Scout's Progress [Paperback]

Sharon Lee (Author), Steve Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2002

The second novel of the Liaden Universe-the story of a young girl who has won a starship, but now must learn to fly if she is to escape her dastardly brother.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ace (April 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441009271
• ISBN-13: 978-0441009275
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,081,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Series

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable SF romance, September 9, 2002

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scout's Progress (Paperback)

Scout's Progress is a prequel to the main sequence of Liaden novels that begins with Agent of Change. It tells the story of the romance of the parents of the hero of that novel. It is primarily a science fiction romance (in contrast to the earlier book, which is more purely Space Opera, with elements of romance). I detected the distinct influence of Georgette Heyer.

Daav yos Phelium, a Liaden of the somewhat renegade Clan Korval, and an ex-Scout and a Master Pilot, is facing the necessity of a contract marriage. He is somewhat resigned to this, despite disliking his arranged mate, and despite facing the hostility of her family to the presence of a Terran in his extended household. At the same time the brilliant mathematician Aelliana Caylon, daughter of an impoverished Clan, is facing abuse from her vain brother, who resents her abilities. Her only thought is to escape to Terran space, where the strict social rules that govern Liadens do not apply -- but how? Then, rather improbably, she finds herself with a spaceship -- and the Master Pilot who ends up helping her get her pilot's license is -- well, you've guessed it.

The nove follows many of the conventions of the romance genre: not always a good thing, but enjoyable as long as you expect it. It has, at any rate, the strengths of the better Romances: engaging characters, an involving love story, a fairly believable strict social structure against which to mildly rebel. I found it compulsively readable, and very, very enjoyable.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another day in the Liaden universe, May 9, 2002

By 

L. Johnson "lebjohnson" (Wilmington, DE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scout's Progress (Paperback)

I've been reading books in this series ever since the first one came out. The long pause when publishers didn't see how good they were was hard. I kept making up stories in my head and wondering how things would come out just because the characters were so real and so believable. Now I don't have to because they are back and getting into complicated situations at regular intervals. True, it's space opera, but literate space opera, well written, with female characters that act instead of being wall paper. Buy it, read it and then get all the other books so you have all of the story!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Above-average romantic space opera, September 21, 2007

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Scout's Progress (Paperback)

This is a separate novel set in the Liaden universe (not part of the Agent of Change arc), but it still involves Clan Korval, most powerful family unit on the planet. The focus this time is a generation earlier, the story of Daav yos'Phelium, delm of Korval, and Aelliana Caylon, mathematician and victim of a cruel and overbearing brother. (Daav and Aelliana will later become the parents of Val Con yos'Phelium.) Aelliana quite unexpectedly wins a spaceship in a card game and becomes liberated, step by step, as she passes the hurdles required of prospective pilots. She's added in this by Daav, who likes to unwind by doing common repair work at a facility run by his old Scout comrades, and whose clan affiliation she doesn't discover until the very end. We get to see the less glamorous side of the highly stratified and stylized Liaden society through the eyes of a lesser family that largely depends for survival on its ability to place its daughters in contract marriages for the purpose of producing children -- something demanded of every male Liaden. It's primarily a love story, and there's a flavor of Jan Austen here, or perhaps Cinderella. Not as galaxy-spanning as some of the other Laden novels, but not bad at all.