Storming Amargosa will be the end of the Compact Universe. For now. Until it’s not.
But Storming must wrap up a bunch of storylines in both the Amargosa novels and the novellas that come before each one. Second Wave dropped Tishla into the Amargosa storyline, so tying up her arc was easy to insert. But as I wrote the final Gathering Storm arc, the arcs of Douglas Best, Leitman (or whatever his name is this week), and the mysterious Tol Germanicus became more important. I had originally intended just to tease this entire backstory about each of them only to have this implicit promise of a payoff at the end.
So now I have to wrap them up. Fortunately…
Second Wave‘s final scene takes place over Hanar, Tishla’s world. So going wide, even showing what’s happening elsewhere in the Compact and the Realm, can wrap this up nicely. But I need to be careful.
The trick will be to use these storylines not in the original versions to expand the Compact Universe for new readers. I also plan to use Germanicus’s backstory to flesh out the history and a lay a few eggs for future stories. Unfortunately, No Marigolds, a prequel to the whole series, serves as a spoiler for his storyline, so I’m sort of forced to lay all the cards out on the table.
But now the series is almost done. I have a prequel of sorts planned that I want to shop when it’s finished, But for now, I have no idea what follows for the Realm, for the Compact, or for my meddling kids. I do have an idea. I just don’t know if I’ll get to execute it.