I’m giving the page a second section because page 1 was starting to behave oddly.
As always, wait at least 30 days from issue of the book before starting to discuss. And give our overseas friends some extra leeway: the distribution system doesn’t reach everywhere as fast!
@BCS: well said. I agree.
@Sapphire: in present-day reality your fear is realistic.
Given the SF premise, that humanity has managed to get beyond that point, to develop a viable space-exploration and colonization effort, some form of BCS’ reasoning can be assumed to apply, otherwise humans would never have managed to get to the atevi world.
Regarding birth-rates, the one point that is essential for them to fall is women having equal rights, not only in law but also in practise. That, and not living in abject poverty with great uncertainty about being cared for in your old age, and good enough medicine and healthcare that most children who are born will live till adulthood, are the three circumstances (apart from the medical/technical ability to prevent pregnancies without stopping people from having sex), that play a part in whether or not birthrates fall.
If women are equal, educated and have the chance to build their own careers, and have access to birthcontrol methods at a reasonable price, and no social stigma or persecution (cultural, religious or political) attached to using them (for them or their husbands), and can have some trust in being taken care of in their old age, birthrates fall.
People still want to have children, but not so many. Each child becomes a larger investment in the future, often being cared for by the parents until they’re twenty-something, instead of starting to help out earning the family income or tending the fields or animals at five or eight or so. This also means that a Western-style family can afford less children (in both senses of ‘afford’).
As Mospheiran women, from all we have seen, are not treated as second-rate citizens, their family-patterns are much more likely to follow European or North-American patterns than Indian or African ones.
When I consider Bren’s legacy, I think less of his property and titles and more about his genetic heritage. The man’s got valuable genes! There must be a genetic component to both his genius with math and his temperament. You’d think that Mospheira would make sure every paid’hi–but particularly this paid’hi–would make a genetic deposit for future use.
Though personally I find the notion of breeding humans for particular traits to be repugnant, I rather accept that some traits are too valuable to leave their continuance to chance.
Which leaves me wondering what Bren’s father is like. His mother sure does not seem to be the source of his superior genetic heritage (but you never know). CJ, will we ever be informed on this issue?
The longer this series goes on, the more alien the humans appear! How’s that for irony?
It seems to me that Bren is a sport – a one-off. Geniuses who sprang up from nowhere, from very humble origins, have occurred with no warning throughout human history – and their offspring have not usually been geniuses.
Sapphire, I think so too. The University selection process got lucky, judging by Wilson and Hanks, who went through the same system as Bren. The same might happen for the Atevi, if they had a similar process. Certainly more of a pool to draw from. Imagine a thorough search of Atevi kids for candidates, and imagine the pressure to go more by man’chi than merit. What if the best candidates come from nowhere special? Oh, the politics!
Hanneke, now that the South is encouraging education, I would expect their population to stabilize along with the rest. Eventually. Speaking of the South, I have a lingering curiosity about where Bren’s “mostly Southern” aishid came from. I know Bren doesn’t want to pry into family secrets, but he’s always looking for ways to take care of his people. I sort of expect him to at least check it out. Sub-plot material, spread out over a few books, maybe?
I’ve read up to Intruder, but I still haven’t been able to get Betrayer at the local book store that I’m trying to support. Yeah, I know. I keep trying. Anyway, I’ve heard that Najida gets a lot of attention, and I’m wondering about that. In the back of my mind, I keep noticing places that Bren’s aishid could semi-retire to, if they ever take a bullet the wrong way for him, so to speak. There’s Najida and the Station, with the Station having obvious advantages for anyone seriously disabled. Najida might be fine for anyone who’s just gimpy, depending on the lay of the land. I must get Betrayer soon. The curiosity is killing me.
When I think of Algini/Tano or, God forbid, Banichi/Jago retiring from personal bodyguard service, I wonder who picks the replacements. Bren’s surviving aishid? The Guild? What if Bren wanted to hire his own “young men” to protect Najida, his apartments (Station and Bujavid), and himself? I know he’s talked about hiring help for his aishid before, and he seems able to afford it, so I assume it’s possible. I realize that some Lords will object to Bren bulking up on firepower, but his aishid really does need help. If/when they finally get it, who will they be? One tries not to drool in anticipation.
