Woohoo! Another Linden-lover raises their head above the trenches! Good to see some Irrational Sanity! Murrin: nicely put - this does focus things. It is this put upon/done-to quality of Linden that must turn off many of the more robust readers. It is this vulnerable, helpless quality in Linden that...

The whole "post" thing discussed in earlier posts has always indicated to me a more ironic and free form take on a more earnest but influential previous movement - in this sense I am post-punk (talking heads, wire, television), post-(classic) rock (not jazzy noodling like Tortoise but prob...

Covenant Jr: one more thing about what I mean by empathy. Empathy is often confused with sympathy. The latter refers to those things we share with others and can identify with. Empathy means putting yourself in someone else's shoes, often quite a difficult process if there is little that is sympathe...

HIGH Lord Tolkein and Covenant Jr: I accept that it is highly unlikely or desirable that everyone identify with a character like Linden - I only went on my rant since it seems so very few posters here, who obviously love SRD's epic, do in fact identify with her. I did have in mind many other discuss...

Lord Tolkein - surely going thru a tortured epic such as the chrons looking for emotional highs is a doubtful exercise? If you meant depth of emotional connection, well it is quite likely many would find Linden painful but the common lack of any real sympathy or identification on this board with Lin...

Sergio - maybe that's it - I'm not a 'real' beatle fan - I am obsessed with music in general, so I respect them as the pop genii they are and have played them to death but I don't even like (much) any of their albums before rubber soul and wasn't really impressed until Revolver and then not again re...

Variol - I agree but the question is, which 15? I know this isn't a music discussion, but I couldn't resist: in no final order: 1. Back in USSR 2. Dear Prudence 3. While My guitar Gently Weeps 4. Happiness is a Warm Gun 5. Martha My Dear 6. I'm so Tired 7. Blackbird 8. Rocky Racoon 9. Julia 10. Birt...

Sherrif Lytton: I'm right with you on the genius of Revolver and the standout wonder of 'day in the life' on Sgt Peppers. I would also rank above Sgt Peppers: the fragmented but brilliant 'white' album and the equally inventive but more soulful and less contrived Abbey Road.

Well put Lurch! Much more gently so than old crankypants here (that's me). :wink: Love your emphasis on Runes and deciphering them - presenting an otherwise empty landscape with hints/references to the storm approaching - read the runes of the earth or perish! Sindatur - that lack of heaviness might...

Hey - no offence meant Sergio! In fact there's nothing wrong with a bit of a tussle - in fact that was what I was encouraging you to do, not shut you up! Sorry for the miscommunication. :oops: One of the reasons I love SRD is he is always negotiating and even playing with contradictions - forcing th...

As for Sgt Peppers as masterpiece - scrambled old Brit dancehall tunes with lightweight overly obvious pychedelia does not a masterpiece make, IMHO! :twisted: Though the songwriting of lennon/mccartney makes it wonderful like most of what they penned. See LA's Love masterpiece 'Forever Changes' for ...

Thaal - come on - Runes is hardly just 500 pages of struggle to get old stave to be more flexible. If it is centrally about any one thing it is about the many stories and tellers trying to make some meaning in a world where meaning is literally being eaten away or at best hidden - hence the talking ...

Thaal - yeah, this whole three years a book structure is potentially dangerous - nothing like tighter deadlines to create tighter works - SRD isn't that feeble - is he? :wink: On this point, it unfortunately won't be until Fatal revenant until we might know how just much of Runes' structure/feel is ...

Firelion - shame on you for even comparing the terrible piles of cultural garbage that are the last two star wars episodes! 8O Still, I understand the whole trying too hard problem of writing sequels to masterpieces - it is horribly common and Runes is a little on the stiff side - not so much b/c of...

What a feisty poster you are mr Grace! Worthy of old tremendous crankypants Thomas Covenant! One thing though, all this damn the land and fireball the bastards to kid your kid back...this is something TC never would have done - in fact in both of the earlier chrons the fact that he precisely avoided...

Great post Lurch! You have put my intuitive sense of the great worth of runes in well reasoned and sensitive terms. I had said to another SRD fan that the most bold thing SRD has attempted in Runes (and IMHO succeeded) is to place in centre stage a mature intelligent practical woman protagonist in t...

wayfriend - I agree that blind faith in SRD is hardly satisfying or something SRD would much like. Yet I do see character development throughout runes - it is all about Linden's growing confidence and her doctor's sense of pragmatism. The appearance of the demondim marks the end of all that - there ...

Nice post wayfriend - very thorough reasoning. I agree there is a definite distancing in Runes - not just in the telling of it but also around Linden and the consequences of her actions. However I don't agree that the demondim encounter was in the same boat - in fact I found this burst of ancient bl...

Everybody is searching for the personal qualities of the white gold user as the key to wild magic. This IMHO this is missing the eighth ward of SRD :wink: I was thinking that perhaps the wild magic is created in the bonds/committments/intimacies between Covenant and others - a relational not individ...