Some Bar-Flies got the accidental posting of an early version of Storm. it is now available for only $10 on WebScriptions.
You might want to check the following link out. If I read it correctly, there's an interesting deal associated with the oopsie.
http://www.webscription.net/p-914-storm-from-the-shadows-oopsie.aspx
I still don’t get the cover design they picked…
I know it;s an oopsie or a protosnippet or whatever, but I’m having a couple of problems with it.
(1) One is logic. Okay we know that Manpower is doing the succeed attacks and we know that the characters don’t know either that we know or that we know they don’t know. However, the on obvious motive for the assassinations is to wreck the summit in order to force Manticore to reduce its military posture in the Quadrant. It’s a tad hard to believe no-one in Manticore’s military and diplomatic elite has noticed this, especially in light of the intelligence that OFS were the patsies rather than the prime movers.
(2) I’m deeply relived that the Quadrant’s politics is not dominated by yet another Crown Loyalist Party. Fortunately the Empire of Charis also does not have a Crown Loyalist Party although they do seem to have lent their constitution to the Quadrant.
(3) Generally Manticoran titles, protocol and governance follow roughly after British models. First Lord of the Admiralty, Commons, Lords, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Those are very specifically British, even English, titles. Places like the Falklands or the Bahamas get governors. Places like India, Canada and Australia get viceroys or governors-general who are addressed as ‘your excellency’, not as ‘governor’. The Quadrant is at least as large in relation to Manticore as, say, India was in relation to the UK. The Baroness badly needs a promotion. Van Dort probably gets to the Vice-president of the executive council. I have a slight temptation to argue that Alquezar should only b e a Chief Minister until Talbott gets equality with Manticore, but I’ll leave that one alone)
Canadian Ministry List http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainCabinetCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E
Australian Ministry List http://www.pmc.gov.au/parliamentary/docs/ministry_list.pdf
NB Both ministries are formally headed by governors-general.
Alan, on the Torch assassination please remember that Manticore has been fighting Haven for several years. Lacking definite evidence for Mesan involvement in the assassination, it would be very easy emotionally to Haven as behind it.
Mesa has not been seen as a “clear and present danger” in the way that Haven has been seen. Later in the Oopsie we see how Mesa has been seen by Manticore. While Mesa’s involvement in the Monica affair is slightly unusual, it still didn’t raise Mesa to the “clear and present danger” level in Manticore’s mind-set.
Oh, anything more about Mesa would fall into Spoiler Territory.
Hey, my principal beef is now the special place in hell reserved for writers who commit the sin of cliffhanging. More seriously, when you have commanders and diplomats in Talbott noticing that the collapse of the summit is leaving them drastically exposed to the SLN, that Manpower has just committed enormous resources to the Monica fiasco, and that Haven appears to have no motive at all for the assassinations, you’d think it could be better storytelling for someone to say aha, and perhaps be overruled, than leaving it all for Honor in the second last chapter.
Oh, man, I really really hope that there’s a different ending on the full version and that this “oopsie” was a massive snippet of sorts. God, what a cliffhanger. A special hell indeed. It is simply cruel and unusual to have to wait who knows how many years unti we see the “Christmas present” delivered and the resultant “thank you card” (my own addition, that for those who’ve yet to read the oopsie.)
I’ve read worse ‘cliffhangers’ and David Weber has been warning that this book ends in a ‘cliffhanger’.
Drak
His warning will spare the anger of his fans, However there is a greater justice in the world and nothing will spare him the just wrath of an aroused deity.