Scout's Progress

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!

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

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 Progres is an enjoyable, personalized view of the LiadenUniverse. Action and detail make for an enthralling adventurein an "alien" culture. I plan to follow this family epic closely.

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!