Road to Hell E-ARC is up

Well I did get my Christmas wish.
I down loaded the EArc yesterday
and have finished reading it.

Hope others enjoy it as much as I did.

Happy Christmas to all

Peter

BFinnigan71 wrote:I read somewhere that only the first 1/2 of the novel was available as an eArc in December, with 3/4ths being available in Feb. But you guys have bought it, and its the whole thing?

Yes. The E-ARC is the entire novel. Start to finish. It doesn't have some of the final editing that polishes a final product, but it is pretty close. I've bought it, I received the entire 46 chapters of the "Road To Hell." What you are describing sounds like Baen's monthly bundles, which is a monthly subscription service for which you pay a monthly fee to receive every month.

You don't pay a monthly fee. You don't pay any fee at all.

You either purchase, or don't purchase, a bundle of all Baen titles for a given month [sometimes including some only being sold as e-books]. The texts are released in tranches of 1/2, 3/4 & 4/4 over the 3 months preceding paper publication, but it's a one-off purchase that can be made at any time up to the final scheduled release.

Henry Brown wrote:

BFinnigan71 wrote:I read somewhere that only the first 1/2 of the novel was available as an eArc in December, with 3/4ths being available in Feb. But you guys have bought it, and its the whole thing?

Yes. The E-ARC is the entire novel. Start to finish. It doesn't have some of the final editing that polishes a final product, but it is pretty close. I've bought it, I received the entire 46 chapters of the "Road To Hell." What you are describing sounds like Baen's monthly bundles, which is a monthly subscription service for which you pay a monthly fee to receive every month.

I find it good that the eleven Sample Chapters
are from the E-ARC. Some editing is needed.

In Chapter 3, we are told that Javelin Porath's
promotion had come in, to "Shield."
BUT,
previous books had shown that Javelin outranks Shield!
HHNF had told us that Porath would be raised to "Sword."
It also showed us Mul Gurthik's thought that he had put
a Spell on Porath so that this promotion would make him
murder Neshok, scream "We are Guilty of Torturing
Prisoners," and then kill himself.
Note that Neshok is still alive in this scene,
and Porath is as loyal and obedient as ever.

Also, Neshok is receiving a messenger from Harshu,
acting as a go-between,
"Commander of One Thousand Faildym Gahnyr."
Question: where did this 1000 come from?
We had seen that Harshu (and mul Gurthik) were the only
2000s this far out, and that Harshu-Force had only two
(2) Thousands, Toralk and Carthos. The rest of its
officers were Five-Hundreds and below.
SO, why hadn't this 1000 Gahnyr been mentioned before,
and what are his duties?
Could he possibly have just arrived at the Front?
Or is he supposed to be a Commander of *One* Hundred?
Harshu-Force has many of them.

More and more,
I am convinced that David Weber needs a clerk!

Howard True Map-addict

Henry Brown wrote:

BFinnigan71 wrote:I read somewhere that only the first 1/2 of the novel was available as an eArc in December, with 3/4ths being available in Feb. But you guys have bought it, and its the whole thing?

Yes. The E-ARC is the entire novel. Start to finish. It doesn't have some of the final editing that polishes a final product, but it is pretty close. I've bought it, I received the entire 46 chapters of the "Road To Hell." What you are describing sounds like Baen's monthly bundles, which is a monthly subscription service for which you pay a monthly fee to receive every month.

Yes there are a lot of small continuity problems in the sample chapters. I didn't see any of the ones you are talking about here but don't doubt you about these being continuity problems. But I really hope someone does a find and replace to change every occurrence of "Toppled Timber" to "Fallen Timbers"! I also caught one occasion where Zindel says Andrin will announce her choice within a week, which is obviously wrong given the dates in the sample chapters.

At that doesn't count that things that I am wondering if they might be deliberate changes. The translation crystal in the sample keeps people from hearing the voice of the speaker. The translation crystal at the negotiations wasn't doing that. Might be a different version of a translation crystal. Might also be DW realized that given what has been said about voice language abilities the voice listening to those negotiations would have learned Andaran off of that and decided he didn't want that and so changed things. Might also be a continuity error that will be fixed before it gets into canon.

I saw more things that left me wondering. But that is enough for now. I hope this text gets a continuity edit from someone who knows the series really well before the final text comes out. I'm going to wait for the printed book before I start trying to explain what has changed.

Nicholas

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:I find it good that the eleven Sample Chapters
are from the E-ARC. Some editing is needed.

In Chapter 3, we are told that Javelin Porath's
promotion had come in, to "Shield."
BUT,
previous books had shown that Javelin outranks Shield!
HHNF had told us that Porath would be raised to "Sword."
It also showed us Mul Gurthik's thought that he had put
a Spell on Porath so that this promotion would make him
murder Neshok, scream "We are Guilty of Torturing
Prisoners," and then kill himself.
Note that Neshok is still alive in this scene,
and Porath is as loyal and obedient as ever.