“Bren as a sport”–yes, that fits exactly. He is a walking baji-naji: Fortune and Chance in one package.
The atevi seem to be more fortunate in this area than humanity. Tabini, Illisidi and Cajeiri, and perhaps Geigi, all seem to share Bren’s unusual capabilities. Imagination seems to be key–an imaginative ability to perceive beyond one’s own cultural matrix and personal ambitions. One wonders if Machigi, too, might share this capacity. Can it be learned? Banichi does not care that the sun is a star, but. . .
I find Wilson’s fate sad. Cut off from humanity, required not to attach to atevi–no wonder he dried up and soured. (Perhaps he saw his life as a long, slow,continual giving up of what he values–humanity’s technological superiority to atevi–in the interest of peace.) Bren’s ability to attach in many directions appears to have helped spare him Wilson’s fate.
In fact, Bren is positively “sticky.” He attaches all over the place and draws attachment. That is his genius, as much as his talents for math and diplomacy. And he exemplifies how far good manners can take one.
Deana–such a waste. Fear and arrogance are a miserable and deadly combination (hint hint to our own foreign policy makers).
Oh, yes. Is there not a hint in one of the earlier books that the paidhi becomes rather like the aji he serves? Wilson’s aji Valasi seems not to have been particularly dynamic. . . One wonders how Valasi and Wilson would have responded to the return of the Phoenix if it had happened in their time.
I suppose we will never know who offed Valasi.
If his mother or his son ordered the deed, I think I’d rather not know. On the other hand, that information would sure jar me back into the mindset of”These atevi sure are alien!”
Rigeldeneb: agree a hundred per cent with what you say – and yes, I too think Machigi may well have the qualities shared by Tabini and Ilisidi. Clever, clever personage, especially as is evident from the letter he wrote to Bren, his political savvy, and his knowledge of and respect for is own civilization.
From what I can see, no human apart from Bren – not even Jase, who lived with the Atevi for three years – has come close to understanding the Atevi and dealing with them in the way Bren does. Some humans may accept decisions that are being made vis a vis human/Atevi relations because it is expedient for them to do so, but they do not understand the Atevi and are not capable of negotiating with them. Bren has a very special type of mindset enabling him to do this.
Among the Atevi, on the other hand, Caijeri has come the closest to having some understanding of humans as well as his own species. Hopefully as he grows up he will realize the danger associated with the two species collaborating too closely…
Re The death of Valasi and “these atevi sure are alien:” Actually, I’d chalk this up to “aijiin sure are alien.” Among human rulers there are plenty of examples of the killing of relatives (and other behaviors that an average human, of the same culture, would find abhorrent). And aijiin are also abnormal among Atevi: They’re missing an important part of the average Ateva’s emotional makeup (upward man’chi).
We don’t get that much about normal Atevi family relationships. Perhaps Banichi and Jago? Father and daughter, working in the same field, together, with the same man’chi. Plenty of alien-ness there, but a bit more subtle.
Re Bren’s predecessors: I wonder how much of it is just opportunity/necessity. Here’s my thinking: The traditional job of the paidhi was to keep up a long-standing pact. It was basically about maintaining the status quo. It also gave one person (the paidhi) the power to wreck everything with some stupid mistake; the Mospherians, understandably uncomfortable with the idea, restricted the paidhi more and more. End result: hardly any flexibility or discretion; toe the line, try not to do anything, and hope that whatever you do do isn’t a disaster.
Then the pattern breaks. Tabini won’t follow the rules. Ilisidi won’t. Bren is given a role in the Atevi political system (necessarily against his will, since the role is “assassination target”). Accelerating developments and political problems on both sides of the strait (and in space) force Bren off the marked path. He makes his own path, while still mostly adhering to the “peaceful relations and controlled tech” agenda.
And as for the paidhi-pretenders: They weren’t on that path to begin with. They were thrown into the middle, with nothing to go on but a crazy situation and whatever agenda got them thrown in in the first place.
