SPOILER- Thank you so very much RFC for AtSoT!-SPOILER

Howdy everybody!

Wow!

Thank you RFC, for another masterful story!

I don't want anyone to think you're losing your touch.

I had to smile again and again when I recognised your artfully edited snippets, I could see you laughing your head off at how far off some speculations posted here were.

I'm pleased a couple of my predictions came true again, of course not all were right of course; shucks.

Seeing 'the musket over the fireplace' in hindsight a few times from the earlier books was also amusing.

As an aside, did you ever consider Stohnar using the first Lord Protector's sword to behead Clyntahn?
As a poster [Iowerth?] over at maps suggested a couple month's back?
Granted you'd already completed the book, but did you like the idea?

Thanks very much again for keeping me avidly reading until I finished it Monday morning ~7AM after a couple of almost all-nighters.

So what's coming next in the spring; the next Sword of the South? or the honorverse prequels, or Hell gate #4?

You'll always get my money, and I'm glad you're feeling so much better.

But now I can't wait for the next one [#10], to see what happens next.

All the very best wishes, I hope both you and Sharon are feeling much better, and your teenagers are helping you both.

L

Great Read!

Just finished it and now I have to go vote.

lyonheart wrote:Howdy everybody!

Wow!

Thank you RFC, for another masterful story!

I don't want anyone to think you're losing your touch.

I had to smile again and again when I recognised your artfully edited snippets, I could see you laughing your head off at how far off some speculations posted here were.

I'm pleased a couple of my predictions came true again, of course not all were right of course; shucks.

Seeing 'the musket over the fireplace' in hindsight a few times from the earlier books was also amusing.

As an aside, did you ever consider Stohnar using the first Lord Protector's sword to behead Clyntahn?
As a poster [Iowerth?] over at maps suggested a couple month's back?
Granted you'd already completed the book, but did you like the idea?

Thanks very much again for keeping me avidly reading until I finished it Monday morning ~7AM after a couple of almost all-nighters.

So what's coming next in the spring; the next Sword of the South? or the honorverse prequels, or Hell gate #4?

You'll always get my money, and I'm glad you're feeling so much better.

But now I can't wait for the next one [#10], to see what happens next.

All the very best wishes, I hope both you and Sharon are feeling much better, and your teenagers are helping you both.

L

i assume you're going with the Cthulhu ticket?

DrakBibliophile wrote:Great Read!

Just finished it and now I have to go vote.

So since this seems to be the ONLY thread marked with spoilers so far, I thought I'd drop my thoughts on the book here. So... spoilers!

If you didn't want to be spoiled, what are you doing here?


Anyway...

There's way too much stuff in this book for me to comment on everything, so I'll stick to what comes to mind.

Minor thing: Balloons. BAD RFC! Hot Air Balloons were apparently a known thing long before the current conflict ever erupted. But this information isn't given to the reader until the Temple/Harchong armies are already reacting to the Charisian deployment of observation ballooons.

So the only real Charisian innovation here was the use of hydrogen gas, not the whole balloon concept itself. That's a MUCH smaller step than the snippets made it appear to be.

OTOH, I called it! They're JUST observation balloons. Who needs to build bombers when observation alone allows you to see everything the enemy has and is doing and lets you direct mass artillery fire on them?

Meanwhile, although the war itself was a slog, the ending was more or less perfect. I was surprise - and shouldn't have been - when the broadsheets were used to coordinate and set off a popular uprising in Zion. Not to mention the reveal of what Hauwerd Wylsynn REALLY gave Duchairn.

But the real perfection was Merlin's decision to support the uprising. It perfectly encapsulated why they're the GOOD GUYS and not just another morally grey faction in a war. They're the Good Guys because they do the Right Thing, even if that Thing makes their long term goals harder to obtain.

It perfectly juxtaposes Clyntahn's and the entire CoGA's philosophy of throwing EVERYTHING - every good and right value they ever had - under the bus in pursuit of some nebulous "greater good". And as we see with the CoGA and Clyntahn, that kind of ruthlessness is ultimately self sabotaging.

So, Since this thread was already marked with SPOILER ALERT!



I also applaud the book! I also applaud RFC for showing the good guys wrestling with doing the right thing or the expedient thing (supporting the Zion uprising or fighting the war to the finish).

It arrived on Tuesday so I read it rather than coverage of the election.

So

At the end of the book, when Merlin and Nimue confront Clyntahn in his cell, Clynthan recognizes the images and voices of Langhorne (and others) from "the Inquisition's secret records".

So, while it was so satisfying to Merlin and Nimue to break Clyntahn by convincing him of the truth, did they miss an opportunity to discover more about what's under the Temple and what is known to the Inquisition? Particularly whether the Inquisition has the means to summon the Archangels or the Rakurii?

Perhaps they should have tried to break him sooner and get more information out of him rather than simply having their revenge on him. Though I understand them not wanting to have him babbling to everyone about the demons showing him visions.

Any counterarguments?

I pre-ordered 6 months ago, and Amazon still hasn't even SHIPPED mine... Not real happy with them right now.

dobriennm wrote:So, Since this thread was already marked with SPOILER ALERT!



