pietro

I'm not sure we can surmise that the Icarian was not Charles. I'm not saying it was but just that since the hov is destroyed out of sight of anyone we know of who was watching, almost anything could have happened within even 3 minutes. Look how fast Renaud lands and restarts his hov while dropping off Jamie at the power generator! We also do not know if the Icarian in Croal's office was the pilot of the hov or if he had another person in the hov acting as pilot. All we know is that Jamie saw a Red & Black Icarian entering a hov, then the hov taking off immediately. The flight back to Kuronos would have taken over an hour which gives ample time for someone to have landed, gotten out of the hov, put the hov back into the air or changed hovs mid-trip. Conspiricy theory I know, but isn't this what the Empire is best at? This is one other incident that has Jamie.wri signature written all over it as a huge unsolvable puzzle designed to keep us wondering. cheers, dioscuri Yes I pointed out some time ago reference to this incident that hovs could be pre-programmed to fly. Also I am not sure that we saw Charles sign the order to destroy the hov, I won't look as I am determined not to re-read anything until the final edit arrives. I only recall him reluctantly giving the order to raid Villa Mare Vista when Loka intervened and Croal was murdered.

I think Jamie and Charles first 'real' meeting must be in the chapters to come. Of course, Charles may have been the Icarian visitor to Croal or Jamie might have seen him, without being introduced, at one of the various functions he attended, I am sure anyone else there would have been more than eager to fill Jamie in on Charles' power and supposed evil, certainly Miro and the other Gahdar would know all about him. And you know what irrepressible gossips they are . I don't think disunion inevitably leads to madness and death, that outcome is just very likely. I am sure that at one point Jamie asks Niklas to fight disunion should anything happen to Jamie and protect Charlie. Given a great enough responsibility or need I think it can be overcome. The question of Jonathan is very difficult. Jonathan's condition is almost certainly not accidental or a by-product of a failed experiment. Like Jamie, Niklas and Charlie he must have been created outside of official empire view and like them was created for a specific purpose with specific attributes in line with Croal and Jonas' plans. Indeed it would be very Croal-like for Jonathan to be created as Charles' genetic brother in order to ensure he always had powerful protection, just as he did with Jamie (the shield) and Charlie (the weapon). The interesting question is where has Jonathan been. I suppose he could have been a 'failed' experiment in that it is fairly obvious there were people in Gold Glass who actively assisted Croal and the resistance and his real 'adjustments' were done secretly with the failed experiment as cover. After that he would have been spirited away and hidden while officially terminated. Alternatively Charles may have been allowed to keep him if he was a true genetic brother, even if a failed experiment, but given the attitude of the empire I think that unlikely, certainly if that was part of a plan to keep Jonathan safe it would have been a very foolhardy one, not likely to succeed. Also remember the empire's watchword when creating avionnes was perfection, imperfect production was terminated as happened to those unfortunate to be born blind in the vision experiments. Let us hope there some answers in the not too distant future.

I take it since a year has gone by this never came to fruition. Pity really, the world of Kandric is a very interesting construct. P

I think perhaps I was a little harsh in my dismissal there, as usual the multiple plot layers and brief allusions to other plot lines require several readings to really appreciate all the information in there. For such a complex story there are few plot errors, and those are mostly minor. The only plot line which appears to have a glaring error and has bugged me for several chapters concerns Gambra. The story suggests that she is a well known mage in Junsac, not suspected of any dark affiliation, but is known and sought after as a totally evil dark mage in Black Rapids. While there is obviously no friendship, at least historically, between Vondum and the Watch I would have thought that knowledge of such a powerful and evil creature would have been common as the two cities obviously have regular contact. There are, I suppose, various ways around this, that she was not known as 'Gambra' in Junsac and no one twigged she was that person or that the name was known in Black Rapids but nothing else. However, in my reading of the story, neither of these or any other possibility I have thought of would satisfactorily explain this apparent error. Aside from that, with a little judicious editing I have always believed that this is an eminently publishable story. http://thetalon.ipbhost.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif

Kyle Aarons has posted chapter 25 at both GA (secretly) and the Wolfsnest. It is more of a 'filler' than anything else, expanding on Kandric's antecedents, dragon history and lore (including a neat 'circle event'), exposes the relative geographic positions of the main characters and tidies up a few loose threads. Unfortunately Kandric doesn't actually get back into Bloody Rock, and we don't see any more of the mysterious elf (whose response to the magical emanations created by Kandric's felling of the two dragons indicates ............ I won't spoil it if you haven't worked it out) taken under the King's wing and there is little real 'action'. Still, with a lot of 'dead wood' out of the way chapter 26 should be much more exciting. Hopefully it won't be too many months in coming.

And a great pity too. These two stories were very good, especially BPW. However the GA Archive "http://www.gayauthors.org/archive/index.php" still lists Dio and offers links to the published chapters on Nifty. Perhaps Dio will return one day, or maybe not.

This story was commenced several years ago and was updated about a year ago with two additional chapters taking it up to 22. There was a two year gap between updates and I had hoped that the author was going to complete it. I thought that this was a very well written piece, although some of the content is definitely politically incorrect in this time, with a good plot and characterisation, very well paced in the main and definitely one to hold the attention. Well enough in fact for me to still be ocaissionally looking for updates. Does anyone else remember this? More importantly, does anyone know if there is any hope for it to continue?