Maybe if the other paidhis (paidhiin? I think I’m going to adopt an “enclosing-language-primacy” model for now) were in the same situation, they’d handle it ok. Or maybe not.
Rigeldeneb, your questions about Valasi and Wilson’s time, when Ilisidi was doing the footwork that would eventually lead to her having a hold on the humans, through Bren, and on the Western Associations, through Tabini and Cajeiri, and on the South, through whoever proved handy (I doubt if even she could have predicted who, exactly), inspire thoughts of prequels, possibly from Ilisidi’s perspective. Ohhh, wouldn’t that be a tale to tell.
Sapphire, I’d think Cajeiri will eventually be the best bridge on the Atevi side, but I don’t want to discount Geigi. I suspect Atevi are very good at black box problems, considering everything I’ve read about them. Whether it’s a control system on a space station or aliens around them, they’re very quick at figuring things out. I think it’s interesting to note that Geigi, on the Station, has more examples of human behavior to go by than any other Atevi Lord, and he’s the one talking about friendship. As for love, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bren try to explain love to Jago, one of these days, only to be stopped by her reasonable observation that he’s already showed her. Silly human.
I note that CJ mostly doesn’t do prequels, but this is one exception that I should love to see. A series of books beginning with Young Ilisidi and working forward through her meeting with Bren (told, of course, from her perspective).
CJ–no pressure, no pressure. Just passionate interest. . . I always wanted to know what happened in the 200 hundred years between the “First Encounter” between”moon-man” Ian and ateva Manadigi, depicted in Foreigner (they were both so wonderfully civilized), and Bren’s tenure. And who were those other human/atevi couples that Ilisidi slyly refers to?
Yes, Chesty and Sgt. Saturn, it would all indeed be a tale to tell.
Yes, it would be interesting to learn more about Ilisidi’s early life – but for me, not at the expense of the continuing story involving Bren, Banichi, Jago, Algini and Tano (and the other key Atevi characters) in the present day, so to speak. I’m very keen to see what happens next.
Does anyone know whether we are going to have to wait until March 2013 for Protector? Also, is the cover artwork going to be by Todd Lockwood again? It would be good to at last maintain continuity in this respect…
So far as I know both will be the case. Todd’s doing the best continuity we’ve had in a while and to a certain extent the book is entering production: I’ve already turned in summary for the catalog, and as Hanneke says, let us all hold our thumbs in hopes that Amazon attaches this blurb to the right book.
That’s great news about the artwork! Todd seems to be the best illustrator for these books – the cover he illustrated for Deceiver is probably my favourite for the whole sequence. It shows the faces of Bren’s Atevi guards so well that you can recognize each one of them – they are exactly as one would imagine them. Michael Whelan’s covers were good, particularly the first one, which set the tone for the whole sequence, but his humanoids can be a bit too stylized for my liking.
I notice from another thread on this site that you’ve already delivered the ‘manuscript’ for the book to DAW, which is great news.
Amazon have to be watched. They often make mistakes in book listings.
Hmm. So am I the only one who finds it jarring to see the atevi dressed like Colonial Americans? All through the series we’re told they’re wearing colorful and ornate brocades. I’ve always seen something much more Eastern, either Chinese or even Persian in appearance, what with the references to long coats and slippers etc. The gowns are particularly eyebrow-raising. One can’t imagine Ilisidi racketing cross-country weighed down by yards and yards of fabric. (Admittedly, the lace isn’t particularly Eastern, but I saw that as a nod to no-they-aren’t-dressed-exactly-like-Eastern-humans-either.) To be honest, I’m just as happy not to have the covers show up on my Kindle editions.
Re: gowns. Not to mention the difficulties in zero-g. Pretty sure Ilisidi wasn’t flashing her knickers at everyone. Pretty sure she had pants on.
Funnily enough, exactly that had occurred to me – but only in relation to the latest cover. I think the woman on the right is dressed completely differently from the way I imagine Atevi woman would dress. I don’t think a virginal white, flowing dress is at all right, and yes, she has always reminded me of a southern American from the 19th century (the wrong look for the series). I always think of Atevi women outside the Assassins Guild dressed in long, roughly knee-length tunics that are very ornamental – silk brocades, that sort of thing – with silk trouser affairs of contrasting colours under the tunics, and beautiful flat slippers.
