Should go live sometime tomorrow afternoon/evening.
Ryk
Thanks Ryk! That will save me from looking every 15 minutes. 😁
We have a countdown clock! Approximately 6 p.m. eastern.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR EP. 12 FOLLOW
I finished reading Episode 12, "A Price Too High", last night and now I'm here to share my impressions.
First, I want to touch on something I mentioned from Episode 11, namely Commander Stethan Andreola and the issue with his dialogue tags because it happened again here in Episode 12. I have no issue with him being identified as Commander Andreola when he first appears in the narrative, mainly because 1) it's his first appearance in this particular episode and 2) it serves as a reminder to refresh a reader about who the character is, that he holds a military rank, etc. But once you've done that, you don't need to continually repeat it every time he says something. Saying "Andreola said" is perfectly enough instead of having a dozen "Commander Andreola saids" on the page. As a reader, its distracting and pulls me out of my immersion into the story. When Jessica mentioned him later in her dialogue, I half expected her to referred to him as Commander Andreola and was again pulled out of my immersion when she simply referred to him as Andreola. They're interruptions in the flow of the story that aren't needed.
Now, we essentially have two story threads in Episode 12 (three if you count Marcus' adventure into the Jungle, but since that ties into one of the other two, I'm not counting it). First, we have General Tellus and his situation on Orswella dealing with an embedded Dusahn insurgency and Marcus' efforts to secure small arms for him on Sanctuary and, second, we have Nathan and Jessica's efforts on SilTek to secure a potential alliance with the Tekans for the Karuzari Alliance. Both are interesting threads, though the former thread does vanish halfway through the novel in favor of the latter thread.
The idea of Dusahn soldiers essentially "going native" to disguise themselves as ordinary Orswellans and executing a terror campaign to "punish" the Orswellans for their "disobedience" to the Empire is both plausible and believable. But like I said, its abrupt disappearance from the narrative of the book halfway through in favor of Nathan and Jessica's adventures on SilTek is disappointing and as a reader I wanted more because I had so many unanswered questions. Did Tellus receive the shipment of small arms that Marcus secured? What are Ghatazhak anti-insurgency tactics like? Did Tellus lose any troops in the common market attack or in the sniper/building collapse attack? How did the Orswellans react to Tellus' implementation of marshal law? How would the Orswellans react if it was their people that captured a Dusahn operative instead of Tellus' Ghatazhak? How many Orswellans will be willing to step forward and be trained by Tellus' and his people to form the local police force that Marcus was securing weapons for?
Unfortunately we don't receive answers to any of those questions or any others because the book abandons the thread in favor of Nathan and Jessica on SilTek. One thing I do suspect though is that Ryk may be setting up Andreola to become the new leader of Orswella. Tellus' use of him to reassure the people of Orswella during the Dusahn attack may be the first step in him becoming the new leader of his people, though I'm not certain why the scene where his daughter decided to change her surname to Andreola was necessary. Andreola's warning to the people could have been framed differently in the narrative to not even need to include that part as it didn't seem to add anything to the story.
I have to say the civilization on SilTek reminded me of the human society Ryk established in the Fall of the Core novellas. It's almost like SilTek has either obtained or recreated much of the technology of pre-Bio-Digital Plague humanity. The AIs, androids, the automated aerial transports, and VR immersion all sound like stuff from Fall of the Core, especially the VR immersion. But I would have liked to have seen more repercussions from the Tekans trapping Nathan and Jessica inside the simulation for two days as a test of their character. Instead we receive a toss away line of: "After a day in quarantine, two days in the simulation from hell, a day of apologies, and a week of negotiations" and we end the book on a joke about how since Nathan and Jessica had sex inside the simulation it wasn't actual sex.
Honestly, it seemed like Ryk was trying to tie up the book in a hurry. We're never told what was negotiated. Are the Tekans signing on with the Karuzari? Are they at least offering to sell them technology? Will they extend the licenses on the AIs on the Sugali fighters and Aruroa? Will Aurora be receiving Tekan upgrades? Did Nathan agree to share the stealth and extended range jump technology with the Tekans? I'm all for rekindling the romance between Nathan and Jessica, but ending the book on a cheap sex joke rather than at least a general explanation of what kind of deal Nathan was able to negotiate or whether he was able to negotiate a deal at all is frustrating, to me at least.
In addition, I have other questions. like: Will Vladimir ever visit the Siltek sells pavilions? Will Dylan ever reappear and will he meet Josh (and in turn drive Loki crazy)? Was there really a group called Subvert or was that only another part of the simulation? Will we ever see Suglai fighter and now P Seventy-Two Lightning concept art on his site along with art for the Reapers, Contras, Gunyoki, and all the other new ships we've been introduced to in Part II?
And how did and where did the Tekans obtain the information necessary to create believable recreations of Cameron, Vlad, Kaylah, Naralena, Josh, Loki, and everyone else Nathan and Jessica interacted with during the simulation? Are the races of humans that Dylan mentioned as having attacked Siltek in the past real or created solely for the simulation?
I hope we receive more details in the next episode and less porn and sex jokes.
Jason,
Just finished it; Good recap. Overall, I thought it was a good (fast) read. One of the things I like about this series is that it is grounded in some aspect of real-world wartime problems, such as ground operations over large populated areas, post-war insurgencies, the complexity of hostage rescue and expeditionary logistics; problem sets that were, are, and will continue to be in the future of warfare.
I agree with your concerns about the pace at the end; like you, I felt that maybe 1 to 1.5 pages describing the deal with Siltek would've been a good closure to the book. Maybe Ryk wants to some time to figure out the direction of the story and then decide (reverse engineer) what tech maybe beneficial to add into the storyline.
For instance: Anti-Gravity tech for ships? Mass 3D printing of weapons to arm local Orswella forces? Could AI entities that are near like human to serve as a defense enforcement force? Maybe if that tech can be linked to the cloning process... loading Ghatazhak memories to make a larger expeditionary force and take Takara by force?
If the story looks beyond the the Dushan? What tech could enable their forces to take on Galiardi? the Jung? Both? Who knows??
Regardless, I am sure that it will be an interesting ride.
Marcus is a very interesting character. The SilTik, sim trap was a surprise for me, but the lack of reaction from Jess was out of character. The negotiation can be rehashed start of book 13 so I'm not worried. Telles should have been delighted to add the Corinari to his policing forces, allowing him to use his own people as special forces, to get the most out of them. the sanctuary defense grid was very quick to spot the Aurora, it must be a massive network of jump drones to cover that distance. Rob seems to loose his ships a lot, hope his next one lasts longer. Great battles early and end! another great book!!! and it counted
Someone requested concept art of the P-72? Check the concept art page now.
The P-72 looks interesting, though with a name like "P-72 Lightning" I expected something more like a P-38 Lightning with twin tail booms. Now will we see the Reapers, Contras, Gunyoki, Sugali fighters, Ranni shuttles, etc?
So Episode 12 came out in May, which means Episode 13 should have an August-ish publishing date.
P-72 concept art looks awesome!
Late August
That is so awesome. Thanks Ryk...looking forward to it.
Is there anyway we are going to get additional concept art for more of the Alliance ships?
Sweet! Good man!
Hi Ryk
Episode 13 please !!
