Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have been writing in the Liaden universe for a long time – since 1988, in fact. The series almost died at three books, but was revived by the internet – apparently on rec.arts.sf.written to begin with – demanding more. Possibly it's the first example of such a phenomenon; if not, it's certainly one of the first.
I've heard of Liaden, therefore, for a long time. I've even been acquainted with the authors for a fair number of years (as Steve and Sharon both frequent conventions in my general area). But for one reason or another I never got around to reading any of them.
In a way, that's good. I've been able to save something THIS good until now.
This review focuses on the first great arc of the series which is covered (mostly) in the first set of books published – starting with Agent of Change and proceeding through Conflict of Honors, Carpe Diem, Plan B, Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, I Dare, and ending with Balance of Trade. This is in order of writing, as provided by Sharon Lee's page, and that's how I've been reading them.
Taken together, these eight books introduce the readers to all the major members of Clan Korval (at least in their "current" era) and concludes with a major change in Korval's status and situation being underway.
The "Liaden" of the title refers to the Liaden people, a human offshoot centered on the planet of Liad. Liaden culture is centered around the concept of melant'i, which could be translated very simply as "honor" but is far far more than that; it is a perception of a person and their relationship to others in a particular role, with respect to the other people's roles, as well as that particular person and their role with respect to their particular Clan and the Liaden culture as a whole.
Maintaining melant'i is one of the most vital aspects of a true Liaden's thoughts, behavior, and goals. Liaden language itself reflects this (as would be expected), and in fact exists in three (at least) forms – High, Low, and children's Liaden. In full High Liaden, there are multiple modes of address used depending on the social position of both the one speaking and the one addressed, and this extends also to physical gestures such as inclining one's head for a greeting. Learning High Liaden if you weren't brought up in it is, as one might guess, quite a challenge.
Despite this rigid-sounding structure, Liaden culture doesn't have to be stultifying, and certainly the Clan we get to know best – Clan Korval – does its best to avoid falling into unbending boredom. It is often said that "Korval is ships" and "Korval is pilots". Pilots of starships in the Liaden universe – especially Master Pilots, those qualified to fly any ship of any type on any route – must have a multiplicity of talents, ranging from extraordinary mathematical facility (because FTL travel requires very exacting calculations to prevent you and your ship from making a literal jump to nowhere), an excellent head for business (because most ships are merchant vessels in one way or another), and a keen awareness of their world and a capability to defend themselves (because they are (A) often the key to the wealth of their vessels, and (B) the ports they travel to are not guaranteed to be safe).
And within the organized and externally polite whirl of Liaden society, there are undercurrents of strife that are all the more dangerous for being concealed.
Liad and its society is the major focus of the series, but it is not the only society, and indeed several other political groups feature to a greater or lesser extent in various novels – the warlike Yxtrang, Terra and its many colonies and peoples, the interstellar organized criminal syndicate known as the Juntavas, and the peculiar, deceptively slow and peaceful aliens known as the Clutch – turtle-like beings whose slow and phlegmatic tolerance should never be pushed too far.
I am – quite deliberately – avoiding discussing specifics of the individual books and their stories. For one thing, unless I were to review each one individually (and I really don't have time to do that properly), it would get far too confusing, as the Liaden books cover, even in these initial books, multiple generations and points of view of the characters. For another, I really would rather not spoiler such things for potential readers; it's far better to meet Val Con yos'Phelium and Miri Robertson and Daav and Aelliana and all the rest directly, rather than through someone else's descriptions.
"But Ryk, what are the books like, then? You've talked a lot about some of the stuff in them, but what are they like as stories?"
The best answer I can give to this question is… they're the kind of books I wish I could write. The Liaden universe is far from safe or peaceful, but that doesn't force our characters to be grim or dark. These are all just decent people. More, they're mostly sensible people, within the confines of each character's background and knowledge. They accept the truths of their worlds and act on them in the best way they can. And despite whatever forces are ranged against them, eventually they triumph, in a way that is neither forced nor cheap.