I think Ilisidi looks more or less right on the covers. According to the text she always dresses in a very ornate way, in black, red and gold, enhanced with precious stones and lots of lace. I think the length of her dresses is appropriate for her, given her age.
I also think Jago on the cover of Betrayer, for example, looks absolutely right.
Intruder? They’re wearing Nehru collars. . .
I do like the costumes on the cover of Destroyer, not to mention the colors employed. The color palette of Destroyer makes me nuts–too harsh, mustardy. . .
What I like most about Intruder’s cover, barring the fabulous jar and Bren’s somewhat secretive, somewhat sly and completely knowing expression, is–no guns! A welcome change to see an action SF cover with no guns in evidence.
Occasionally I find myself nostalgic for the old old covers with the finned rocket ships balanced amid the craters of a desolate world. We were such innocents then.
I sort of like the colour palette on the cover of Explorer. It’s very vibrant and striking with the blues, reds and blacks, and the way Banichi and Jago are positioned mirrors their position on the cover of Foreigner to some extent. I don’t much like the depiction of Banichi and Jago on the Destroyer cover. Michael Whelan’s humanoids (and similar) are not always that well done, though his alien environments are usually terrific.
Betrayer: that, I believe, was quite a hurriedly executed artwork, possibly no fault of Todd Lockwood, whose cover artworks for the sequence have otherwise been very good. (The virginal white dress is the only thing I don’t really like on the latest cover, plus if I’m fussy the ‘thuggish’ look of Machigi. 🙂 )
It’s not just the finned rocket ships on the barren word, but also humans with fish-bowl helmets poised on such worlds, the classic screaming female included! Perhaps also a tentacled green monster or two…
I do think some of the early Ace, TOR and DAW covers were great fun, and they suited the genre at the time. However, works such as the Foreigner sequence benefit from a more sophisticated approach to the cover artwork (in my view).
The evolution of the genre is reflected in the evolution of the quality of the covers, thank goodness. Covers have to keep up with the more sophisticated and complex content of the stories.
Some items of depiction don’t seem to change: marketing still seems to have a preoccupation with weaponry (as I observed earlier)and with decolletage.
Yes, the fishbowl helmets are wonderfully nostalgia producing, leaving us in the odd position of regarding “future” artifacts as out of style. The objects look ludicrously old-fashioned now (and sort of defenseless, I think), including the needle-nosed “rayguns” with the circular shields between nozzle and gun butt.
And how about the absurdity of your “classic screaming female” in her fishbowl helmet but minus air tanks and in so very little clothing. The guys were often heavily padded and you could tell that the sun glare was fierce, from the darkness and keen edges of the shadows. The carbon dioxide in the helmet and the radiation would have done her in long before the tentacled, green, yellow-eyed snarly could have finished her off.
I know, I know, the publishers were marketing excitement, not logic. Now many of us demand both.
My only regret on finishing Intruder is that now I’ve got nearly a year to wait before Protector! I’m re-reading the Chanur series as a consolation. I love books I can get more out of every time I read. Those kif… now THEY’RE alien.
On future paidhiin: Geigi is the closest living person to being a paidhi, after Bren, in my mind. Cajeiri shows great promise, though. I myself would like to see a Guild of Paidhiin resurrecting the old tradition of the white ribbon. It seems to me that this would fit well with the role Manadgi plays in Foreigner, too. Manadgi’s profession is “speaker,” as opposed to “assassin,” a point he notes when wondering if his aiji has sent the right person for the job. I wonder if there were more “speakers,” perhaps even called paidhiin, before the War? (BTW, are the Tachi a sub-clan of Edi?)
The other question I have is more abstract. Over on shejidan.net we’ve been discussing atevi music. We have a few examples in the books– a local chorus of children sings folk songs for Bren when he visits the Observatory; the Atageini staff put on music for a line dance at the first pizza party; staff provide live instrumental music as a backdrop at the reopening of the Breakfast Room. But we don’t know much about how atevi music (or at least Ragi music) compares to what Bren is used to as human/Mospheiran music.
