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pietro

ICARIAN
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Everything posted by pietro

  1. So I see. Well that explains the timing shift and the re-siting of the force field. A bit contrived, I thought, especially the relocation of the force field, but there we are. Logically the force field should have either turned off completely or simply reset, still covering Taldor Valen. Less logically it could have reset to the original calibration covering Angel's Mount, least logically it would have conveniently enveloped the important bits of Altinestra. Still, the solution remains within the realms of reasonable probability, just. Not that it matters that much, the fact it occurred is the only thing of importance to the story, the how is unimportant. Still, it means that the remnants of the Empire can be assumed to be alive and well on Argon so I wonder why we haven't seen them reappear. Access to the interdicted area is presumably blocked, even by gates or else Jamie and co. would already be in the City of Light, but we know they had shuttle craft and we know that various gates outside of the barrier are active and available, so why haven't they appeared? Perhaps Gold will shed some light on that.
  2. I am only on book three at the moment. I had read another of his books some time ago but did not like the style of writing so I hadn't been tempted to read any more. Then I saw a trailer for 'A Game of Thrones' and thought I might try again. I am not too sure I like his style, even now. It is OK to break things into discrete bits around individual characters that have no particular connection at the time when dealing with such a complex story and so great a number of characters while trying to maintain a time line, but too many end on a cliffhanger or knife edge. I have the urge to flip through until I find the continuation of that thread, or I find I am still thinking about the previous chapter while the current chapter is not really penetrating. To avoid this I find I have to pause reading after each chapter, make a drink or post a comment somewhere or something. Anyway, back to Kandric as this is a Kandric thread. I think Kyle has done a very good job of coping with complexity without leaving cliffhangers everywhere. It is a little surprising that Martin follows the 'internet writing standard', for want of a better description, of ending each chapter up in the air, as it were, when he is writing for paper while Kyle follows the 'book writing standard' of generally tidy endings to chapters, especially since I am sure he wrote at one time he had no interest in seeking paper publication. I know there are no hard and fast rules, but I have read an awful amount both on line and in book form and there are definitely traditions, shall we say, on chapter endings as I have indicated. There was a lot in the last chapter that I was sorry to see not covered, Jamon's fight and the battle for Slome, the situation of the students and a bit more about Kandric's elf brother now serving the King, perhaps that will be rectified in the next instalment. That said, it was a hefty chapter after all, so I suppose I should be satisfied with what we had.
  3. Well, it is getting near the end of the year and I wonder if we will have a Christmas or New Year present from Kyle this time around. I hope so. Kyle is an excellent writer (slow, but definitely accomplished) and all his stories leave you wanting more. I think he once said 'Re-emergence' was his favourite story but it would be last on my list, which would be (with points out of ten): The Kandric Saga .............................. 9.75 O'Connell's Grenadiers ........................ 9.70 Brile ......................................... 9.65 Defenders ..................................... 9.50 Re-emergence .................................. 9.40 I would point out that Brile and O'Connell's Grenadiers are really one story, at least they are in the same universe and time frame and appear to be merging. I have been reading George R R Martin's a Song of Ice and Fire and it reminded me very much of the Kandric Saga in character types, the same medieval levels of honour and depravity in some characters that makes you love and hate them at the same time.
  4. Stop teasing me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It isn't fair!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just because you have all read it is no reason to gloat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  5. That's good to hear I think I saw somewhere Silver was a very short interlude and Jamie.wri intended to post Silver and Gold together.
