SPOILER THREAD: Dragon Ship eArc

[rolanni]

In case you missed yesterday's excitement, the eArc for Dragon Ship, the Fourth Book of Theo Waitley, is now available from Baen. To recap:

Download it here.

Dragon Ship art by David Mattingly

This topic is for those ambitious souls who have already read the book and who are bursting to talk about it.

There will be spoilers here! You have been warned.

I ask those who wish to discuss Dragon Ship, to, please, keep to this topic and not spill out into others. Your courtesy is appreciated.

Comments

[libertariansold.livejournal.com]

well, if you think Plan B is a valid comparison, more power to you.
I disagree. At the time Plan B was written (10 years ago), there were only three story arcs: Val Con/Miri, Priscilla/Shan/Dutiful Passage, and Liad. All three of those arcs were covered in the novel, as well as Nova and Clutch POVs in various locations and even a JS Kiladi POV, so we (at least I) had a sensing of the plot(s) going forward for every arc, and an understanding of what was going on for each one.
However, by the start of Dragon Ship, the authors had introduced many more story arcs, some of which I mentioned above. They were ignored--as you say 90% (or more) of DS only covers one arc. And that is my disappointment.
And I am sure you have seen the blog post that says the sequel has not been planned, or even pitched.

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

Just because it hasn't been pitched or contracted for doesn't mean they don't know what's going to happen in it. Over on the Binjali Baen Bar group Sharon explained that it was down to the way the books had been contracted for by Toni, and given her druthers she'd rather have swapped Dragon Ship with Necessity's Child so as to evenly space out one non-sequel book between each sequel instead of two in a lump.

This does seem to imply that the Dragon Ship sequel will be the next Liaden book contracted for after these two (assuming something else doesn't happen to change things, which is always possible).

At any rate, I can't see Toni not wanting to contract for the next book, unless the entire Liaden fandom completely dries up and blows away. So we'll wait a bit for it. We're still assured of getting it sooner or later. That's a lot better off than folks were in, say, 1989.

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

For that matter, perhaps the Plan B comparison is more apt than I'd thought. After all, Liaden fans had to wait for two more books after Plan B (Local Custom, Scout's Progress) before they got I Dare, too. And it ended with much the same type of final scene (a surprise visitor arriving) as Dragon Ship.