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    Two Tales of Korval: Adventures in the Liaden Universe®, #1
    Two Tales of Korval: Adventures in the Liaden Universe®, #1
    Two Tales of Korval: Adventures in the Liaden Universe®, #1
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Two Tales of Korval: Adventures in the Liaden Universe®, #1

    By Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

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    About this ebook

    Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number One.  Originally published by SRM Publisher in 1995.  Includes the two classic Liaden stories, "To Cut an Edge," and "A Day at the Races."

    "To Cut an Edge" details a Scout trainee's meeting with an alien; and "A Day at the Races," pits two young gentlemen of fashion against their very proper aunt.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPinbeam Books
    Release dateAug 11, 2016
    ISBN9781935224099
    Two Tales of Korval: Adventures in the Liaden Universe®, #1
    Author

    Sharon Lee

    Sharon Lee has worked with children of various ages and backgrounds, including a preschool, a local city youth bureau, and both junior and senior high youth groups. She has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and also in psychology. Sharon cares about people and wildlife. She has been an advocate in the fight against human trafficking and a help to stray and feral animals in need.

    Read more from Sharon Lee

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    Reviews for Two Tales of Korval

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    • 4/5
      Two stories of Val Con yos'Phelium as a young man.

      I've often wondered how Val Con and the Turtle, Edger, met, and Val Con got adopted into Edger's family. In To Cut an Edge, we find out. It's on one of Val Con's final training missions as a Scout, and it's quite exciting. It's fair to say that Val Con and Edger have some similar challenges with the more hidebound members of their clans and cultures!

      In A Day at the Races, Shan and Val Con do seriously annoy Kareen, and it's well-deserved. I'd have more sympathy for Kareen, if she were concerned that what they're doing isn't safe, and places the Delm-in-Waiting and the First Speaker at serious risk, but no. This is Kareen, and she's concerned about her very shriveled notions of propriety.

      Both of these are stories of Val Con as a young man, before either Miri or the Department of the Interior, and they're a lot of fun.

      Recommended. I bought this book.
    • 4/5
      Two short stories in this chap book that was published directly by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee. To Cut and Edge gives us the background on Valcon and his friendship with Edger. Certainly those many years ago when I first read Agent of Change I always was fascinated by Edger. He is a pretty decent creation.A Day at the Races, the second story, tries to show some of the attitude that Clan Korval has amongst itself. Brother to Brother, Cousin to Cousin, Aunt to Nephew and how one generation perceives itself to another. That is a complex way of saying something that none of the characters explore except through dialogue, but in the great scheme of things Liadan, this story written in the mid 90's rounds out part of the world that Lee and Miller spent more than a decade regaling us with.One day, collecting all the Chap Book stories would probably make an excellent collection to add, and far more economical. $10 for this seems quite pricey in relation to what you get when you get an entire Liadan Novel. A summation would be good stories, expands the universe, but too expensive.
    • 4/5
      3.5* for the book as a whole."To Cut an Edge" - 4* - this story about the time Val Con and Edger met would not be as interesting to a reader who had not already read "Agent of Change". However, for those who had read that novel, it is very satisfying."A Day at the Races" - 3* - This short story takes place a bit later and primarily involves the relations between Lady Kareen and Val Con, Shan and Nova (to a lesser extent). I find Pat Rin's relationships with his relatives unclear, even in the light of having read all the novels upto date...

    Book preview

    Two Tales of Korval - Sharon Lee

    To Cut An Edge

    AS AGREED, he was lost.

    He was, in fact, a good deal more lost than he wanted to be. It took him several seconds to realize that the continent overhead was not the one he'd secretly studied for—followed quickly by the realization that it was not even the world he'd expected.

    He'd crammed for oceanic Talanar, a planet quite close to the studies he'd been urged to make by his elders. This world was...?

    What world was it, after all?

    Determining fall-rate overrode curiosity for this present. He located a magnetic pole and arranged to have the ship orient thus, then began a preliminary scan of—well, of wherever it was—as he slowed rotation smoothly and watched the screens.