  6. Uuummmm, I know. But if you look at the first post in this thread my last becomes clearer, or at least its antecedents do There are many possible reasons for delay, I know. Personal circumstances, health issues, simply too busy, writer's block, huge inconsistency suddenly found (I am sure I once saw a statistic that showed an unbelievable number of writers, even well known authors, that started one story and found they had finished a different story at the end of the book), lost interest, has got a publisher interested and is protecting future digital rights. It's just that I really would like to know. If you were going to suggest I ask Jamie directly, I did, very nicely, twice when he had the lonnnngggggg hiatus a couple of years ago. He was one of those that never replied
  7. Short, and sweet. It was nice to know what happened to Larrus. On the other hand it didn't actually advance the story or answer any of the unresolved questions. That Taldor Valen was an Imperial reserve was pretty much obvious, as I commented previously. It was also pretty obvious that Taldor Valen prospered, so, other than learning that Larrus lived to a ripe old age and never forgot Jamie, this interlude didn't tell us very much. Still it was a nice little addendum to the story, and it definitely had a high 'Aaaahh' quotient but did little to quiet those of us impatient for answers.
  8. Fingers crossed and hope for the best then.
  9. The silence is getting louder, let us hope all is well in Icaria and hope this is not another year long hiatus, or worse!!! I've been reading the Jim Butcher books lately. The Dresden Files is quite good, a little disappointing to start but the writing tightened up well as the series progressed and the Dresden character seems to have developed quite well. I thought Codex Alera was better overall, one to re-read in a year or so.
  10. Ah well, fingers crossed, then.
  11. We seem to have entered another hiatus. Perhaps someone knows something they might like to share. I hope all is well in Icaria.
  12. For those that are interested and may have missed it, ch.24 has been posted at http://www.dabeagle.net/stories/devon/enigma/teof24.htm
  13. Well, I've read it three times now, very wide ranging and complex and leaves a handful of cliffhangers AAAAHHHHHH! I have a few quibbles, some dragon deaths don't seem (note the word 'seem') to have the correct effects, the one killed by Falk and Lannet in Everone and the one killed by the pantherling forces guarding the Slome swamps apparently had no discernable effects. If the mysterious elf taken in hand by the King is a Kandric sibling he must have been Kaylaria's first son, not Aster. Aster is 45 years old but the mystery elf is 51. I suppose it could be explained but there are no hints in the story to suggest anything. I suppose the age could be wrong and he was Aster's twin. I am still not happy with the Gambra situation, in Junsac she was apparently a respected mage but is everywhere else known as an evil Dark Mage. OK, she could have used another name in Junsac, but how many halfling legendary or master female mages are there likely to be in the area? OK it could be she wasn't local and therefore wasn't known in Junsac, not having done anything obviously evil there, but it doesn't seem quite right. Still, those niggles aside, it continues to be a compelling story. Hopefully there will be some more before too long.
  14. Chapter 26 is up at GA. It is certainly a cracker with a lot of the disparate threads being pulled together. I've given it a quick read and will give it a more thorough examination tomorrow. There is an awful lot of content there. The worrying thing is it could all be sewn up in 2 or 3 more chapters the speed it is going, lets hope I'm wrong, or if I'm right, there's another book to come!
  15. There are some notable, and improving, updates from chapter 18 on, so far. I wonder if there were updates in earlier chapters but those chapters were not actually re-uploaded, or the unedited chapters were uploaded again by mistake? Maybe we'll see something in the future or someone at Wolfsnest will say something. I may have found out the problem, there are TWO sets of files in the Kandric section at Wolfsnest. For example: http://www.wolfsnest.n40c.net/kyle arrons/Kandric saga/14.htm and, http://www.wolfsnest.n40c.net/kyle arrons/Kandric_saga/14.htm It is the last form, with the underscore between kandric and saga (Kandric_saga) that is the new version. Some of the links in the index page link to the new edit, some to the original page and some nowhere. Perhaps if someone here can contact whoever at Wolfsnest they can point this out, as far as I can see there is no contact link on the site.
