3.5*

I found it hard to decide how to rate this as parts of it I liked very much and others not much at all. The sections about the Iloheen were hard for me to envision and confusing while the sections about Cantra & Jela were excellent. Perhaps when I have finished the series, those sections I found difficult will make more sense but for now, I comprise with a 3.5 star rating. ( )

I love the character of the tree. ( )

Lee, Sharon, and Steve Miller. Crystal Dragon. Liaden Universe No. 2. Baen, 2006.
Crystal Dragon is the second of the Great Migration duology, Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon, that gives the origin story for clan Korval, whose stories comprise much of the Liaden series. Over the years, I have picked up a Liaden book from time to time, paying no particular attention to publication order or narrative chronology. I believe that you need to have read some of the clan Korval stories first to appreciate the tropes that clutter Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon. The story lines of both books are muddled enough, even if you know where some of them are headed. In the end, I think that Balance of Trade, the third book in the chronological order, is a more reasonable place to begin reading this long series. Later books fill in the back story piecemeal, which for me has always been good enough. As for Crystal Dragon itself, it brings together the clan founders, Jela and Cantra, to rescue a mathematician who may have the key to saving the universe from an ancient alien race that is accelerating entropy. Jela still has his telepathic tree that will become the clan totem. It is science fiction that crosses the line into pure fantasy, and it all seems vaguely familiar, echoing such better writers as J. G. Ballard, C. J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Roger Zelazny. Three and a half stars. ( )

I enjoyed listening to CRYSTAL DRAGON. It is one of the Liaden books that I don't reread very often. I find the sections that have to do with the formation of the dramliz and their conspiracy to defeat the Iloheen hard to understand and hard to connect with. Once the story switches to Cantra and Jela and to Tor An yos'Galan, I enjoy the story much more.

This continues the story begun in CRYSTAL SOLDIER and concerns itself with trying to find the mathematician Liad dea'Syl who might have the math that will let some humans survive the war begun by the Iloheen - called the sheriekas by the humans.

Cantra and Jela have to infiltrate an assemblage of scholars which requires Cantra to forger herself and assume the personality of a traveling math scholar. they find a situation filled with treachery and self-interest. It is also the location where they meet Tor An who has come to report that the Ring Stars have disappeared. Since that is where his whole family lives, Tor An is devastated and wants someone else to also care. He finds the military uninterested in one more loss of planets and concerned with withdrawing into the inner worlds in hopes of surviving.

Jela has long been associated with one part of the military that sees what is happening and is still trying to do something to stop the enemy's invasion.

This is also the story where the planned evacuation of Solcintra occurs and tells about the contract with the houses of Solcintra and the formation of Clan Korval. It introduces some family lines that still continue into the rest of the books including the dea'Gauss.

I liked the action in the story. I liked the characters especially Jela. I liked that he becomes the Founder of the Clan despite falling in rear guard action that lets Cantra, the tree, and his unborn child escape. I really liked Cantra who is both smart and honorable and who keeps her promise to Jela to guard his tree.

The narration was well done and really pulled me in and kept me listening even to the confusing parts. ( )

Having escaped the enemy for the moment, Cantra, Jela, and the Tree have to make some big decisions--the first of which is whether they're sticking together while Jela keeps his promise to Rool Tiazen and his lady, to get and distribute Liad dea'Syl's equations that hold the only hope of defeating or escaping the Sheriekas. Once they're all committed, things start to go a little haywire. Liad is inside a scholars' tower, Osabei, on Landomist. It's an inner world, and has harsh laws about the genetically engineered, like Jela. Getting in to Osabei is going to take Cantra taking on a whole new identity--and believing it, right down to the core. Jela knows why they're there; Cantra doesn't even know who they really are.

And the Sheriekas are still after them, and there's an enemy from Cantra's past inside, and then Tor An yos'Galen young Trader pilot whose home star system has just been destroyed by the Sheriekas, shows up looking for an old friend of his grandmother...

As they gather their allies and their enemies close in, Jela, Cantra, and Tor An all learn unsettling things about themselves, their own pasts, and what they're really willing to do. The Tree, too, is learning, sharing its ideas via images, and engaging in unauthorized biopharmacology without prior discussion.

The Great Migration is about to happen, if they can live long enough, and get enough of the human species moving.

This is another enjoyable Liaden adventure, and some of the fun in this one is recognizing people and things that will be important in the history of the chronologically later books and stories.

Recommended.

I bought this book. ( )