A couple of concepts seem obvious. Atevi are unlikely to be comfortable with four beats per measure, and since they don’t tend to march in unison when fighting, there’s no strong need for even-number measures. I can see them liking measures of three, five, or seven notes (all of which do exist in contemporary human music, if rarely).
I would also expect atevi to prefer prime numbers of measures per phrase, and prime numbers of phrases per verse. (Actually a limerick structure might be quite popular.)
A deeper question I find myself wondering regards scales, harmonics and tuning. The chromatic scale used in most Western music has 11 distinct notes. We usually count them as 12, because we like divisible numbers, but we’re counting the root or “tonic” note twice when we do that. The notes of the scale are chosen to be the notes that harmonize best with the root note. This harmony is determined by the mathematical ratio of the frequency of the note, which is also the ratio of the length of a sounding string, flute pipe, etc. I think it very likely that atevi would prefer such harmonics (except the octave, possibly, as it’s a 1:2 ratio, but even there I see an implied 3). The rest of the notes in the chromatic scale were all historically simple fractions– the simplest 11 ratios are those in the scale.
If not the chromatic scale of the 11 most harmonic tones, the septatonic scale (essentially the “white notes” of the piano) would be another good bet, or the pentatonic — the five most harmonic notes. This is a scale that has been in use all over the earth of the humans for longer than recorded history.
But there is a question even beyond this. Two major styles of tuning that exist historically on the earth of the humans are Equal Temperament and Just Intonation. Just Intonation is older, and is the basis of the Pythagorean pentatonic scale, for example. Equal Temperament is more common in contemporary (back to the Renaissance) Western music.
I think atevi would prefer Just Intonation. I’m going to explain why. It’s slightly technical, but I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible. I’d really like to know what C.J. thinks of this.
The 12 note equal temperament tuning defines a precise, identical frequency ratio from one chromatic note to the next, so the frequencies are equal distances along a logarithmic scale, i.e., a geometric sequence. A “perfect fifth,” therefore, is a note that has a frequency of 1.498307 times the root, no matter which key you are in. So middle C is 261.626 Hz, and with 12-TET tuning, that means G will be 391.995 Hz. (Well, it would if I had more precise values for C.) Similarly, the harmonic third E is 329.628 Hz, and A is defined as 440Hz (out to 3 decimal places, yet) in Equal Temperament.
On the other hand, Just Intonation tuning defines a perfect fifth according to the ratio between the root and the fifth (or the root and any other note). So if C is 261.626 Hz, the perfect fifth G is 3/2 of the root, or 1.5 times the root, i.e. 392.43 Hz., E is 5/4 of the root at 327.033 Hz and A would be 436.0433…
The difference is subtle, but what this means is that a Just Intonation tuning sounds great in the key of C (or whatever the starting note is), even better than 12-TET if your ears are good enough, but will sound more and more off as you move away from that key. In particular, the note E gets flattened just slightly, so the major C chord (CEG) sounds great… but A-E and E-B, which should be perfect fifths, sound pretty horrible.
The Equal Temperament tuning works because the small differences between the “best” notes for each key are averaged out over the whole scale, and while none of them (except the octave) are exactly right, they’re all close enough to be within what most humans can hear and distinguish.
My suspicion is that atevi wouldn’t accept this compromise. Humans don’t worry about the precise equations of bridges– they just build them to a higher tolerance than they expect to need and go on. Atevi get annoyed by this sort of thing. They want the “true numbers.” I think they’d rather just accept that some keys will sound infelicitous (and use them on purpose in machimi accompaniment, much as contemporary Western music uses minors) than have ALL the keys be just slightly off.
Any thoughts?
In high school I played around with constructing a just tempering based on an “octave” of ratio 3:1 (versus the common octave’s 2:1). The basic assumption was that the species for whom this scale is constructed hears odd harmonics as more powerful than even ones, so 3:1 is more basic to them than 2:1. Where the human music has fourth & fifth intervals with ratio 3:2 and 4:3, so that a fourth note up from a fifth note is 3:2×4:3 = 2:1 an octave, my system used 2:1×3:2 = 3:1.
