Customer Reviews

Scout's Progress

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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.

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!

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.

This the second of the Liaden books is mostly about Liad and Liaden culture. Liadens are ruled by the code and the code sets forth the behavior to be expected by all from Council of Clans, delms, nadelms, members of clans, and clanless. So it's a bit more like a Regency love story than a modern day one. Yet it is of another culture and another time. I could often hear the cadence of Jane Austen in the speeches.

Here Daav yos'Phelium knows that he must produce and heir and he's contracting a marriage with a women he doesn't particularly like but one that meets all the clans requirements. His intended contract wife, Samiv tel'Izak is to finish out her work contract before beginning her contract with Korval. Daav finds himself at loose ends and applies to Jon dea Cort for work at Binjali's repair.

Aelliana Caylon teaches a survival mathematics course to scouts. She's a brilliant mathematician but in the clan house treated as a simpleton with no grace, manners, intelligence at all by her brother the nadelm of clan Mizel. She's been beaten by him before and his now realized that if anything happened to the delm things could indeed get worse. She wins through an unlikely series of events a Class A jump ship. With a pilots license she could run away and be free of clan. The ship is kept at Binjali's.

Daav ends up her co-pilot. The men and women of Binjali's teach her much and she eventually gets her license and can leave. But then there is Daav.

The lovers meet and misunderstand, separate, realize their love, find clan law and custom separating them. But, it's a romance so you can probably figure out what will happen to them. It's the how it happens that is what makes the book worth reading.

Steve Miller and Sharon Lee have developed fully-realized characters and a richly textured world and society. It's will worth your time if you like romance and SF.

As soon as I bought and read this book, I went out to get the rest of the books in this series. It is a lovely space opera, a prequel to Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, and Carpe Diem. (Avaliable in a new omnibus.) This book told the story of Val Con yos'Phelium's parents, Aelliana Caylon and Daav yos'Phelium. Aelliana lives in a household headed by her cruel brother, but after winning a starship by chance, she sneaks out to learn to pilot it, with the help of Daav, who does not tell her he is Korval (the clan that basically is in charge of everything - a paragraph somewhere states that he's king of the world. Not that our heroine knows that . . .) The plot is quick and easy to get a hold of. Even if you're like me, and usually only like fantasy novels, you should still give this a try. It's appealing to fantasy lovers and well as sci-fi. I only wish there was a little bit more romance, and that Aelliana appeared in at least one other book.

Scout's Progress (2000) is the fifth SF novel in the Liaden Universe series, following Local Custom. In the previous volume, Er Thom married Anne Davis and brought Shan and her to Liad. Anne and Shan were accepted by the clan. Anne then published the work of Scholar Jin Del yo'Kera.

In this novel, Aelliana Caylon is a Scholar in Subrational Mathematics at Chonselta Technical College. She teaches a course in Practical Mathematics -- Math for Survival -- to Scout Academy students and is well liked by her classes.

Daav yos'Phelium is the Delm of Korval. He is plagued by the necessity of producing an heir as per the Code.

Er Thom yos'Galan is Daav's cousin by birth and brother by practice. He is married to Anne Davis, a Terran. They have one child, Shan.

Samiv tel'Izak is Clan Bindan. She is also a pilot.

Ran Eld Caylon is Aelliana's brother and Nadelm of Clan Mizel. He abuses Aelliana.

Jon dea'Cort is the owner of the Binjali Garage, a spaceship repair and docking facility in Solcintra Port. He is a former Scout.

In this story, Aelliana makes the mistake of disagreeing with a financial recommendation by Ran Eld. He challenges her, but their mother -- the Delm of Mizel -- thinks that there is some truth to her arguments. She orders Ran Eld to allow Aelliana to invest her quarter share as she wishes and to track the progress.

Anne comes to Daav with a question about Liaden customs. Her Terran culture takes such customs with a degree of doubt. Daav explains the Contract and the Captaincy, but she leaves still having some doubts.

Daav has decided to marry Samiv. Er Thom tries to him out of marrying her. Daav points out that he will have to marry someone sometime soon.

Since Samiv has accepted contract to pilot a merchant ship leaving soon, they will not be having a formal marriage anytime soon. So the two sign a letter of intent instead. Samiv does not react very well to Daav's conversation during the ceremony.

Daav is feeling discontented and asks Jon for a casual laborer job. All the Binjali workers are fellow Scouts. He works at Binjali to get a sense of comradery and accomplishment.

Aelliana presents the student Scouts with a practical problem with parameters defined by themselves and requires them to document the solution by the next class. Later she encounters two of her students while she is wandering the streets in thought. They invite her to their table, wine and dine her, and then take her into the new casino.

Aelliana observes the play of hands at a Pikit table. When the holder of the table invites her to sit and play, she seats herself. When the matter of stakes is raised, she puts forth her quarter share, but he is persuaded to risk his ship.

Aelliana plays skillfully and wins. The ship is docked at the Binjali Garage. It is soon registered in her name and she can take possession the following day. She drops by to see her ship and gets a personal tour by the owner of the facility.

