I waited, hoping it would get nicer out. It didn’t.
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The only change I would make to the end of Owner’s Share is to make it more obvious that there will be further Ishmael books. Might even be best done as an author’s note after the book is over.
I thought OS ended on an upbeat because he knew he had to mourn, but he was looking forward to going out and discovering himself, starting with his Tai Chi teacher, who obviously taught much more than moves. He was looking for calmness to think. My problem was I had fallen in love with a ship. (yeah, I know, but I did) The description sounded so neat and the portal windows, etc. Well, maybe he’ll eventually get another “Iris” and maybe not. I can hardly wait to find out what you do with Ishmael. I really do think he is a spacer and won’t want to do anything else, but that is a wide field. And you have a twisty mind, so who knows?
I doubt this will be the case, but I often imagine an older Ishmael (maybe once he becomes a centenarian?) coming back to Port Newmar to instruct.
Same here, we know he has at least some teaching skill given the tutoring he does.
Hum. Maybe he moves into the Nathaniel Bowditch phase of his career? (To this day, I still love “Carry On, Mr. Bowditch”).
I liked the end of Owner’s Share, even as I mourned Greta, because she was such a cool character in her own right. BUT, I realized today as I was listening to this on my walk (yes, I’m a day behind), you closed the circle. The end of Owner’s Share is kind of a mirror of the beginning of Quarter Share – one of the major figures in his life has died, and he’s starting a new journey. I don’t know if you did that delibrately, Nathan (not that I would put it past you!), but I really like that.
Just my .02 – oh, I loved the ship too, btw. I would love a little private yacht like that. *sigh*
Personally I would take just about any clipper as a private yacht!
I didn’t think she was that cool a character – especially after she pulled that stunt about “No, I don’t love you”. I hope that she is built up better over the course of the edits to Captain’s & Owner’s Share.
Otherwise, the only real reason I see for Greta to die is for Ish to inherit her welkie. Otherwise, she could have run off in fear, leaving Ish to consider how he handles jumping into relationships. I dunno – sometimes it just feels like it’s become too easy for an author to grab a character and kill them, because that’s the easy way to torture a character.
Tara – Ish pulled the “I don’t screw with crew” thing on her, which was both kind of insulting (debased what feelings they might have had for each other) and left him moping around being generally useless.
His mantra made sense earlier in his career, and it might still make sense if he was able to deal with its implementation without acting like a love-sick puppy.
Lacking any happy option, Greta told him what he needed to hear to break him out of his rut and regain some focus. I don’t think one should hold that against her. It’s pretty clear to me that it was not something she did to make herself happy. She was left with both the burden of her feelings and the burden of the secret she was withholding from Ishmael.
“Don’t screw with crew” is called a moral stance. Holding to one should *not* be insulting to anyone, any more than someone hitting on a nun should be insulted that she’s taken vows of chastity. If Greta had wanted to have a relationship with Ish, she should have left the ship, *THEN* started something.
In a way, the whole mess can be traced back to Gigone, who was in such a damn hurry to get Ish pushed off to the Academy. Everyone was so focused on what a wonderful officer Ish *could* be, that nobody asked him if he *wanted* to be one. Nor did they give him time to properly learn spacer culture, so that he could make that determination.
Meh. Our society has major ills caused by the same thinking that Greta used – you can see it in the *MASSIVE* sales of junk romances where in the heroine says no no no until the hero forces her, at which point everything’s fine. With those precedents, the popularity of 50 Shades of Gray, and Twilight, doesn’t surprise me in the least.