  16. I don't know if Kyle uses an editor for Kandric, I suspect he does from dimly remembered comments here and there, but not all editors are necessarily competent Certainly if you get into reading a story it is difficult to edit it, almost as difficult as editing your own work. I must confess that I have kept a copy of this, and other works, stuff on the internet can disappear without trace and without warning, after all. With a quality work like Kandric I do in fact edit what I have retained, mainly for grammatical, spelling and typographic errors but also correcting obvious errors and some of the more tortuous paragraphs that leave me with a 'what!!!!' and require re-reading to make sense of on occasion. I also hate the red on black colour scheme as I did the white on brown it had at one time, although maybe that was something else. Black on white is my preference. I hasten to add that I am not criticising Kyle or his assumed editor in any way, should he read this, errors of a similar nature are not unknown even in published books. Like the others here, I will follow this story to the end, whatever the quality of the edit and however long it takes.
  17. I second that I have begun re-reading and I am sorry to report that there seems to be very little 'updating' as far as the story goes. As far as I can see the only update in the first few chapters is the first line of the first chapter. There may be some editing but as to additional content or corrections to suspected errors, nothing I can see.
  18. The first ten chapters with the new edit are reported as being up at Wolfsnest if there is any interest.
  19. Quite right. Literature has a great advantage over other aspects of art; you can ignore or just skim bits you find offensive if the bulk of the story catches your interest. Such is definitely the case with The Kandric Saga.
  20. In fairness the adult/youth aspects are, for the most part, allusion or implicit rather than explicit, and where such things are explicit it is usually, if not exclusively, necessary to the narrative, in other words, it is not gratuitous. That said, this is a very dark, ruthless and violent world with little regard for modern sensibilities, no punches pulled and very much in the cast of the common conception of the dark ages. Kyle's characters, as with all excellent writers, are very 'real', some are both truly heroic and consummately evil at the same time, as well as some truly noble and others purely evil, there are no cardboard cut-out characters or clichés, not even among the peripheral people.
  21. Oh excellent news I had been keeping my fingers crossed for a New Year present as that seems to be Kyle's style with this story, checking every day since Christmas, and was just about to pass my hopes on to Summer. Updates for the other chapters is also excellent. This story has been in the writing for over ten years, after all, I am sure a lot of additional ideas have come to Kyle in that time. I am even more pleased that he has gone for updating rather than abandoning the story as so many other writers do when a story evolves beyond what they have already written, and not just internet writers either! Perhaps you will be kind enough, T, to let us know when the chapters are up as the GA update pages are currently useless. I have said it before, but I think both Jamie.wri and Kyle's stories are truly excellent, both eminently publishable (although Kyle's work probably wouldn't pass today's moral censorship as it stands, as he notes himself)
  22. We know no one else could create an Icarian from scratch. We have been told categorically that Croal kept the secret of their creation to himself, others working on the Avionne project could only tinker with the genetics of Croal created embryos or maybe pre-embryos. Thus the likes of Jamie and Niklas must have been engineered by Croal. We do? I think all we have is rumor and innuendo. We know that all the rumours about Jamie and his affairs are false, we also know that all the rumours about Nicklas are also false. That proves that there are some good gossip mongers in Kuronos. In Jamie's case it is the Impressario's office that encourages those rumours. In fact, aside from the comments made in the Bronze Interlude where the Ghadar are camped outside of the city in which Loran's army is ensconced, we have nothing. There, all we have is wolf whistles and comments on what might be fun. Assuming what you propose is like saying that the Americanized version of "Queer as Folk" is an accurate representation of how gay men acted in the 1980's, when I know that it isn't. Most of that series is about the myth of what gay society is like. Its to bad people actually believe it. We know something about relationships that were made then torn apart because the pair were separated when they were sent or bought by different Dukes or Barrons. That is part of the discussion with Trio Chrysialis about Christophe. All that talk is about trying to avoid disunion when a mated pair were forceably separated. I think it ii is a better idea to look closer to home and closer to biology her on earth. Macaw s. for instance, mate for life. Some species of Geese also mate for life. Don't agree. Several species mate for life and some will even pine to death after but they don't share a soul as 'mated' Icarians do. I think there is a bit of semantics