I keep dropping little teasers here and there about the coming volumes in the series but I have not gone too deeply into any of it.
That is, until now.
Fountable III has gone into final edit and it completes the originally planned three volumes (though as I mentioned before, not anything like the original outline from the 70’s). Volume four of the series has already been started and is called The Rings of Ojeelah. Perhaps I just got tired of naming each successive book with a number, or it could be because in the original outline, volume four was called that name, though the source of the rings was completely different in that earlier version.
In volume four, the group has finished setting up their teleportation business and moved off to do further research on their next endeavor.
What they cannot imagine is that anyone would take exception to their success… but, of course, someone does and the teleportation hub at Ojeelah is disrupted as the ring-gates are sabotaged.
Furzana immediately suspects her brother has some part in it but she still harbors a grudge against him for what happened in volume one, and she is not ready to let him off the hook as easily as Tervan seems to have.
Prince Acoordes will be exonerated from any complicity as they investigate the attack. What they discover – eventually – is far more shocking than any mere imperial plot or any slighted business competitor. It seems they have stepped on the toes of one too many scientist on their way to reconfiguring the laws of the universe.
And the most heinous crime was not getting any of it peer-reviewed.
That is, of course, a thumbnail sketch of the forthcoming adventure and it may change in several details before arriving at the finish line, but that is the present outline. More background details will be brought up about several different members of the group and some will be more involved than in previous volumes whereas others will see less activity. They are each developing their own lives to live as well.
In volume five, as yet untitled and far from being completely outlined, we will see the young boy, Hasitha, who recalled saving Tervan’s life in a previous life, returns again to make good on his earlier prophecy, saving Tervan’s life. Which will, by the questions it brings up, push their scientific inquiry into yet another realm.
Other volumes in the series are even more tentative in outline form and will probably only become further developed as the need arises. If the series loses readership, it will probably disappear before the last volume currently anticipated (#12, if you must know).
But we shall see what the future brings.
One thing I will mention, however, is that the end of the original trilogy was Tervan’s death. But as he was being murdered, his soul was transferred into a mechanized body.
Whether or not I will include that plot-line in this latest incarnation is still up in the air. If I do, it will certainly be nothing on the order as in the original – political intense – plot-line.
For the present, I am having too much fun with Tervan – as he is – to worry about killing him – or anyone else – off.
FOUNTABLE 