She is pleased to see that Ride the Luck is a jump ship. Now she has to get a Second Class Pilot license and to learn Terran so that she can become independent. First she takes the test for a Second Class license and passes.

Her license will be Provisional until she has acquired sufficient hours of piloting a ship. When she comes to ask Jon to tutor her on ship handling, Daav is on duty by himself. He has a package to deliver on Outyard Eight, so he acts as her copilot as they fly to the station.

This tale leads the betrothed Daav to regret his coming marriage. Ran Eld abuses Aelliana even more, but doesn't learn about the ship from her. Samiv find herself liking Daav after all.

The story ends with unresolved questions. The long overdue sequel is Mouse & Dragon. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Lee & Miller fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of alien cultures, personal conflicts, and persevering women. If anyone is not familiar with this series, the initial volume is Agent of Change.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Scout's Progres is an enjoyable, personalized view of the Liaden
Universe. Action and detail make for an enthralling adventure
in an "alien" culture. I plan to follow this family epic closely.

OK, if you don't read any of the romance genre, the term Regency romance will mean nothing to you. If, however, you do read Regency romances, then this is the science fiction book for you!

The book is good even if one isn't a romance reader - there's plenty of plot, snappy dialogue, and seat-of-the-pants spaceship flying, as one would want in Space Opera.

But let me describe the romance part of the plot, so that Regency readers can see that indeed, this book hits every one of the cliches of the genre - and does it quite well, too! Let's see. Girl lives at home with cruel older brother, who has previously married her off to one of his equally cruel and abusive friends, and threatens to marry her off to another such unless she is completely submissive to him. Older sister thinks marriages of convenience are fine, for money and heirs - that's what's normal, after all. Younger sister is smart-alec brat, intelligent, but too young to really understand the tensions going on about marriage. Girl teaches at school; she's a math genius, but has virtually no public recognition. She goes out with some of her students to a gambling hell - er, hall - and winds up winning a spaceship from a card sharp. (The card sharp's family eventually finds out that he has fleeced many other young members of the nobility, and that's why so many other noble families aren't talking to them; he gets banished to the Americas - er, to a farm planet, with a distant aunt.) She decides to learn to pilot, and thus escape from her family and earn her own living. Who should wind up giving Aelliana piloting lessons but Daav, who doesn't give her his last name - because he's actually a member of the top aristocracy, who doesn't want to intimidate her or scare her off.

Older brother eventually finds out about her winnings, demands they all be turned over to him, and when she refuses, punishes her, locking her in. Daav, however, finds her home, and rescues her. Mother disowns Aelliana's brother. Everyone else lives happily ever after.

The card game she wins is called pikit, and I can hear the Regency readers saying "shouldn't that be spelled piquet?" The casino even has a stakes book. And there are characters named Per Sea, and Sed Rik (Percy and Cedric), and indeed, most of the characters in this book have names that are far closer to traditional "English" names, than the other Liaden Universe novels do. They really jump out at one.

Now, the science fiction bits: this is, in internal chronology, the second novel in the Liaden Universe series, although it is one of the later ones published - _Conflict of Honors_, _Agent of Change_, and _Carpe Diem_ came out long before this one, while _Local Custom_ came out at about the same time. Conflict, Agent, and Carpe concern the offspring of the characters in Scout's and Local. The entire Liaden series is space opera, extremely well done, with large doses of cultural anthropology that really make the societies involved seem complete, and the conflicts seem real. Liadens are a race of humans, but not Earth humans - at this point, it is still being argued among the various planets as to whether Terrans, Liadens, and Yxtrang are all from the same original stock; the companion book to this one, _Local Custom_, discusses that issue in more detail. This particular book in the series has much less space travel than the others. Keep your eye out for navigational computers and sleep-learning machines. It really doesn't matter whether you read this one or _Local Custom_ first, but it's a good idea to read both, before starting in on the next generation, even though the next generation ones were published first. That's always a dilemma with series books - publishing order or internal chronology?

The authors show a terrific sense of humor, and a great hand with dialogue. (Oh, and for readers who still have no idea what "regency" refers to, think Napoleonic War era, think Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Maturin series recast as romances.) If you like this book, then you will be addicted to them all.

Scout's Progress, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is a science fiction novel set in the Liaden Universe. It's space opera combined with Regency romance, and can be a bit hard to get into at first. It's been awhile since I've read space opera, and that combined with the different kind of language used by the Liadens made me go through a series of starts and stops before finally settling in to a good book. And it is a good book, if you like that sort of thing.

The book is something I'm of two minds about. As said in the first paragraph, it is a fine example of what it sets out to be, so I'm going to review it as that. It's not really the type of book that I'm much interested in, and thus I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I may have otherwise. It is very difficult to get into at first, though I think that may have been a personal thing. There are two reasons for that. First, the language is a bit hard to get used to. It is in English, of course, but it is a very formalized form with some different phrases. I found it a bit annoying at first, but after about 50 pages or so, I started getting used to it.

