Song of the Swans - The Seventh Book in the Stromling Saga
At long last I am continuing my writing. This story is both a sequel to the titular Stromling Saga, which was, alas, never finished, as well as my most recent LU story, Transdimensional Maneuvers. - talmid on June 26, 2016, Lego Messageboards
Summary
Song of the Swans is the sequel to the Stromling Saga and continues the story of its leading characters, Cyclone and Kate. It is just as much a sequel to Transdimensional Maneuvers which was focused on Intrepid Fusion Eclipse. The story is described as an ultimate conglomeration of talmid's stories with its fusion of casts, culminating in a very big messy story that has changed writing styles over the year its been written in, but the readers seem to enjoy it.
The story continues in the theme of interuniversal / transdimensional travel introduced but not practiced in Transdimensional Maneuvers. Moreso the story returns to the Elistra setting and introduces additional members of the Talmid Family: past, present, future, and alternate. To limited extent the story explores Cyclone's and Kate's romantic relationship.
Parts
Song of the Swans is like its own mini-series. The plot is divided into multiple parts. Each part typically begins in a new setting and focuses on different characters than the previous one.
- Part 1: The Beginning of the End
- Part 2: Eclipse
- Part 3: Post Meridiem
- Part 4: Sons and Daughters
- Part 5: Butterflies and Cyclones
- Part 6: Back Home
- Part 7: Elision
- Part 8: ???
Continuity
The story takes place two years after Full Circle and immediately after Transdimensional Maneuvers which wrapped up the plot of the Stromling Saga's unfinished six book The Darkest Night, while creating questions about the relationships of certain characters. Song of the Swans also introduces its own loose ends in its early parts, most of which will be wrapped up by the end of the book.
Since there are questions about the canonical status of the Stromling Saga's sequel trilogy, Song of the Swans treats the events of those stories with ambiguity. There is no doubt that Cyclone and Kate were lost in another universe, but how this came to transpire may or may not have happened the way it was written in Fading Fast, AIS&T, and The Darkest Night. Eventually talmid will make up his mind about these forsaken stories and he will probably side with maintaining their canon status.
That is not all.
Song of the Swans also has some continuity errors in itself. The worst instance is as follows: In Part 4 of the story, Kate discovers her potential relationship to Intrepid and Red but doesn't care much of it, but in Part 5 she acts like she doesn't know and it is ultimately an important plot point in Part 7 that she was kept out of the loop. The truth of the matter is, Kate does not learn of her future by herself and that scene in Part 4 will be rewritten sometime.
talmid also had the idiotic idea of writing the end of the story before the beginning of the story, so in the original version there is a Prologue that makes zero sense and will be redacted.