Anticipated length of Safehold series.

kbus888 wrote:=2014/02/27=

Hi McGuiness

In your post, you mentioned enjoying war with an intelligent species whose only purpose seems to be your complete destruction.

You might also like "Apocalypse Troll"

R
.

McGuiness wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:The honest answer is that I don’t know for certain. I do know that the current game plan is to complete the present story arc (and, no, I’m not going to tell you how the current war with the Group of Four plays out in the end). Depending on what those pesky Harchongians in the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels do or do not do, and how well Brother Lynkyn’s newest brainchild and Lieutenant Zhwaigair’s spar torpedoes workout, things could wrap up in the book I’m working on right this minute. On the other hand, they might not.

Ok, I'll bite, although after your careful... misdirections in the past, I'm not sure how much I dare believe any "hints" you're kind enough to give us! When you start being helpful, I've learned to realize you're being sneaky - or diverting our focus just enough so that when you toss in a PICA named Nimue after assuring us that making PICAs is impossible without destroying Merlin, and that you'd "never create a VP and call it Nimue, because having a character named Nimue would be too confusing to your readers," you aren't lying because OWL figured out how to make a PICA all by himself, and calling the new PICA Nimue and giving it her original personality isn't at all the same as having a character who's a VP based on the Merlin of three years ago! Even though there wouldn't be much difference at all in a conversation with that character over the com! (In other words, "Oops, they're getting too close for comfort!")

runsforcelery wrote:Eventually, however, the Group of Four will get its just desserts. At that point, there will be a hiatus (on Safehold) before the next book, which will deal with what happens when the truth is revealed while the prospective millennial return of the Archangels looms over everyone’s heads.

Golly, did RFC just inadvertently reveal that you can invade Zion, take over the Temple, hang or rather creatively execute some vicars who very richly deserve it, and not set off the Rakurai so badly that it destroys the EoC?

Also that there will be a wait of several years before the Archangels return, but the Truth will be proclaimed to everyone before the Archangels show up, however they manage it?

I'd imagine being told that the CoGA and the CoC are complete frauds could shake up even the EoC and Siddarmark with their Reformist teachings, since this goes beyond reformation, the CoC, and straight to apostasy, and I just don't see how Safehold (and even most citizens of the EoC) could accept it. I imagine most people will actually look forward to the return of the Archangels, and there might be some rather nasty wars to cleanse the world in preparation for their return.

If that's how it works out, let's hope the Hamilcar was hijacked by some Shan-Wei supporters who show up declaring that Langhorne was a fraud, because I don't see any other way that a reasonable amount of the population will accept the truth. Granted fewer and fewer will bend the knee to the CoGA (and those high tithes!) if it were potentially a fraud, but it's going to be a long and very violent transition, which Merlin expected all along. It's hard to progress into space even with the Rakurai removed if you've got a bunch of Luddites in your planetary population who believe it's their duty to God to kill everyone who doesn't believe the same way they do...

So I'm really looking forward to seeing how RFC breaks the chains of the CoGA and reveals it as a fraud in a way that the average Safeholdian in the street can accept. I don't see how people can accept the truth without a major demonstration - maybe Merlin will find a use for the assault shuttle and all those rounds of ammo...

runsforcelery wrote:Hopefully, I’ll last long enough to deal with that (I’m currently estimating perhaps 3 or 4 books for that second story arc) and actually get Our Heroes back into space to deal with the Gbaba once and for all. I would be astonished if there were less than 10 or 12 novels in the series, and I promise that (assuming I don’t drop dead in mid-book) I will conclude the series in as satisfying a fashion as possible. That is, I won’t leave the readers hanging wondering what the final outcome of the human-Gbaba conflict is/will be. I turn 62 this year, so at one a year and additional 3 to 4 novels will get me close to 65 (at least!), by which time I am assuming I will have to slow down at least a little bit.

I'm well over a decade younger than you, but I remember Robert Jordan's demise all too well, and I worry that I might not be around when the final book is released. So although we wait as fast as we can, and realize that you have a life outside of writing novels all day (and chuckling over our speculations regarding the plot of your upcoming novels) some of us won't be around to see the finish line. We dearly hope that one of those people isn't you!

runsforcelery wrote:The honest answer is that I don’t know for certain. I do know that the current game plan is to complete the present story arc (and, no, I’m not going to tell you how the current war with the Group of Four plays out in the end). Depending on what those pesky Harchongians in the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels do or do not do, and how well Brother Lynkyn’s newest brainchild and Lieutenant Zhwaigair’s spar torpedoes workout, things could wrap up in the book I’m working on right this minute. On the other hand, they might not.

Eventually, however, the Group of Four will get its just desserts. At that point, there will be a hiatus (on Safehold) before the next book, which will deal with what happens when the truth is revealed while the prospective millennial return of the Archangels looms over everyone’s heads. Ideally, I’ll last long enough to deal with that (I’m currently estimating perhaps 3 or 4 books for that second story arc) and actually get Our Heroes back into space to deal with the Gbaba once and for all. I would be astonished if there were less than 10 or 12 novels in the series, and I promise that (assuming I don’t drop dead in mid-book) I will conclude the series in as satisfying a fashion as possible. That is, I won’t leave the readers hanging wondering what the final outcome of the human-Gbaba conflict is/will be. I turn 62 this year, so at one a year and additional 3 to 4 novels will get me close to 65 (at least!), by which time I am assuming I will have to slow down at least a little bit.

Randomiser wrote:We have now seen about 31,000 words of the current novel. I don't get the feeling this book is going to be the last in the current war because I don't see how RFC can satisfyingly close it down in the rest of the book. So one more after HFQ for the present story arc?

Michael Everett wrote:

Randomiser wrote:We have now seen about 31,000 words of the current novel. I don't get the feeling this book is going to be the last in the current war because I don't see how RFC can satisfyingly close it down in the rest of the book. So one more after HFQ for the present story arc?

Yeah, RFC did mention that he had planned for several arcs, each of a different generation and of one or two books each.
So, using the current Safehold saga as a basis for calculating and assuming three generations, that would be about 25 novels (+/- 3).

We're gonna be waiting a while for the rematch with the Gbaba!

Randomiser wrote:We have now seen about 31,000 words of the current novel. I don't get the feeling this book is going to be the last in the current war because I don't see how RFC can satisfyingly close it down in the rest of the book. So one more after HFQ for the present story arc?

jeremyr wrote:

Randomiser wrote:We have now seen about 31,000 words of the current novel. I don't get the feeling this book is going to be the last in the current war because I don't see how RFC can satisfyingly close it down in the rest of the book. So one more after HFQ for the present story arc?

RFC said the book he is currently working on. He's already finished HFQ. So, I take it one or two more books.