JANNY WURTS: Initiate's Trial: Speculation SPOILER WARNING!!!

[Tier s'Ffalenn]

I must agree with Clansman. Janny has three books left in this series, and a seriously huge amount of information to relay. The cork has got to come out, or it will be too rushed. Stormed Fortress was just packed with information, and I don't think she could have put more into it.

I expect the same from all three of the coming novels.

[Grimward]

It amuses me, in this day and age, that anyone (not targeting you specifically, Your Grace!) would ever presume a project of this magnitude not to grow beyond original scope. Now, I agree that Janny laid out a definitive organizational structure for the project, and that we're more than 75 percent of the way thru it, but I guess I will just have to see it end after just three more novels to believe it, Tier. Not only that, she insured that all of her non-transitional characters were adequately endowed for ridiculously long lifespans, and as of the end of Stormed Fortress she'd only used about 75 years of that 500 year allotment ( or is my math off? ). I did see the excerpt from the next one on her site, and I see that she's jumping ahead, but am hopeful that there might be more coming beyond the 3 (yeah, I'm an optimist!).


Of course, Janny may have wanted to do something else with the rest of her life, too!

[Clansman]

Ah, but Grimey, The Tailspinner herself has declared that the next arc will be two books, and has even named them. Mind you, Stormed Fortress was split in two, but that was early on in the writing of Traitor's Knot. She seems to have a pretty clear vision of what is coming.

Also, as to her jumping ahead, there is a great deal of debate about that. It is not clear at all that she is jumping ahead (at least, not from the painfully small snippet she has released).

Maybe there will be more than three books. I think we all hope so. But, as you point out, JW may in fact want to do something else.

[Grimward]

I've got it! We need more Arks! Now if I can only figure out how long a cubit is...

If you get a chance, o legal eagle, take a gander at the EBay finding in France and enlighten us all (well, me, anyway!) with your educated opinion. I'm afraid three semesters of business law and hospital law in undergrad gave me enough to know how much I don't know!

OK, now returning us to our regularly-scheduled thread....

[Clansman]

Sorry, Grimey. The link didn't lead to anywhere but "server not found". Care to PM me, or try again in here?

[Grimward]

PM coming with the link, chief. Ursa had problems, too, but figured it's his firewall....

[Clansman]

Okay, is Initiate's Trial going to jump ahead in time? I mean, this is supposed to be a 500 year conflict, and JW hasn't even used up 50 years. From the sneak preview from JW's website (here is the link: Janny Wurts Chat Area), it is not at all clear whether or not she jumps, and when did the "bitter defeat" occur?

I don't think JW is going to jump 200 years into the future. She has too many good characters right now who don't have longevity bindings (Sulfin Evend in particular, but also Arithon's daughter, Glendien, etc. and so on).

[Grimward]

See? Didn't think I was crazy. Still got centuries left, she 'as (OK, where'd the blasted cockney accent come from?).

Well, reviewing our agenda (both here and the proposed one on the Koriathain thread), it seems like we've touched on Davien and Dragons (although Dek's blackboard has no lines of "Seshkrozchiel" on it yet). How about the S'Brydion, and the likelihood of Alestron having a single point of failure? By that I mean the dry dock where their ships are repaired, of course. How could such an impregnable citidel, guarded by defenses that hamstrung conventional armies and even balked Lysaer after the outer wall and town were melted, have such a weakness in such a commonly-travelled thoroughfare as its seagate? This just seems unlikely; the S'Brydion would never have rested on their watch towers in the Harbor to keep enemy ships out, and surely had to figure that someone would sooner or later deliver a fleet to their doorstep that Parrien's boats would not be able to stop.....

[Tier s'Ffalenn]

Didn't Lysaer reduce the seagate to slag with his gift of Light? It was not Paravian-constructed, after all, and therefore had no defence against his arcane attack.

Conventional attack had failed for the better part of five centuries, and probably would have continued to fail, barring some technological innovation, likley not permitted by the terms of the Compact.

[Grimward]

I remember Lysaer torching Evenstar (not to mention Feylind, who is a coming topic for discussion), Tier, but I don't recall it saying anything about Lysaer destroying the Seagate. Rather, I think it was the boat that Cattrick, Ivel and Arithon's former shipwrights had rigged (with Fionn Areth's help) with explosives, intended to break the blockade, that destroyed the shipyard and it's "lower weir gate" (Stormed Fortress, p.460). Accordingly, we're back to a ship full of explosives breaching the "impregnable" fortress.....

[Clansman]

But the fortress proper was never breached, only the lower town. Plus, when your whole underground shipyard is exploded from within, it kind of makes it hard to defend it.

There was a winch system up to the upper citadel, and all of the Paravian defences were secure. Only starvation could beat the s'Brydions.

[Grimward]

But Clanny, don't you see? The S'Brydion would never relinquish their access to the Sea if there was to be any say at all, and certainly would have taken precautions to insure that an enemy couldn't just float a hull full of incendiary material right up to their gate and compromise their access/defenses. Look at the Mathorn gate; defense after defense against conventional tactics, it was. Not much to be done about the lower town half of it where Lysaer is concerned, but proof against all non-magical threats. The S'Brydion would not have allowed lower town to be so easily attacked. What was it, one iron-barred door in between the shipwright's cove and lower town? Just not consistent!

OK, had my rant. Feel better now!

[dekket]

Wasn't it a long winding tunnel with a series of gates leading from the lower town to the shipyard?

[Grimward]

Not sure about the long winding tunnel part, although a "bend" is described. There's a postern gate (closer to the town) and another gate at the shipyard end of the tunnel. Neither gate was described as anything that an 8-man ram couldn't take down....

[dekket]

Perhaps secrecy was decided to be a better defence than brute strength in the case of the shipyards?
It was concealed, at least before the explosion left it wide open to the invasion.
And I do seem to remember the external defences were fairly substantial also.
Hmmm. Will be a while before I get all the way back to Stormed Fortress in my re-read of the entire series. Am still all the way back in The Ships of Merior.