Randomiser wrote:Bluesqueak wrote:
They might speed up the drive - or it might be that we get a flash-forward to 'Earth, Forty Years Later' and 'Targoviste, Forty Years Later' - once the story has established how Earth got unified and how humans adapted Shongairii tech. Certainly the next generation of Dvoraks has been carefully established.
Yes, but RFC has just spent several chapters establishing what the situation is on earth currently. If he does "Forty Years Later" he will then have to do at least a big infodump to establish what has happened on earth in those years. Given the trouble he had with trying to jump 15-20 years in the last Safehold book. (In the end he had to re-plan and rewrite it) It doesn't seem likely to be a very happy approach.
He had to re-plan and re-write because he simply had too much going on during those Safeholdian 15-20 years. But he
started Out of The Dark with a flash forward that was several centuries long. Info required? The survey ship had reported back to the Hegemony, the Council was somewhat disturbed by the humans, the Shongairi had been authorised to 'colonise' Earth. Jump forward from survey to colony expedition done.
If the exciting bits are the formation of a world government and discovering the limiters on Hegemony tech, you could do a decades long jump with 'the next thirty five years were the most peaceful the Earth had ever known. Everyone was too terrified of vampire assassination to even think of starting a war. Meanwhile, Vlad and Stephen had watched the entire Hollywood back catalogue, branched out into Vlad's secret passion for Ealing comedies, and were currently discussing the merits of Bollywood musicals.'
Of course, this being RFC, I won't be remotely surprised by something a bit more ... exciting. But he has done longer time jumps than forty years.