Secondly, the introduction actually uses the term "Regency Romance," which didn't bring good images to my mind. I'm not a romance reader. Those words put a fear into me that the novel would be overly sappy and trite. Between that and the language, I almost put the book down 30 pages into it, but I decided to work my way through it and see if I could get something out of it. Thankfully it worked, and I found myself enjoying the interplay of the characters and the situations, as well as learning about this intriguing world that they lived on, where clan honour is the most important thing, "balance" for any wrongs against the clan must be achieved, and trade is more important than family. It is more a science fiction book with romance elements, then a romance book with science fiction elements. The ending is still a bit too Regency for me and left a small sour taste in my mouth, but the rest of the book is interesting and well worth slogging through the first few pages. If you don't go in with preconceptions, then it will probably be easier.

Aelliana is a divided character, self-confident when it comes to mathematics, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships, she is cowed and very subservient. She finds her true calling when she goes into the Binjali Repair Shop to see her new ship, and meets the proprietor, Jon dea'Cort. She finds herself at home with him and the other workers and pilots there, and she finds a companionship that she desperately needs. On meeting Daav, there isn't the spark of romance that one would expect. It was nice to see a relationship build naturally, with none of this "I saw her and I had to have her!" nonsense that romance novels are known for. It builds slowly as Daav instructs her in piloting, first to a mutal respect, and then to a growing attraction that finally ignites.

Daav is also an intriguing character. He works at Binjali for his own interest, not making his status as Delm of Clan Korval known to the general population. Jon knows, as well as his fellow pilots, but he never tells Aelliana, and he very carefully never uses his last name around her. He even has Jon sign one of her pilot's certificates so that he can avoid using it. I'm not completely sure if this is something he does generally, or if it's something to do with Aelliana. That bit was unclear to me. He is still interesting, though. He has a sense of compassion that is not common for people of his status (though Clan Korval already has a reputation for eccentricity). He is torn between his obligations to his clan and to his desire to be a free spirit. His growing love for Aelliana only complicates things as well, demonstrating even more that the woman he is supposed to marry is not somebody he wants to spend much time with. When a decision is finally forced on him by circumstances, it makes for an explosive situation.

The only character who I found lacking was Ran Eld. He is sadistically cruel and is a stereotypically evil character. Enough of a backstory is given so that you know why he acts desperate sometimes, but his treatment of Aelliana goes beyond anything that has a rational reason. In that way, he's not three-dimensional at all, and I found him a bit boring. His backstory didn't really interest me at all and his constant cruelty grew annoying as well. I like my villains to have a bit of depth, and Ran Eld didn't have that depth.

I found the plot of this novel to be your standard romantic plot, though it was helped by the things I've pointed out above. It didn't do much to rise above that, though I found the society interesting. Between that and the characters, it definitely became good enough to finish, though I found it incredibly predictable. If good characters aren't enough for you, then you may want to steer clear of this novel. The ending is very flat, destroying much of my good will toward the novel. Still, it is enjoyable, and I would certainly recommend reading it to any space opera fans out there. If you don't like the genre, there is nothing in here that will change your mind though.

Aelliana Caylon learned the hard way that she was powerless in her Clan. At first, she tried to defy her brother, Van Eld, when he attempted to exercise his authority over her as the next Delm, but after her first and only contract marriage to Van Eld's abusive friend, Aelliana no longer rebelled. She learned to feign meekness and remain quiet except when she was teaching her advanced math class to the irrepressible pilots in training at the academy. She had value at the university and was readily acknowledged as one of the most brilliant mathematicians of her day. When one of her pilot students convinced her to play a game of chance at a new gaming palace, Aelliana used her math skills to beat the cardshark and found herself the proud owner of a ship - and her chance to leave Liaden forever...

But before Aelliana could leave Liaden, she had to get her pilot's license. Luckily, she was docked at Binjali's, where the pilots were irreverent and surprising, but genuinely friendly. Before she knew it, Aelliana found herself adopted in to a kind of family where her skills were valued and her opinion was asked. She quickly found herself looking forward to her lessons with Master Pilot Daav, who challenged her to become more and to take risks. What she did not know was that her quirky co-pilot was in fact Daav yos'Phelium, the Delm of Korval and arguably the most powerful man on the planet. She also did not know that Daav was in negotiations for a contract marriage or she never would have let herself fall in love with him....

Scout's Progress is the second book in the Liaden series after Local Custom, where we are first introduced to Daav. It was written after books 3-5, however, so most call it a prequel. I found this book to be just as well written and intriguing as Local Custom. I think that the Liaden universe is fascinating and every time I get my hands on one of the books, I am riveted and cannot stop reading until I am finished. All of the characters are interesting with quirks and strengths and weaknesses. I particularly enjoyed Daav's weird sense of humor and how he likes to play the game of life on Liaden. There are some who say that this is simply a romance with science fiction trappings and I would agree that the romance is very important to the plot, but I would also say that it is the characters and the world building that keep me reading, not the romance, although I enjoyed that as well. If you enjoy science fiction or space opera and have not yet read this wonderful series than you are in for a real treat! I cannot recommend this series highly enough!