    Air good. Water probably drinkable. Gravity a bit heavier than the training planet: within ten percent of Liaden gravity. Preliminary scan established that this could be any of three or four hundred worlds.

    His ship was moving in, as it must. It had been dropped by an orbiting mothership, a carefully timed burst of retros killing its orbital speed. If he worked very hard and was very careful, he could keep the tiny craft in orbit, but that meant immediate expulsion, no appeal, unless he could demonstrate equipment failure...

    Instead, he nursed the strictly limited fuel supply by using only attitude jets, and hurried the computer a little to give him potential range.

    Three hours before he hit serious atmosphere. After that, depending on his piloting skills and local weather conditions, he might be in the air for an hour. The world below would turn one and a half times before he landed. He wondered what Daria would have thought—

    And quashed the thought immediately. Daria was dead, killed in the drop from the mothership, victim of a freakish solar storm. It had been stupid of them to be so involved, of course. Stupid and beautiful.

    Daria was months dead now, and Val Con yos'Phelium would be a Scout. Not partnered, as they'd promised so hastily, protected against all unnamed and unbelieved disasters by the strength of each other's arms. Not partnered. But a Scout, nonetheless.

    After he passed the test.

    He considered the readouts. There were cities down there, yet not so closely huddled that there weren't plenty of places to land a quick, slender craft. His instructions: achieve planetfall; learn the language, customs, life-forms; survive for six Standard months and sound Recall. This was not the final test, after all, merely the preliminary. Pass this, then the true Solo and, behold! Scout. Simplicity itself.

    He shook his head and began the second scan. Optimism, he chided himself half-seriously, is not a survival trait.

    * * *

    HE SET DOWN in the foothills above an amber valley where fields and possible houses lined a placid river.

    Grounded, he initiated the final pre-scan, whistling indifferently. His instrument of choice was the omnichora. A portable—gift from his fostermother on the recent occasion of his seventeenth Name Day—was packed away with the rest of his gear.

    It was remarkable the 'chora was there at all. Test tradition was that a cadet carried no tech-gear during prelims, except for that equipment found in a standard kit. However, those who had him under their eyes understood that to deprive Val Con yos'Phelium of the means of making his music for a period of six months, Standard, would be an act of wanton inhumanity. It had been debated hotly within the council of instructors, had he but known it. He knew only the end—that the 'chora was aboard the test ship; and that his immediate superior took care to comment that music was communication, too.

    Sighing, Val Con studied the results of the scan: air a bit light on oxygen, but not enough to present problems. Microbes—nothing to worry him there. Scout inoculations are thorough. Soil samples showed levels of copper, iron; a shade too much sulfur. No harmful radiations. In fact, it was going to be rather dim outside.

    Hull temp read orange: too hot for exit.

    He stretched in the pilot's chair and released the web of shock straps. Asking the rationboard for a cup of hot tea, he stood sipping, trying to damp the surge of excitement that threatened, now he was really here.

    Wherever it was.

    He grinned suddenly. What did it matter? It was a Scout's task to discover such things, after all! This was what he had been trained for. More fool he, cramming for a world lightyears distant, when he could have been—could have been sleeping.

    Resisting the urge to tell the temperature display precisely what he thought of its arbitrary limitations, he bent down, opened the crew locker and brought out two bundles.

    The first was his 'chora, wrapped in oiled yellow silk. His fingers caressed it through the fabric as he set it aside.

    The second bundle was wrapped in black leather and clanked when he hefted it. He settled back on the floor and twisted the clasps, pulling out a broad belt, also of black leather, hung about with objects.

    A Scout must wear a complete belt kit at all times.

    He looked at the heavy thing with deep resentment. Complete? If he came to require local currency, he need only open a hardware concession. Oh, some of them made sense: pellet gun, machete, rope. But a flaregun? Pitons? Surely, if there were mountains to climb, one would know in sufficient time to prepare oneself?

    Ah well, regulations are regulations. And if any of the several things he judged useless were not on his belt, should a proctor turn up, he would flunk on the instant.

    Sighing, he

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