I eventually noticed that the frequencies I was getting looked very much like the frequencies of a 2:1 octave just tempered scale, only grouped differently. If you move to even tempering on the 3:1 scale, note that the 19th root of 3 is very close to the 12th root of 2, 1.05953 vs. 1.05946.
Nekokami and Jcsalomon–keep going. This is interesting. . .I absolutely cannot speak about music in any technical sense, but I did wonder about atevi music, too. I wondered more about the beat, given atevi preoccupation with numbers, and trying to picture that solemn line dance. Not like cowboy honky-tonk (though that would be amusing), maybe like Mediterranean dancing (as seen in the movies)? Also–atevi, like humans, have two feet, which seems to me to make a two-step fairly natural: put one foot down, then the other. But atevi dislike two. Perhaps atevi are hard-wired differently in this manner, too?
I also wonder about pitch, given that the atevi are so much larger than we humans and their voices deeper. Does their music tend to be much deeper than ours? Do atevi hear higher and/or lower pitches than humans? What about it, CJ?
I got a good smile for myself once, listening to the boys choir Libera. I was admiring the utterly beautiful, ethereal high notes–and suddenly wondered what on earth Banichi would make of these young human males and their voices.
Oh, yes, Betrayer is the book cover with the mustardy palette, to clarify my earlier statement.
I’m going to repeat some of my musings on atevi music originally posted on the Shejidan dotnet forum. They’d probably like waltz time (3/4), other time signatures with implied triplets (6/8, etc.), and odd-count measures (3/2, 5/4, 7/8), even if our musical notation would set their teeth on edge (half notes, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds…). I still want to see how atevi have managed to tolerate computer hardware design. Binary, octal, hexadecimal. Back on track, even-number total number of notes could be mitigated with a “pickup measure” of one note/beat lead-in. I’ve sung a (Christmas) piece with my church choir that was women’s parts in fifths over men’s parts in fourths, written in five-fourths time. The composer being too clever by half, I thought, but I’m sure atevi would appreciate it.
Yes, the “pickup measure” has certain resemblances to the compensatory plural or whatever it’s called, where a polite person inserts an extra article into a sentence involving infelicitous two to make it a more fortunate three.
I tried to avoid writing terms like 3/4 time when describing atevi measures because I wanted to avoid those constant references to quarter and eighth notes….
I’m not sure that 3/3 time is outside the rules for time signiatures, but it sure would be a poser for the musicians until they got it hardwired that a whole note is supposed to last for 3 beats only. Overall, I’m not really that fond of artificial rhythms that are so literally “offbeat” that one is likely to stumble when one is walking and listening simultaneously. Rutter’s “Dancing Day” comes to mind.
I wonder what the Atevi would think of a Swedish hambo; which is a delightful combination of out of phase two-steps in fast 3/4 time — the man’s Right, Left, Hold oppposed to the lady’s Hold, Right, Left. It’s by far the fastest couples pivot I was ever able to do while still keeping my balance.
Definition of time signature: the top number is the number of beats per measure, the bottom number indicates which type of note is one beat. Human music notation does not have a “one-third” note, so 3/3 (or */3) is not a valid signature. Common time (C) is 4/4. Cut time (¢) is 2/2.
I don’t think Atevi music would necessarily sound like traditional Western-style music; it might be closer to some of the stylings from Middle or Far East. About the only thing from modern music that might not give them collywobbles would be syncopation.
One tidbit didn’t quite make sense, when the young gentleman was sticking pins in a map. Thirteen pins was of course a good felicitous number, but nan’d Cajeiri being who he is, wasn’t going to stop if he could keep going. Fourteen is of course decidedly infelicitous, fifteen “not much better…” — (insert screeching rip of needle across vinyl record here). Wait, what? Fifteen should be a good number, odd, product of primes, AND symbolic of strength and felicity from diverse bases (like what he was assembling), compared to square-of-a-prime (like 9) being rooted in a single, uniform base. One understands why atevi would value numerical unity, but even atevi (should) understand how monoculture == vulnerability to the unexpected, baji-naji.
