news and a question

[tagmeth]

This  past week I turned in the ms for Deathless Gods + the maps, close to the first anniversary of the murder/suicide of  my old friends, George and Judy.  The novel is dedicated to them, "Deathless in Memory."   Baen thinks that it will be due out around next fall, which is about what I expected.  Now I'm thinking about the next and probably last

Comments

[anonymous]

Even if the need to be bound to a Highborn goes away, will the Kendar still feel bound to fight PD? If PD is defeated but not destroyed, will they still have the innate desire/compulsion to fight PD to the end? For all eternity? If the Kencyr still have a common enemy, one less moribund than previously believed, they might not be so quick to abandon even terrible overlords. People usually choose the familiar, even when the familiar is terrible, particularly in times of stress and uncertainty. It's part of the hold that abusers hold over the abused--"where will you go? how will you live? etc." In American history, American voters are traditionally reluctant to change presidents/parties during war

[tagmeth]

Sorry to take so long to respond. You give me a lot to think about

[anonymous]

Perhaps Karida {Karidia?] could find a new focus... sometimes the most apparently bound in Orthodoxy mentality reactionaries, break free spectacularly of their past perspectives, consider e.g. Thomas Becket..

[anonymous]

Even if the need to be bound to a Highborn goes away, will the Kendar still feel bound to fight PD? If PD is defeated but not destroyed, will they still have the innate desire/compulsion to fight PD to the end? For all eternity? If the Kencyr still have a common enemy, one less moribund than previously believed, they might not be so quick to abandon even terrible overlords. People usually choose the familiar, even when the familiar is terrible, particularly in times of stress and uncertainty. It's part of the hold that abusers hold over the abused--"where will you go? how will you live? etc." In American history, American voters are traditionally reluctant to change presidents/parties during war

the second half

[anonymous]

How many Highborn mothers would hang on to their Shanir children if the old order collapsed? Adiron's mother disguised his Shanir nature for decades--how many other Highborn or Kendar mothers would do the same? (The priesthood only seemed to take male Shanir--female Shanir traits seemed to be ignored. Either they came in a Highborn package & were therefore breeding stock or they came in a Kendar package and were servants.) Sure the priesthood has power now, but how long would that last if Shanir children weren't turned over to the priesthood wholesale? The priesthood isn't going to stay the priesthood for long without fresh blood. Which also begs the question of what would happen to the runes, the teaching of the use of Shanir traits and master runes and the teaching of the Senetha for control of the godhood powers rather than physical combat

Re: the second half

[tagmeth]

Some thoughts:

The priesthood may change. I first saw signs of that when Titmouse suddenly appeared in Demons, a priest to whom Jame can talk and even like. He had followers in the Tastigon temple. He might find more at Wilden. Will have to think about that.

Then too, when Jame, Tori, and Kindrie become in effect the Three-faced God, the priests will have to deal with them. A lot could change, fast, although not without conflict.

I think the Arrin-ken will rejoin the Kencyrath, although mostly as visiting presences They're too solitary to take up residence. A sort of traveling court by region, coming when called for? Yes, jurists first and last.

Kendar families will remain strong, and fond of the better lords. It's hard to see the Kencyrath as totally classless any time soon. On the other hand, they should work out a system where gifted Kendar like your potter can go and learn from a master potter of another house. Something like that comes up in Bashti in the next novel, a place for Jame to learn about it.

Re: the second half

[anonymous]

The Dreamweaver was a priestess, and Jame got called one by the golden-eyed beings in the Master's House. THis seems to indicate that there were women in the priethood before the fall, and that part of the retribution against women was kicking them out of the priesthood...

Reminds me of Athens "Women voted for the name of the new city to be naes after Athena, the men wanted it named after Poseidon, the women's voting put the nae to be Athens, and then the men in retaliation stripped the women of enfranchisement..

the second half

[anonymous]

Sorry, the second half didn't get identified. Capcha seems to be weird tonight.
-Audrey

Next Steps

[ext_5866338]

The form of the universe you have created is very much post apocalyptic to date. Everything we see is dying off, being defeated, slowly decaying. This feels like the last world in the Chain of Creation. Our last hope before darkness takes over everything. The builders seem to be down to just a few representative individuals, the judges are absent and may have been hunted close to extinction. The Kencyrath seem to be a rag tag remnant of a once great army.The scene you have set is not one of overwhelming victory at the end, but more one of a accidental victory. Planned or not, this is not triumph so much as despair avoided.

When they win, what happens? Is it a Pyrrhic victory as you seem to have set up across the series? Where they defeat Primal Darkling and yet still all die out in the process. Leaving just the original inhabitants of this world and a set of slowly dying gods as the attention of the Kencyrath god leaves the world?

Do the three races still exist and start working their way back down the Chain of Creation,

Re: Next Steps

[tagmeth]

wow. You really think everything here is that dark? Granted, it's been rough on a lot of people, readers included. I'm not that cheerful myself a lot of the time, although I usually find something to laugh at. Yes, the series has a bleak backstory. It probably doesn't help that most of the plot orbits around points of crisis like black holes in space. I don't see the characters as depressed, though, with a few exceptions such as Brenwyr. I don't see most of them as doomed, or Rathillien either. What I want, I guess, is to end not with all problems solved but with the chance of a brighter future

Re: Next Steps

[starwefter]

For what it's worth, I've not seen it as that doomed either, rather more as a backs-to-the-wall kind of fight. It wouldn't be the first war that was being lost until the tide of battle turned and the losing side ended up winning. I've always seen the Kencyrath in sort of that position -- this may be where they make their last stand but it doesn't mean that they're doomed to lose.

Re: Next Steps

[tagmeth]

Glad I haven't been totally negative. As I see it, the Kencyrath has been stalemated so long that parts of it have turned septic. It really needs a change.

Actually, I shy away from dwelling on the darker aspects of the story in the present tense, which is why I've never been very explicit about Jame's time in Perimal Darkling. That would just be too hard to describe.