Late arriving inspiration…and I suddenly need the names of the instructors at the Slotter Key Academy that Ky mentioned in Engaging the Enemy when she was visiting the Mackensee homeworld, at the dinner with the founder of that merc company. And predictably, though it was around two or three weeks ago when I was looking up something else, it’s not there now. I know it’s somewhere in this house, but I need to be writing (she says plaintively) esp. since This Will Change Everything. In that discussion there was some mention of a book she didn’t use and a book she did, and the name of that instructor. Also, in the same book, I think, the military observer on the Slotter Key privateer that’s joined up with her was some kind of instructor at the Academy. He’s not there now, of course, but his name would be helpful.
Thanks to any/all who dig up the fictional factoids I need while I clear space for this new stuff. If you can give a page reference for the info, that would help when I find the !**! book again. (What page something’s on sometimes makes it into the deep references pages.)
Using my Kindle copy, I’ve found the name of the advisor to Capt. Argelos: Major Bistaf Yamini [p. 364], mentioned before the dinner. He is said to have been a tactical instructor at the Academy, but not one Ky had taken classes with. No other instructors are named that I can find.
At the dinner with Mackensee {p. 357], she is told of “Gaushmann’s “Tactical Exercises””, and mentions the Academy used “Simjuk and Baiye” as their tactical texts.
Hope this helps.
…and, oops, that was from “Command Decision”, not “Engaging the Enemy.”
The dinner was in Command Decision, chapter 24 I see mention of training materials not teachers.
Maybe it’s somewhere else?
For the observer do you mean Major Yamini?
my Kindle says Chapter 24, page 358, location 7126…
Virginia Child, iphinome, Pete Kieser: Thank you all. You’ve relieved my mind and I can go on inventing character backstories without worrying about messing up earlier books.
UK paperback page numbers differ from the Kindle quoted above. In Command Decision: Yamini was introduced on 339 (chapter 18), those books named at the dinner 444-445.
Other references. In Victory Conditions p46 Yamini recognises amateur enthusiast Geoffrey Baines’ “Practical Tactics for Regional Conflicts” as Turek’s sourcebook.
At the very beginning of book 1, Ky had been called to the Commandant’s office from Veshpasir’s history lecture.
Interesting that so far as I remember, we never learn the Academy Commandant’s name in later books, not even when he shows up in other POVs.
Thank you for these additional bits, Richard. They will be useful. No, we don’t learn the Commandant’s name–that was by design (because clearly I can think up character names.) It is a tradition that the Commandant is never addressed as anything but “Commandant” and so cadets (as Ky was then) never know the Commandant’s name even though the faculty members usually do. However, I can now reveal a Sekrit from the Ancient and Mysterious Decoder Ring (wish I’d thought up a Sorting Hat!!) In the list of Commandants that will someday, maybe, if I get around to it, be on the website, the Commandant of Ky’s Academy experience is Armand Esteban Burleson.