I wondered about that as well– I kind of put it down to the editing problems, as we earlier had Saidin, maven of propriety, planning for a party of 25 at Taiben as a highly felicitous number. (“Unbeatable,” I think, was the term used.)
Xheralt, there’s the solution. Atevi music and time signiatures would not have half, quarter or eighth notes. All of the divisors would be odd, 1/3, 1/5, 1/7… and the time signiature would end up using the lowest common denominator. Only an Atevi or idiot savante would be able to sight read the count and the conductor’s beat would be interesting as well.
I imagine that Atevi music notation does not at all resemble contemporary Western music notation. While they must have some method of notating pitch and duration, the method may have nothing that we should recognize as a time signature or note values (whole, half, quarter, eighth, third, fifth, seventh, whatever).
I would think that Western popular and classical music’s rhythms would set Atevi’s teeth on edge, because with very few exceptions our music is constantly counting values based on two to one ratios. I suspect that with their numerical talents, they might be able to make music using completely unrelated rhythms like the drummers who are supposed to be able to beat 11 with one hand and 13 with the other.
Tagging in – late as always to the party! (I’ve been nattering on Shejidan dot net also).
Re: atevi dance. Waltz-like dancing might be a viable answer to the “two feet three beats” issue. But, for some “wilder” dancing – perhaps something like capoeira (a martial art but also a dance and music form – I can insert a wiki link later if someone wants it, otherwise, not going to clutter the thread with such). But one of the major “moves” in capoeira is this thing where each foot comes down then the dancer/fighter touches the ground with one hand (sometimes balancing all his weight on that hand, sometimes not) and springs back up, each foot hitting the ground separately upon landing. It’s a kind of syncopated five-beat, making strong use of the polyrhythms present in both Brazilian native and African native music.
I do think atevi “natural” music will make heavy use of polyrhythm.
The aspect that makes me fascinated with this discussion, besides “what would atevi music be like?” is “what human music would *atevi* enjoy listening to?”
As several have pointed out, much of human (Western) music would probably make atevi clench their teeth, all those infelicitous numbers…I believe we mentioned non-Western music as perhaps being more enjoyable to atevi sensibilities. I also wonder if atevi would enjoy “ancient” human music in the sense of the isometric motets of the early Middle Ages – church music that used lots of numerology, and even some of it numerology that atevi could appreciate (three for the Trinity, the perfect fifth, and seven for holiness, in the thought of the church of that era).
But yes, it’s been an interesting, lively, and occasionally VERY technical discussion! 😀 I’m always interesed in more opinions!
Much of the music discussion has gone completely over my head, since music is one subject I have little interest in (beyond knowing what I like and don’t like when I hear it). 🙂
However, thinking about music in general in relation to Atevi, in my imagination their music contains complex, deep-voiced, rhythmic chanting, possibly involving their numerical ‘system’ in some way. I don’t imagine very much ethereal, delicate singing, violins, flutes, and the like. A variety of drums, cymbals, etc, might be used.
A few years back I saw the LOTR films (one a year), played live by the full Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and shown simultaneously on a gigantic screen at the Royal Albert Hall. (I’ve no idea how they managed to delete the music from the films and keep the dialogue.) Before the FOTR screening, Howard Shore (the composer) discussed how he made up some of the instruments especially for the films. They were mostly things that the players struck in some way – I remember chains, for example. I could imagine the Atevi having instruments such as that.
Pardon me for interrupting, but I finally read Betrayer, followed by Intruder again. Yay! I’m so happy. All caught up and eager for more, with several burning questions.
What about those watchful Mospheirans Jane was talking about? Is Toby one of them, and is he the tip of something to do with the University, and getting to know Atevi better? Are the Mospheirans finding their interests more in common with Atevi than the Spacers? For that matter, what is the Spacer agenda, versus the Stationer agenda, versus the Mospheiran agenda? It’s not exactly clear, at the moment.
If Bren is going to restaff his Station quarters, will he be hiring Guild to guard it? If so, doesn’t it seem likely that he’ll ask Algini to find someone, knowing what he knows about Algini and the Guild? Seems like the legitimate Guild would be glad to have a team they trust in that post.
