geekyA brand-new story about Patrick and Dianda's first meeting! "Heaps of Pearl" has been posted on the Toby Daye short fiction page. It is available in ePub, MOBI, and PDF formats, and is free for download. Please download rather than trying to read locally; my server will thank you. (It's at the bottom of the page; scroll down.)
This story is best read after The Winter Long if possible, as it contains relationship spoilers through that point in the series. It is a story about meetings, and mermaids, and the terrible strain of living up to expectations. It is narrated by Patrick, because he's less likely to punch people for funsies.
Cover graphics are by Tara O'Shea. All short story electronic conversion thus far has been done by
scifantasy. As both of them are awesome, we applaud them now.Go forth, read, and please feel free to use this as a discussion post, which means there may be spoilers in the comments. Tread carefully.
Enjoy.
January 7 2016, 05:29:05 UTC 1 year ago
Loved seeing Simon as he was. The line about his tendency towards terrible ideas is great. It's a bit disconcerting to see him so cheerful. For him to go from the flirtatious dandy to what we see in the books... I can't imagine what Evening made him do.
August! Always interesting to get information about her. Like the fact that she dresses mostly in white, which means she's better at keeping her blood where it belongs than Toby. Also, that she's looking forward to a party and dancing, but that at some point she'll have an adventure with a candle from the Luidaeg.
Who is the duchess of wild strawberries, and why is she starting bar brawls? Can she and Toby be friends?
I LOVE the idea of holding a party where everyone pours their own silver jewelry. If it weren't dangerous and exorbitantly expensive, I'd try to have that party. But parties and molten metal probably aren't the wisest mixture.
"I will hit you with a chair if it gets me real food." Dianda clearly never picked up on the "do what I want OR I will hurt you" thing. Using AND in threats doesn't usually work as well. How did their kids end up so (apparently) well adjusted?
Was it rude of Gilad to not serve salty stuff? You said out of water they need as much salt as they can get.
I would love to see a story about their ice cream date.
Overall, I love how genuine and honest Patrick is. He doesn't care about court or politics. He just wants to make ships so that everyone can have the opportunity to travel. He's charmed by a woman who's as honest and open as he is. He's delighted by Dianda's amazement at strawberries. I think he simply comes across as a truly good man, in a society that doesn't have a lot of good people. Perhaps the best description would be that he's the biggest disappointment of all of Evening's descendants, and that there's no greater compliment than that.