Kirstein is wandering towards Fat Fantasy Epic territory.
Yes, definitely. In this interview (http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2003/0308/Rosemary%20Kirstein%20Interview/Review.htm) she says that there are supposed to be seven volumes, plus a prequel; rather comparable to George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire," though not nearly as bad as the Robert Jordan stuff. Still, if she could just manage to get them written, I'd be more than eager to snatch them off the shelves and do my little happy dance all the way to the cash register. Words cannot express how much I love this series; I understand about the "academic swamp," but in my opinion The Language of Power was better than The Lost Steersman, so I'd say read it when you can.
Possibilities are four: Here's a fifth: the settlers' ship, heading for a properly surveyed system, malfunctioned, stranding them here and forcing them to make do with the planet they had available, unsuitable though it might have been. There are some hints toward that scenario in the fourth book, though there are also some things that argue against it. Then there are some vague, contradictory hints about the question that I've been wracking my brains wondering about since the first one came out a decade and a half ago: Why?! I think it's fairly well established even by the end of the second book that the Guidestars are fairly important to the terraformed ecosystem that supports all human life on this planet; what possible reason could Slado ( who presumably knows this ) have for destroying one? Unless he's just plain nutso, of course. At the end of The Lost Steersman I was thinking perhaps he had developed a conscience with regard to the demons, but we sort of "meet" him through second-hand accounts in the fourth one, and he is NOT someone who listens to moral arguments, at all.
Actually, no movement on the "ships vanish" issue in book four ( that interview I linked says the next book is supposedly titled The City in the Crags, so it should be in there ), but what you call the "Goat Guy" character kind of goes a different way, if you actually want to apply that label to him. I hadn't quite noticed the parallel between Fletcher and Janus until you pointed it out, but there is a little bit of "even men you think are your allies have other motives" vibe in the fourth book too; not nearly as drastic as those two, but enough for you to be a little uneasy about what he might be doing.
Since I read Black Projects, White Knights, The Life of the World to Come, and The Graveyard Game ( plus a few eBook "Company" short stories ) for the first time all at once at the beginning of this year, my memory isn't altogether clear about which bits of story go with which book, but doesn't she make quite a point about the LGMs actively and strenuously hiding from the other strains of humanity? Granted, that's a pretty thin excuse for finding no fossil evidence, but at least it's something. Plus, they do live in caves that they sterilize whenever they have to scurry to a new hiding place, so maybe they're just really thorough.
Better submit this before I run out of space; sorry I'm running a few days behind.
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baggyeyes
Re: The Lost Steersman & The Language of Power
Date: 2005-04-10 01:50 am (UTC)Yes, definitely. In this interview (http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2003/0308/Rosemary%20Kirstein%20Interview/Review.htm) she says that there are supposed to be seven volumes, plus a prequel; rather comparable to George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire," though not nearly as bad as the Robert Jordan stuff. Still, if she could just manage to get them written, I'd be more than eager to snatch them off the shelves and do my little happy dance all the way to the cash register. Words cannot express how much I love this series; I understand about the "academic swamp," but in my opinion The Language of Power was better than The Lost Steersman, so I'd say read it when you can.
Possibilities are four:
Here's a fifth: the settlers' ship, heading for a properly surveyed system, malfunctioned, stranding them here and forcing them to make do with the planet they had available, unsuitable though it might have been. There are some hints toward that scenario in the fourth book, though there are also some things that argue against it. Then there are some vague, contradictory hints about the question that I've been wracking my brains wondering about since the first one came out a decade and a half ago: Why?! I think it's fairly well established even by the end of the second book that the Guidestars are fairly important to the terraformed ecosystem that supports all human life on this planet; what possible reason could Slado ( who presumably knows this ) have for destroying one? Unless he's just plain nutso, of course. At the end of The Lost Steersman I was thinking perhaps he had developed a conscience with regard to the demons, but we sort of "meet" him through second-hand accounts in the fourth one, and he is NOT someone who listens to moral arguments, at all.
Actually, no movement on the "ships vanish" issue in book four ( that interview I linked says the next book is supposedly titled The City in the Crags, so it should be in there ), but what you call the "Goat Guy" character kind of goes a different way, if you actually want to apply that label to him. I hadn't quite noticed the parallel between Fletcher and Janus until you pointed it out, but there is a little bit of "even men you think are your allies have other motives" vibe in the fourth book too; not nearly as drastic as those two, but enough for you to be a little uneasy about what he might be doing.
Since I read Black Projects, White Knights, The Life of the World to Come, and The Graveyard Game ( plus a few eBook "Company" short stories ) for the first time all at once at the beginning of this year, my memory isn't altogether clear about which bits of story go with which book, but doesn't she make quite a point about the LGMs actively and strenuously hiding from the other strains of humanity? Granted, that's a pretty thin excuse for finding no fossil evidence, but at least it's something. Plus, they do live in caves that they sterilize whenever they have to scurry to a new hiding place, so maybe they're just really thorough.
Better submit this before I run out of space; sorry I'm running a few days behind.