forces flare.

These zaliata display power and grace. They have been captured at the height of their abilities, contained, and exploited by the Iloheen. While it is theoretically impossible for her to perceive the zaliata, she enjoys watching them.

She and her sisters have survived two Dooms. Now they are facing the third -- and last -- Doom. She prepares a vessel for her submissive. When she is called, she steps into the darkness and is told to download a tumzaliat -- a tamer version of the zaliata -- into the vessel.

She carefully restrains the vessel on the tile floor. Then she enters the lesser aetherium and herds a tumzaliat down into the vessel. Unlike other birthings that she has witnessed, the downloaded tumzaliat does not scream. She names it Rool Tiazan.

Cantra, Jela and the tree transit to Landomist. She prepares false papers for all, takes Jela to bed with her, and then wakes early to prepare herself. The tree gives her a seed pod, which helps her go into trance.

When she awakes, Maelyn tay'Nordif is eager to present her request for a seat in Osabel Tower. She has her kobold Jela carry the tree as they present themselves to the portmaster. He provides them permission for a short-term visit.

Then Maelyn goes to the tower and faces the admissions committee. She states her name and specialty. Then she states that she was a student of Liad dea'Syl. Her proof is accepted and she is welcomed to a seat in the tower.

Tor An is returning home to the Ring Stars. He sets up the navigation computer and enters transition. The Light Wing stutters and drops back into normal space with an error message. After several attempts and tests over several hours, Tor An accepts the unavailability of the target coordinates and reports the problem to the nearest authorities.

Tor An gets no aid from the authorities. The soldiers even shoot him. Bandaging himself, he sets the controls for transit to Landomist.

Balance of Trade (2004) is set later than the Crystal duology, but prior to Agent of Change. The Liaden have been in this universe for centuries. They have found Terrans traveling between the stars.

Jethri Gobelyn is a shipborn adolescent just short of manhood. He is the youngest aboard the Gobelyn's Market. His mother -- the Captain -- has decided to transfer him to another ship belonging to the family.

Iza had borne two children by her husband Arin, but Jethri had never been accepted by her. Her antagonism has only gotten worse over the ten years since Arin died while rescuing strangers from a warehouse fire.

Jethri has been given the responsibility by his Uncle Paitor for trading a lot of textiles. He approaches the Liaden trader Sir bin'Flora with his merchandise. With the payment for the sample bolt, Jethri decides to loan the money to a fellow trader with a shortage of available cash. The trader has a firm guarantee of a four-for-one payment on previous merchandise from the Liaden Master Trader Norn ven'Deelin.

Since the man has the Master Trader's card as warrantee on the deal, Jethri doesn't see how he can lose. However, the man fails to show with the payment and Jethri finds out from Norn ven'Deelin that the card was counterfeit. The Liaden sense of balance insists that ven'Deelin owes Jethri for bringing this situation to her attention.

When the attempt to restore balance goes badly, she offers to take on Jethri as an apprentice. Iza Gobelyn reluctantly agrees and Jethri relocates his few goods to the Liaden ship. Jethri soon finds that being Norn ven'Deelin's apprentice is hard work. He also discovers that some Liadens don't like Terrans.

Meanwhile, the Gobelyn's Market lands in a shipyard for refitting and the Captain soon finds herself in trouble with the shipyard boss and the police. Since her eldest son is temporarily on a long haul pending completion of the refit, her daughter Seeli takes over supervision of the refit and Iza finds herself another long haul. Grig has also stayed behind to help Seeli and he has an unwelcome reunion with his uncle and sister.

These tales provide some more background on the Liadens. Cantra, Jela and the tree are the founders of Clan Korval. Jethri is an early example of the merging of the two cultures.

Highly recommended for Lee & Miller fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of the origins of the Liadens and the relationships between human and Liaden cultures. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

"Crystal Soldier". Jela was genetically created to be the ultimate soldier. He knows the ruthless enemy former human Sheriekas are destroying the universe as his High Command is either treasonous or inept. Fearing he is losing his grip on being human, Jela finds hope when he meets Cantra and her Spiral Dance smugglers. Cantra needs to jettison this unwanted soldier and an escaped slave as they bring enemies in pursuit of them; she has enough of her own. They consider escape to the mythical Liaden universe

"Crystal Dragon". Cantra recalls she is a genetically engineered aelantaza, which allows her to go so deep undercover that she believes that the persona she uses at that moment is truly her. Cantra gains access to Landomist University where she frees Liad dea'Syl. She also forges an alliance to protect her child that will one day shake the universe.

"Balance of Trade". Jethri has lived on the spaceship Gobelyn's Market all his life going wherever the trading takes him. When the ship goes in to dry dock for repairs, Jethri is transferred to another ship. He rejects the ship his estranged mother Captain Iza Gobelyn chose for him. Instead Liaden Master Liaden Trader Norn Ven 'Deelin makes the human an apprentice aboard the Elthorial. As the first Terran to be apprenticed by a Liaden. Jethri has enemies who wish to see him fail

These three tales are the prehistory of the Liaden Universe with the first two entries being a duology while the final story is a separate novel. Each thriller brings home a sense of realism that enables saga fans to believe in the Liaden Universe. However that also decelerates the overarching themes. Still this omnibus collection affirms Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have created an incredible universe.

Harriet Klausner

This is my first time reading a book in the Liaden Universe, so I come to this as an outsider. I have only read the first novel in this book of three, but I can already fairly accurately rate this. Here are my impressions, as succinctly as possible:

* The editing is terrible. I'm not talking about one or two misspelled words, I'm talking about bad spelling, poor grammar, and terrible sentence construction on what at times seems like almost every page. There were numerous times when I had to stop, and re-read a line a few times because either it was missing a word or the grammar was so atrocious I couldn't follow what was going on. There were also numerous sentences that were constructed terribly and that should have been corrected by an editor.

* The future presented is unbelievable. We have spaceships that can travel light years in hours/days/weeks, we have "skinsuits" that can apparently detect most anything in the area, and we have robots good enough to drive cars and navigate spaceships, but we still have cellphones and chattel slavery? The book is set in an incredibly distant future (a planet is mentioned as having been cataloged as a likely one for terraforming 2000 years ago), but the authors don't seem to have the imagine to pull it off. Devices and advancements that should be commonplace within the next century or two are apparently either cutting edge or missing in the authors' future. Apparently most of the rest of the Liaden universe is set in some alternate universe, and maybe things work better there, but this didn't work well. There are many other things, but to write them down here would be to spoil aspects of the plot.

* The authors try to weave a thin understanding of advance math/physics in to the book, but it doesn't work too well. They readily admit that they don't have a good understanding of it in the forward, so one wonders why they'd even bother to use it. It seems like they're attempting to take some aspects of string theory and use it in the future, but its presented as cutting edge research in the future ... which is beyond odd in a future with a magical device such as the warp drive of the ships.

So, the editing and technology of the book is pretty terrible, and thats about 1/2 of the appeal of a space opera. The other 1/2 is the story - so far thats the only saving grace of the book, but its not enough to make up for the other missteps.

* The story is entertaining, and the protagonists are ... perhaps a bit too good at everything they do (though an attempt is made to explain this, often it feels like deus ex machina almost). But the story is entertaining. Oftentimes though one wishes for more background information and motivation of various factions - perhaps that will be presented in the next book (though you shouldn't have to need to read a second book for something so basic).

So, overall:

-1 star for poor presentation of future technology

-1 star for terrible editing

If amazon allowed 1/2 stars I might rate this book as 2.5 stars in stead of 3, but I thought it was much more fair to round that to 3 stars rather than 2.