PeterZ wrote:I believe TFT is setting up the next story arc dealing with the return. I believe it will be best to consider it a series of connected short stories spanning 16 years. I'll trust RFC to manage this affair well,
What we know (snippets, Amazon blurb/cover etc):
- global industrialization, steam-based technology including airships, trains and presumably the analog of cars and trucks, battleships; airships will clearly revolutionize transport dramatically with travel times reduced to days or even hours, not to speak of the possibility of air deployment anywhere in the world
- the break-up and reconstituting of north Harchong into 3 or more pieces; so far we saw the United provinces sponsored by Charis in the southwest and the eastern provinces pacified by Rising Waters' veteran army and sponsored by the Temple in the east, with pieces (that by the attraction of strongest survive presumably should coalesce) loyal to the S Harchong emperor in the south
- the anti-charis defacto alliance of Desnair and S Harchong
- the growing troubles of Siddarmark and its slow estrangement from Charis
- the rapprochement between Charis and Dohlar
- the continual extension of the Inner Circle
- the reformation of CoGA under Grand Vicar (Saint to be in the future) Rhobair and its continual detente with Charis
-the time bomb of the possible Archangel return in 915 mercilessly ticking on Merlin, the Arhmank family and the Inner Circle
What we can definitely expect as time passes in the book are deaths, more children and new marriages as people get old, kids are growing etc