The Dragon Variation

Steve Miller

Three Liaden Novels: Local Custom - Master Trader Er Thom yos'Galan knows that Liaden custom is to be matched with a proper bride and provide his clan, Korval, with an heir. Yet, his heart is immersed in another universe, influenced by another culture, and lost to a woman not of his world. To take scholar Anne Davis--a Terran!--as hi wife is to risk everything--his honor, his reputation, and the lives of his kin. Dare he embrace that risk, for the chance of winning his heart's desire? And a story slightly less dramatic: Scout's Progress - Aelliana Caylon, a brilliant mathemetician, revered by pilots for the life-saving revisions she brought to the ven'Tura Piloting Tables. Despite this, her home life is terrifying, as the target of her elder brother's spite and her mother's indifference. Convinced that she has no recourse, Aelliana endures until, on a dare, she plays a game...