Also, Neshok is receiving a messenger from Harshu,
acting as a go-between,
"Commander of One Thousand Faildym Gahnyr."
Question: where did this 1000 come from?
We had seen that Harshu (and mul Gurthik) were the only
2000s this far out, and that Harshu-Force had only two
(2) Thousands, Toralk and Carthos. The rest of its
officers were Five-Hundreds and below.
SO, why hadn't this 1000 Gahnyr been mentioned before,
and what are his duties?
Could he possibly have just arrived at the Front?
Or is he supposed to be a Commander of *One* Hundred?
Harshu-Force has many of them.

More and more,
I am convinced that David Weber needs a clerk!

Howard True Map-addict

This was a wonderful novel to read. Lots of intigue in it. It will will interesting to see what happens. Well done.

2 big thumbs up.

When is the next book coming out?

I think there is a bigger continuity problem here. In Hell Hath No Fury, Fort Ghartoun is clearly on the Thermyn side of the Thermyn/Failcham portal while Fort Brithik is on the Thermyn side of the New Uromath/Thermyn portal. But in Road to Hell, this is switched. Remember that a big deal was made that Fort Ghartoun was in Thermyn, not Failcham because of the desert on the Failcham side.

My previous message seems to have disappeared. One major problem with RTH is that Fort Ghartoun and Fort Brithik have been reversed from their connections in HHNF.

After reading the whole eARC, I noticed that the Sharonians (aside from Shaylar and Jathmar) are still using Fallen Timbers. It appears that Toppled Timber is the Arcanan version of the term. I can't argue with the others, however. Though by the end of the book, the Sharonians do know the Arcanan language (possibly from prisoner interrogation), so I wouldn't think changing hearing the untranslated voice would matter.

brnicholas wrote:Yes there are a lot of small continuity problems in the sample chapters. I didn't see any of the ones you are talking about here but don't doubt you about these being continuity problems. But I really hope someone does a find and replace to change every occurrence of "Toppled Timber" to "Fallen Timbers"! I also caught one occasion where Zindel says Andrin will announce her choice within a week, which is obviously wrong given the dates in the sample chapters.

At that doesn't count that things that I am wondering if they might be deliberate changes. The translation crystal in the sample keeps people from hearing the voice of the speaker. The translation crystal at the negotiations wasn't doing that. Might be a different version of a translation crystal. Might also be DW realized that given what has been said about voice language abilities the voice listening to those negotiations would have learned Andaran off of that and decided he didn't want that and so changed things. Might also be a continuity error that will be fixed before it gets into canon.

I saw more things that left me wondering. But that is enough for now. I hope this text gets a continuity edit from someone who knows the series really well before the final text comes out. I'm going to wait for the printed book before I start trying to explain what has changed.

Nicholas

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:I find it good that the eleven Sample Chapters
are from the E-ARC. Some editing is needed.

In Chapter 3, we are told that Javelin Porath's
promotion had come in, to "Shield."
BUT,
previous books had shown that Javelin outranks Shield!
HHNF had told us that Porath would be raised to "Sword."
It also showed us Mul Gurthik's thought that he had put
a Spell on Porath so that this promotion would make him
murder Neshok, scream "We are Guilty of Torturing
Prisoners," and then kill himself.
Note that Neshok is still alive in this scene,
and Porath is as loyal and obedient as ever.

Also, Neshok is receiving a messenger from Harshu,
acting as a go-between,
"Commander of One Thousand Faildym Gahnyr."
Question: where did this 1000 come from?
We had seen that Harshu (and mul Gurthik) were the only
2000s this far out, and that Harshu-Force had only two
(2) Thousands, Toralk and Carthos. The rest of its
officers were Five-Hundreds and below.
SO, why hadn't this 1000 Gahnyr been mentioned before,
and what are his duties?
Could he possibly have just arrived at the Front?
Or is he supposed to be a Commander of *One* Hundred?
Harshu-Force has many of them.

More and more,
I am convinced that David Weber needs a clerk!

Howard True Map-addict

I haven't read the whole eARC. Thanks for the info on the translations. So either a small continuity error or the diplomats were using a diplomatic translation crystal which allowed the other side to check the translation while the Arcanan soldiers are using a standard one. If it gets into the final text I will be quite content assuming option two.

As for the Toppled Timber / Fallen Timbers distinction. The Arcanans got the name Fallen Timbers for that battle from Chan Tesh. Unless DW is using the distinction to indicate which language people are thinking in, and I don't have a clue why he would do that, I should still all be Fallen Timbers.

Nicholas

bkwormlisa wrote:After reading the whole eARC, I noticed that the Sharonians (aside from Shaylar and Jathmar) are still using Fallen Timbers. It appears that Toppled Timber is the Arcanan version of the term. I can't argue with the others, however. Though by the end of the book, the Sharonians do know the Arcanan language (possibly from prisoner interrogation), so I wouldn't think changing hearing the untranslated voice would matter.