Well-knowing Lee and Miller’s penchant for delving straight into a tale, backstory be damned, I re-read Scout’s Progress immediately before taking on this latest Liaden installment. Scout’s Progress tells of the meeting, attraction and clash of wills between Daav yos’Phelium -- pilot, Scout and Delm Korval -- and Aelliana Caylon -- would-be pilot, mathematician, and sufferer of battered woman syndrome -- and ends with an almost happy ending; yes, the one is saved from her pernicious brother and the other is free of his impending Contract Marriage, but as for how these dangling plot threads resolve into their union before all the world, we know not.

We do know, from Agent of Change (the story of the couple’s son Val Con’s own romance, and the first book written in the Liaden Universe®), that get married they do, and that Aelliana does not survive her son’s journey into adulthood. We know also that Daav resigns as head of Clan Korval and goes MIA at some point not long after that.

But Mouse and Dragon illuminates all those details that have for so long remained obscure; things like how they came to navigate both their soul-deep bond and the murky waters of Liaden society in order to wed, have a child, and then leave him to grow up effectively an orphan. Some of this history has been explored in the recent Fledgling and Saltation, in which Daav and Aelliana appear in unfamiliar guises, the one as a professor at a respected seat of learning and laboring under the assumed name of Jen Sar Kiladi, the other as a disembodied spirit existing inside Kiladi’s head. But as for how Jen Sar/Daav came to Delgado and fathered Theo, how Aelliana’s death occurred, how her family reacted to her bonding with Korval… well, now we know! (Although, no Ran Eld at all? Not even, as our K. Burtt fondly hoped, to get punched in the face just once for his mistreatment of our heroine? Now there’s a Chapbook challenge, Lee and Miller! A short story detailing Ran Eld’s harsh comeuppance as he languishes in Low Port, clanless and pitiful. Please?)

Like Scout’s Progress before it, this book is far less sci-fi, far less space opera, than any of the others in the Liaden Universe®. Both take place almost exclusively on-planet, and both deal more with the internal politics and peculiar conventions of a hidebound society than any kind of space-going conflict. Minor mention is made of sundry issues of galactic scope, but Mouse and Dragon does not really look to that bigger picture. It is, at its heart, an exploration of Liaden customs, and it really drives home a reality that any Regency romance fan (Lee and Miller are avowed Georgette Heyer aficionados) would rather not face: for all the pretty dresses and the Lady of the Manor-ness inherent in such an archaic aristocratic society, it is also very… limiting. As Willow told Buffy when she longed for those days when Angel was young, days of gowns, balls, servants and horses (and yet more gowns): “I think I prefer being able to vote.”

The rules of Liad, particularly among the elite of its Clans, are hazardous, complex and heedless of “self.” This we’ve always known, and it is something I have even praised highly within these (web)pages. The dutiful, blind obedience to the family interests all seems very admirable and honorable… until you are confronted with the fact that, on Liad, your mother can still prevent you from marrying the man of your choice even after you’ve secured yourself a good living, are an acknowledged expert in your field, and are a grown woman, for Heaven’s sake. Such an affront to independence is both frustrating and unfathomable to modern day us, something that happens in less evolved cultures, not in ones that regularly travel places by spaceship. That your family has to pay a dowry in order for you to join another Clan is likewise distasteful (though this Life Price is payable for men or women, so its not sexist, just… a little bit like slavery). Yet Liaden civilization is based on these ancient traditions, and those traditions are adhered to with rigorous -- some might say excessive and, ultimately, anti-climactic -- zeal within the pages of this book.

I found myself wanting to shout: “Just marry them already!” at the book as I read it. “We already know it happens!”

Which brings up what is the all-important question, when it comes to Mouse and Dragon: Is this book really necessary? And the answer is: No, probably not. Prequels rarely are, and sequels to prequels are even less so. (I think we all know to what I’m alluding, here.) But, with that stipulated, the even more important question becomes: Is Mouse and Dragon a valuable addition to the Liaden narrative, a well-told and sprightly tale that is, withal, a welcome exploration of two of its more enigmatic lifemates? And the answer to that (can you guess?): Absolutely!

Oh, and Mini Shan! Mouse and Dragon is well worth the price of admission, just for his adorable wee self.

  -- Rachel Hyland

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Further Reading

See our interview with Sharon Lee and Steve Miller in last month's issue.

Read the Love Letters to Liad

A review of Saltation, by Rachel Hyland.