If Bren can adopt the child of anyone in his aishid as his heir, why not a contract child from Jago and some Ateva buck? Are Algini or Tano related to Jago, by the way? I’d think I would’ve remembered, if I’d read that anywhere. Anyway, would Jago be a willing brood mare, and how would Bren and company cope during her pregnancy? The more I think about it, the more I think it would take some serious sweet-talking on Bren’s part. Jago’s kinda stubborn, I’ve noticed.
One of the things that struck me was Cajeiri exclaiming “He’s mine!”, talking about Bren. Ilisidi answered that he was also his father’s, and hers. “He has a fickle charm”, I think she said, but without bitterness, as if she had long since come to terms with the strangeness of humans. This human, at least. That little exchange was fascinating. While there may be no downward man’chi, there does seem to be something akin to a maternal instinct. Something possessive and protective. Something that might help explain why good Aijiin try to do well for their people. Does Ilisidi feel that way about the whole Atevi race? Do people like Tabini and Machigi recognize that in her, on some level, and unconsciously try to stay out of her way? I think there must be something like that going on. An instinctive recognition, a subconscious calculation, of a greater good. I’ve seen hints in things Jago has said. Tano calling Bren Aiji-ma. Veijico’s comment about Bren’s man’chi being impeccable. Tabini tolerating Ilisidi’s agenda, if not outright supporting it, in some cases. Pecking order issues aside, I think everyone can see that Ilisidi’s agenda is ultimately to take care of the people, wherever they are.
I’m very worried about Ilisidi. She’s been having her bad moments, and she’s been talking about Bren living to see something she won’t. I suspect she’s been holding on by sheer force of will, and I’m wondering if she’ll let go when she’s satisfied, and what it will take to satisfy her. She’s made her mark on Cajeiri. She’s almost accomplished her long term goal of settling the West and the South in a peaceful association that’s good for everyone. What’s left? This new alien threat, in the Kyo? At what point will she reckon that she can trust her descendants to keep the course she has set, more or less? Long before she goes, I hope. I’d love to see her enjoying a cruise in a sub, made from space-age materials in a Marid shipyard, and then moving to the Station for a long, low-stress retirement. But the hints I’ve seen have me worried. No need to hurry, I want to tell her. Is there?
I don’t think there’s a remote chance of Bren wanting to adopt a child (what for?), and I shouldn’t think Jago would be any kind of ‘brood mare’. I just don’t think fathering a child is even close to Bren’s mind – he is very busily involved with the politics of the court and has never expressed any particular interest in fathering a child. (For myself, I sincerely hope such an angle is never going to develop in these books.)
Algini and Tano are not related to Jago as far as I know.
I don’t see it that manchi in the likes of Ilisidi is ‘ultimately to take care of the people’ – rather, this happens incidentally with a good aiji. Ilisidi is primarily for herself. The Atevi are not emotionally like humans and do not have the same ‘loyalties’ as humans. They are incapable of ‘liking’ others. I think Bren’s manchi is regarded as impeccable by the Atevi precisely because he is human, and actually possesses the quality of loyalty, as opposed to manchi.
If you read Explorer you will get the best idea of the differences between the spacer humans and the Mospheirans. Both are shaped by their environments and the way their histories have diverged since the landing. I doubt whether Toby is any ‘tip of something to do with the University, and getting to know Atevi better’. I think someone intelligent, like Gin, for instance, would be far better qualified to do this if it came up – though I doubt whether it would because of the dangers of another War of the Landing, which will never go away, no matter how much humans and Atevi collaborate on the space station. Even Bren doesn’t fully know the Atevi, though he has lived with them for more than ten years on a daily basis. How could any other human get to know them better?
Okay, Sapphire. Just asking. I think you missed my point about man’chi, though. Is it incidental? I’m beginning to think not. More like a form of Hawking radiation that leaks from the “black hole” that man’chi flows into, for lack of a better analogy. Also, I didn’t mean better than anyone. Just better than they have, so far.
I get the impression that manchi is ‘wired in’ to the psychological make-up of the Atevi – that it is something quite different from anything in the psychological make-up of any human…