Liner Notes for Off The Gateway To The Forbidden Lands
****
The Forbidden Lands take their inspiration from Edo period Japan, which, as is well known, closed itself to foreign trade and travel. Of course “closed” is a relative term; traders from the Netherlands, China and Korea had access to areas in trading ports, as well as trade with the Ainu of Hokkaidō and the Ryukyu Kingdom, at the time semi-independent, occupied by the Japanese but also tributary to Qing China. Here access is at the whim of the Satrap, though still strictly controlled.
The word Satrap (governor) comes from the Persian Empire, and I may have grievously misused the term. Or perhaps not; after all Shōgun originally meant general, and officially was the viceroy of the Emperor of Japan. Barbarikon has stolen the name of a great trading city at the mouth of the Indus during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. I doubt they will mind as it was a rather rude name to give.
Anyway Captain Carstairs is back and it appears he has gone completely over the edge into villainy. Inviting your enemies to dinner, monologuing at them and then locking them up – classic. He has a motley set of strangers from all over the Pelagic Ocean as sidekicks, and even a pair of birds to match the ships dogs. He’s like an evil version of our heroes!
I can only apologise for poor introduction of Alana the water witch. I tried and tried to get her into earlier stories, to have her using water power inconsequentially to lead up to her greater feats in this story (and the next). It didn’t work out! I couldn’t get her in without breaking the plots. She’s in the background of a couple of scenes, comes to the fore in this story and then suddenly, jailbreak!
Burrows has a similar problem but he doesn’t have magic powers so its not quite as blatant.
This is the penultimate story in the series. I have moved the people and ships into position, explained what is going on, the plans of the gods and the villains. All that’s left is an exciting sea fight!
Ha ha, no, well yes, there will be an exciting sea fight but I have a few tricks left, one or two twists to the story and maybe even a character moment or two. Also an ending. Yes, a real ending.
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