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]

Of course, it could never be a bad novel--not with these writers and the universe they have crafted so well.
But, when I finished it I felt as if I had been Jumped into the WOT universe, vicinity book 9, where the plot never advances. At the end of the novel, the changes in situation were: Win Ton is out of the healer unit, Miri has given birth, Kamele has arrived (barely), and Theo is bonded with Bechimo. Period. In other words, less than two chapters worth.
No Shan and Dutiful Passage crew, no Anthora and RZ, no Nova, no Pat Rin, no Kareen or Luken, no any of their children, and--worst of all--Merlin only appears in one scene, asleep and taking up window seat space (of course, having four cats, this is very usual; but none of mine are wizards (except for getting treats).
I certainly recognize the difficulty in dealing with all these characters and advancing their stories in a single book smaller, than, say, a WOT novel. But, the authors succeeded in this so brilliantly in Ghost Ship that I expected more.
I will buy it when it comes out, just as I have bought both paperback and ebook versions of every other novel and collection. And I will reread it as I have reread them all--that is to say, several times.
But I expected more.

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's quite fair. A lot of stuff happens, just not the stuff you wanted to see happen. It seems that where Ghost Ship is about half-and-half sequel to the Agent of Change cycle and the Fledgling cycle, Dragon Ship is about 90% devoted to continuing Fledgling, and most of what happens—situations and characters encountered—relates to those books. Which, for the people who really liked those situations and characters, is a treat even if we might have preferred to see a little more of characters from elsewhere.

It feels like a "middle" novel, kind of like Plan B, which you could similarly oversimplify to say all that really happened was everyone went to Clan Erob and fought some Yxtrangi (and Pat Rin and Cheever McFarland were nowhere to be found), but which set up for all the action and plot advancement to follow in I Dare. So if the same sort of thing happens here, the novel that comes after Dragon Ship in sequence should be a hell of an event. But just as you couldn't have gotten to I Dare without Plan B, so too is Ghost Ship necessary to get to what comes next. (Probably in ways we can't even guess right now. Who knows what seemingly minor event in the middle of the book will take on greater significance in a new light?)

Now, if only we knew when the sequel was planned for…

[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.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

I was hoping tht Bechimo would gain some ship's cats, especially given the corporate name Theo came up with...

[rnjtolch.livejournal.com]

Should have changed the name of her company to "Cuddly Norbear" you think?