This is a universe that James Schmitz could easily have written, if he'd really had the time and energy to devote to focusing on writing in one universe for a long time. This is a world that the Witches of Karres might well live in, somewhere, in one of the distant galaxies. Nile Etland, in another incarnation, would have been someone Clan Korval would be proud to meet (and maybe marry to one of their pilots). Captain Pausert would have been a fine pilot for Korval.
And it is indeed as strange a universe as any Schmitz made. Liad has its own witches, the dramliza, with powers that are certainly worthy of being called magic. There is an intelligent tree, capable of communicating with others and even using its seed pods to heal and enhance those it bonds with. The Clutch Turtles, who seem able to literally sing reality into a different form, are a formidable force and one not fully understood even by the Liadens who know them best.
Those who know me, know that this is high praise; there are few books I consider to be better space opera than The Witches of Karres, and very, very few authors I consider as good as Schmitz. Yet Lee and Miller are, to be honest, better at being Schmitz than Schmitz was. They give us more intricately painted people with more complexities of life, without making them any less quietly heroic.
At times, the Liaden books are at least as much romances and adventures of manners and negotiation as they are space-opera adventure, but – at least for me – they're no less riveting for all of that. And for all their frequent omni-competence, the characters don't carry with them a sense of too much pride or bombast. While the action sequences are vivid and flow, they aren't the devastating spectacles one might see in other space opera – this is not Lensman or Star Wars or the Cometeers or Weber's Empire from the Ashes.
Are there flaws in this wonderful series? Well… I suppose so. Partly it may depend on what you call a flaw. Some may find the prior-mentioned omnicompetence a bit much, as it is developed in character after character. Oh, certainly the characters remain distinct, and each has their own particular speciality and signature, but virtually all of the major characters turn out to be totally awesome pilots, badass martial artists (often without realizing how badass they are!), mathematical prodigies, and lifemates (a mystic/psionic bond between two people "destined" for each other) with someone equally awesome.
There are a few particular… motifs, I guess, which I don't find to be flaws in and of themselves but that do push my particular buttons in slightly wrong ways.
One is that apparently everyone everywhere on Liad drinks. There is hardly a meeting of any consequence where wine isn't served, and everyone seems to be a connoisseur, or at least an enthusiast. I don't recall anyone ever mentioning that they don't drink, or that they can't really appreciate the differences between the vintages. If the books had only a small and mostly self-contained cast, that might not stand out so much, but this isn't the case, so we see this bit play out between a very large number of people. Since I don't drink wine, and in fact can't stand any alcoholic beverages at all, it's probably much more obvious to me than to most other people.
The other is one that is hardly unique to Lee and Miller; in fact, it's endemic in a lot of SF to an extent that bemuses me. Specifically, plot-relevant cats. There's cats everywhere in the Liaden universe, and sometimes they're solving human people's problems, up to and including somehow teleporting to the right location at the right time and leading humans to the place they need to go. Several of the other books I've been reading of late have done similar things (in Jim Butcher's The Aeronaut's Windlass, the cats are explicitly sapient badasses), and felinophilia seems very widespread among SF authors and their works – far more so as far as I can tell than similar material on dogs. I confess to never finding cats particularly fascinating (though kittens are cute) and vastly preferring dogs, and the widespread SF cat worship is inexplicable to me. As I'm also violently allergic to cats (somewhat less so to dogs, at least thus far), it's always in the back of my head that "there's one fictional universe I'd have to be real careful of visiting'.
But these are idiosyncratic and, even for me, very, very minor issues. Overall, the Liaden books are one of the best series of SF I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I recommend them as highly as possible.
And fortunately for my own entertainment, I'm not done reading them yet! I'll post another review focusing on the next set of books sometime later.
There are Terran witches too, like Priscilla and the planet she was born on. Sintia, I think?