Since this has come up in discussion several times: No (that’s NO), Necessity’s Child, a Liaden Universe® novel scheduled for publication in May 2013 is not (that’s NOT) the sequel to Dragon Ship.
Necessity’s Child is the book that bore the working title George, snippets of which were posted in this journal through late 2011 and early 2012.
Further to the sequel of Dragon Ship — It has not (NOT) been written yet; we are not (NOT) in the process of writing it; it hasn’t even been pitched yet.
Writing projects currently on the Lee-and-Miller plate are:
1. Short story for Baen website, due July 1 — Steve
2. Trade Secrets, sequel to Balance of Trade — Steve
3. Two sequels to Carousel Tides, tentatively titled Carousel Sun and Carousel Seas — Sharon
4. Write and submit proposals, one of which will be for the sequel to Dragon Ship. We have discovered that we need to let our brains rest before we start in proposin’ agin, so that’s what’s happening. *Looks at list above. Falls over laughing*
Does this imply that Dragon Ship ends on a cliff-hanger? because if so, I’ll wait to read it until there’s a resolution, even if it takes years. I don’t do series with cliff-hangers between books.
Since people use “cliff-hanger” to mean things that are not at all cliff-hangers, I cannot answer that question.
Although this is a disambiguation in itself, I am curious about something. I have just finished reading “The Tomorrow Log”. It appears that it merits a sequel. Is or was one planned?
I don’t believe that Sharon & Steve know HOW to end a book without it being a cliffhanger – kind of like real life, all the ends are never tied up. Maybe a certain set get tied up, but not everything. 🙂
I don’t like waiting for answers to cliff hangers. But I did not start reading this series until mid-series so I am used to some cliff hangers. I pay the extra for ARC’s and am looking forward to the sequel to balance of trade and dragon ship. Also a new book in a series usually answers the cliff hanger of a previous book so it is worth purchasing. I own all of the liaden series via ebook through baen and am looking forward to some cliff hangers because it means the continuation of an excellent series.
Would it be wrong to ask: “please write faster!” 🙂
Well, not wrong, but kind of counterproductive. We really are writing at a reasonable speed, for us. Lots of writers write lots faster; lots of writers write lots slower, so we’re kind of middle-of-the-road, in terms of speed. Speaking for myself, if I have to write fast, I do it by dropping the third level of detail, which, to my way of thinking about writing, is the level that makes the action taking place on the second and first levels feel like it is/has Actually Happened, Somewhere, and you’ll probably be reading a not-quite-accurate, but still recognizable account of it in the newspaper tomorrow.
Regarding the idea of cliffhangers: I would not regard the end of Dragon Ship to be a cliffhanger, in the sense that the characters are on the cusp of danger, such as about to be apprenhended, or strapped to a ticking bomb, or waiting outside the bosses office. There is a pause, to be sure, before a continuation of the story. Very like the ending of most of their novel length stories. The important issues have been addressed, the characters may take a breath, but retirement is still a distant event.
So, not a classic cliffhanger, but rather a hint of things to come.