I also applaud the book! I also applaud RFC for showing the good guys wrestling with doing the right thing or the expedient thing (supporting the Zion uprising or fighting the war to the finish).

It arrived on Tuesday so I read it rather than coverage of the election.

So

At the end of the book, when Merlin and Nimue confront Clyntahn in his cell, Clynthan recognizes the images and voices of Langhorne (and others) from "the Inquisition's secret records".

So, while it was so satisfying to Merlin and Nimue to break Clyntahn by convincing him of the truth, did they miss an opportunity to discover more about what's under the Temple and what is known to the Inquisition? Particularly whether the Inquisition has the means to summon the Archangels or the Rakurii?

Perhaps they should have tried to break him sooner and get more information out of him rather than simply having their revenge on him. Though I understand them not wanting to have him babbling to everyone about the demons showing him visions.

Any counterarguments?

They probably still don't want to trigger the beast below the temple, if such does indeed exist. They are also probably concerned about what might happen if the key was used in the temple. So over all, they probably feel safer leaving sleeping dogs lie.

Keith_w wrote:

dobriennm wrote:At the end of the book, when Merlin and Nimue confront Clyntahn in his cell, Clynthan recognizes the images and voices of Langhorne (and others) from "the Inquisition's secret records".

So, while it was so satisfying to Merlin and Nimue to break Clyntahn by convincing him of the truth, did they miss an opportunity to discover more about what's under the Temple and what is known to the Inquisition? Particularly whether the Inquisition has the means to summon the Archangels or the Rakurii?

Perhaps they should have tried to break him sooner and get more information out of him rather than simply having their revenge on him. Though I understand them not wanting to have him babbling to everyone about the demons showing him visions.

Any counterarguments?

They probably still don't want to trigger the beast below the temple, if such does indeed exist. They are also probably concerned about what might happen if the key was used in the temple. So over all, they probably feel safer leaving sleeping dogs lie.

I'm talking about getting more information/intelligence about the Temple complex, not actually doing anything with it immediately. Since the Inner Circle will have to deal with what's under the temple eventually, they will need more information than they have right now.

Plus, the Inquisition is still going to be in existence. It would be nice to know what kind of secret information/Federation Tech the Inquisition has available (or at least a clue).

First of all, this book was amazing!!! The old cliché about not being able to put it down was the simple truth. The moral dilemma our heroes faced near the end wasn't how I expected the series to finish, but it was perfect. Do they crush the Church once and for all, with who knows how many more dead, or accept a quick path to peace that spares all those lives but leaves the CoGA intact under new management? And they made the opposite choice to Clyntahn. As of course they had to. It makes me wonder where events go from there though. We're promised "Merlin still has lots more story to tell", and I'm looking forward to it.

dobriennm wrote:So, while it was so satisfying to Merlin and Nimue to break Clyntahn by convincing him of the truth, did they miss an opportunity to discover more about what's under the Temple and what is known to the Inquisition? Particularly whether the Inquisition has the means to summon the Archangels or the Rakurii?

Perhaps they should have tried to break him sooner and get more information out of him rather than simply having their revenge on him. Though I understand them not wanting to have him babbling to everyone about the demons showing him visions.

Any counterarguments?

I agree that they should've interrogated Zhaspahr Clyntahn. Clearly he knows nothing about any Archangels or other defense systems under the Temple, or he would've gone to wake them up instead of fleeing with Rayno. But he probably has a fair amount of information whose significance he doesn't fully grasp. Torture alone can be ineffective for well-known reasons. But torture plus foolproof lie detector? That'll get you the truth every time.

Personally, I think they should've given the Inner Circle intro presentation to everybody once the war was over. If not the public at large then all the big decision makers. Duchairn especially; and we know now that the Inquisition has files backing up their story, which have always been in the Temple's possession, just in case Duchairn has trouble accepting the truth. But tell Stohnar too, and all the other world leaders. Now that the war against the Church is over Charis and Siddarmark are the only remaining powers with sizable military forces. There's not much to fear anymore in opening up.

evilauthor wrote:So the only real Charisian innovation here was the use of hydrogen gas, not the whole balloon concept itself. That's a MUCH smaller step than the snippets made it appear to be.

But how would someone without a scientific theory of chemistry know what hydrogen was, or how to generate it, or have any reason to fill up a balloon with it? You might've been able to build a crude radio transceiver in ancient Greece. The metalworking and glassblowing trades were sophisticated enough to produce what you needed, if you gave them precise instructions and said yes, I know you don't understand what this stuff is for, just take my gold and follow my directions! The Maxwell equations that describe electromagnetic waves and provide the theoretical background to build such devices didn't exist until the 19th century. Without that, no one would ever have thought to put the right materials together in exactly the right way. Even though they could have.

First off, Thank you RFC for another masterful story. Just finished devouring it (reading would imply that I was able to put it down for any length of time), and I agree that the ending was pretty much perfect.

"So what do you think the odds are of you making a worthy sequel series?"

"Better than average."