Do you all remember when many years ago one or another of us would obtain an early copy and post a few sentences a day for those still waiting. We haven’t done that for years, but it was a fun tradition. No spoilers,since it was just the first few sentences in the book. 
I am going to go look at my digital pre orders, maybe it has arrived! But no spoilers, agreed. 

Last edited by Kokipy (10/19/2023 8:11 pm)

Yes, I remember it well.  It was indeed a fun tradition.

If memory serves, it was often Busifer in Sweden(?) who was the lucky first recipient.

 

Bren - Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, whichwas to say human translator to Tabini-aiji, the head of the atevi aishidi'tat - had, with his aishid, his bodyguard, been assisting Tabini's grandmother Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, on...a little train trip.
That was how the aiji-dowager had described it, in prospect.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.Constantly.  Eternally.

Bren lifted his head, swiped back strands of blond hair that escaped his ribboned queue.  He sat then, elbows on the too-high table, head in hands, with a cold cup of tea in imminent danger of vibrating itself off the edge.  A book lay open before him, his recent pillow.

"Nandi."  Narani set a fresh pot of tea on the let-down table, and silently provided a clean teacup, rescuing the cold one.

Supper had been his most recent meal.  Which meant it was, more than likely, dark outside.  Narani kept track of these things.

The light inside the car reflected them both off what appeared to be a velvet-curtained window, a window designed to hide armor plate, an illusion maintained on both sides of the wall - a smoky reflection, image of a travel-frayed human and an elegant and tall black ateva.

The motif throughout the original cars of the Red Train was dark wood carved in vines, or mythic figures, red velvet cushions, well-polished brass wherever metal was involved.  The Red Car itself, usually rearmost on the train, was centuries old, even predating the arrival of humans on the planet; and Ilisidi's car and this one might be of the same vintage as that ancient elegance.  Lighting was, in all the historic cars, live flame.  And where the lighting was, in mercy, not as old as the motifs, it mimicked fire with exquisite, hand-blown bulbs.


 

That antique lamplight glistened gold across Narani's aquiline profile, lending a gold tint to honorably-gained silver hair, most properly queued and ribboned.

Bren, less elegant, had gotten a tea stain on his lace cuff, needed a shave, wanted a bath, and wished there were some chair, any sort of chair, that would let his feet rest comfortably on the floor.  A tallish human, he was of boyish size to an ateva.  His feet, in any seating designed for atevi, never touched the floor, and his person was, to say the least, unique on the mainland.

Narani was head and shoulders taller.  Atevi had universally black skin, black hair.  Gold eyes that, in the centuries-old lighting of the Red Train, often caught an eerie shimmer.  Keen night sight came with that trait.  Human eyes struggled with the print of the book Bren had been reading, on a table somewhat inconveniently high, with the lovely antique lamps.
 

My copy just arrived - at least 4 days earlier than I was expecting it.