involved here, a confusion with simple sexual mating and a much more intense bonding both using the term 'mate'. I think the Icarian project as conceived by Croal and Jonas of Amodon was a subversive project from the beginning. From Croal's point of view it was a way of making up for the creation of the Kalorians which ultimately became a slave race. The Empire is attempting to do the same with the Icarirans, However, because of Croal and Jonas belief in the concept of complexity, the Icarian race is quite unpredictable. Some things are sort of hard wired, not much though. Everything except resistance to disease and inteligence is left up to the roll of the dice. Even the creation of Charlie and Jamie from the same DNA, didn't make two of the same Icarians. Again I don't see it that way, for normal Icarians, yes, but Jamie and Niklas and Charlie, and probably Jonathan and Giovanni, all the evidence is for very careful and precise engineering of specific traits and abilities. Croal knew about other conspiritors, but only enough to get what he wanted done. The reason that any revolution in that Empire worked was because they didn't know about each other. If one failed, another one was there to fill in the gap somehow.Also, remember that the Kalorians are the slaves and the servants of the Empire, they are always there in the background and assumed to be invisible, which enables them to do things like move Castor around the Empire until he's working at the Mondale. So moving Gioivani in place in Expedition and Service would not be beyond the capability of the Kalorian conspiricy. Who ever from the Empire (like Savaron Loka), or even Hippolito, who attempted to interfere and control the Icarians was in for a big surprise. Genetically they are as surprising as any new species we might find here on earth. My money is still on the Farzetti as the central conspirators. Well, we can't be expected to all agree. The greatest advantage the written word has over film is that we all interpret what we read differently. One person will see something fundamentally significant where another will see nothing and vice versa.
  23. I think this was engineered into them, besides what was already there. We know from the history lessons we've had that Agramos loved de Valen, but never acted upon it. We know that Edmond Croal created Jamie and Charlie, so whoever created Niklas von Agramon, also created Giovanni and Jamie is the only one who knows Giovanni really is. No one knows who sent him to the school to eventually meet up with Jamie. I think from what we have seen so far Icarians are generally randy and promiscuous as well as generally friendly so all kinds of partnership up to a full bond is possible. The bond I think is something different, more on the level of a Vulcan (a la star trek) bond, a permanent mental joining where the participants can almost share one consciousness, sharing a soul or however you want to put it. It is the tearing of this bond that causes disunion and potential suicide. But as I said before, sufficient need or responsibility could overcome it to some extent. As to origins, from all we have read so far we can fairly assume Croal created Niklas, Giovanni and probably Jonathan. Why? Because all of these have non-standard, or maybe special would be a better word, DNA. We also know that he created Charles because Charles was the first icarian. Who smuggled these boys into their respective niches, Niklas the Gahdar, Giovanni service and expedition at the Mondele and Jonathan who knows where? My betting is on the Farzetti. Although they have little mention in Jamie.wri's work so far, it is obvious they played a very important role behind the scenes. In fact I would guess that they were Croal's principal conspirators, giving him tentacles into every level of the empire. Happy new year to one and all.
  24. Well, yes, but those events aren't linked. As I recall, the destruction of the hov after visiting Croal was a long time before Charles signed the warrant that initiated the raid on villa Mare Vista and Croal's death. What is more interesting is that the hov was destroyed by an imperial battle hov, the assumption being it was destroyed because it was known by the empire to be involved in no good. However, if there had been suspicions about what the hov visiting Croal had been doing I doubt the empire would have simply shot it down, every effort would have been made to secure those on board in a suitable condition for questioning. More likely this was a cover up to destroy evidence, or possibly someone compromised, or maybe for another reason altogether. If this was an official act of the empire the persons ordering the destruction of the hov and its supposed passengers could have known nothing about its journey and the visit to Croal, if they had the game would have been up at that point. The empire wasn't too worried about having proof, suspicion alone would be enough to act, especially against someone outside the sphere of power as Croal certainly was. However, if it wasn't the empire behind it then those giving the order probably did know what it had been doing and didn't want anyone else to know, which points to one of the resistance groups, most likely the one Charles was leading. Interesting. I wonder if it will ever be explained.
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