Review/Rate Runes of the Earth

[Creator]

Runes is not a good beginning to this new series, but therein lies the problem more than likely. Nothing happens in this first book. There is a minor quest, but there is no real villain once Linden steps into the Land. I found the story boring for a book, and I have had to constantly keep reminding myself that it is only 1/4 of a story. This part, I will just have to wait and see.

But the worst part of the book was the writing. Donaldson has changed as a writer ALOT since 2nd Chronicles was released. If you go and compare WGW to RotE... well... there really is no way to compare the two. They are apples and oranges. Whereas the first two chronicles were rich and vibrant in language, bringing the characters and the Land to life, Donaldson has now after 20 years decided that less words is more. But he has come out of writing first person mystery stories, and that writing has really effected RotE in a very bad way. I felt as if I were being preached to rather than being able to immerse myself into the story.

What's sad about this fact is he knows what he is doing. He admits in the new issue of Locus Magazine that upon re-reading the first six books in preparation for the Last Chronicles, Donaldson realized that he isn't that wonderful writer anymore. Right after this realization, however, he rationalized that he has merely changed as a writer and he now is only interested in characters and conflict. This is almost verbatum from the article.

Now this isn't good. Why? Because the Land IS a character in the first two chronicles. That character is completely absent in this new book.

Spoiler

As is Covenant.

I am a huge fan of the first two chronicles, so much so I actually wear a white gold band on my right hand with the word BELIEVE inscribed on the inside. But this new book shook my belief in Donaldson's ability to wrap up the story as strong as he entered it. I guess time will tell. I pray I get to eat my words.

S.

I have to say I enjoyed Runes. It was good meeting some of my old "friends" in terms of the races. But I agree with you ... the "High Language" SRD used in the past is mostly absent. And I also agree - the Land IS a character. And the language SRD uses to immerse ourselves in the Land is as critical as the story development.

I'd recommend you do more than wait for time to tell! Share you insightful thoughts with SRD directly on his bulletin board - after Runes is officially released of course!! He has already noted that the writing of the first book has significantly modified his thought about the structure of the second.

[Ard Rhys]

Hi Creator,

I would love the opportunity to write my thoughts in a more concrete way for Stephen to read and shake his head at. *smiles* I am also a writer, and I can think up several framing devices for why RotE was the way it was written. I like giving the benefit of the doubt, particularly when there are three more novels on the way.

It is time for a re-reading the series anyway, so I will re-read in preparation for a possible posting on the subject. Many won't have as strong a reaction as I have I think, but there will be some I believe.

I think the story idea is strong - very strong. But just not executed the way it once would have been.

Shawn

[native]

I agree with some of what is written here. The writing style is much less rich than before - there's less 'hurled like a jerrid' type stuff. The plot of Runes is very much extended prologue - nothing much happens. Linden Avery is not in any way an attractive or admirable character. No-one seems to act with any intelligence whatsoever - even the Despiser seems to act with a distressing predictablilty. These are all bad things on the face of it, and yet, and yet....

All this is true. Yet there is an originality running through the story. It is not a repetition of the previous chronicles either thematically or stylistically. The writing is different but that can be a good thing. The themes are different and that has to be a good thing. Some of the plot is guessable but much is not. And what is emphasised is how central the character of Covenant himself is to the chemistry of these books. To me

Spoiler

his abscence

is a deliberate and screaming presence on every page.

[Ard Rhys]

Screams it on every page. Screams it!

I originally was hoping that Anele was going to be Covenant - after all if you spell it backwards it reads Elena. But alas, even that was taken from us.

I have to reread it when it comes out. In the manuscript I read, Donaldson used many words over and over and over again... hopefully an editor got to it and the rewrites that Stephen did will improve the book. Like I said, I want to love this series. I want it to be the pinnacle of what fantasy literature (as an adventure as well as a literary means) can become if given over to a master craftsman. Right now all I am really looking forward to is another Michael Whelan cover. *smiles* But that may change with a reread.

Shawn

[native]

If this is the story I think it is then Runes was very necessary in the form it is in.

Spoiler

Foul could not simply resurrect again to his former power without ruining the end of 'White Gold Wielder.' After all this time he is still but a mischevious ghost, much reduced in force, or was till Linden stepped in.

The villain here is surely Linden herself. By removing the Staff from the Land for thousand of years, I'm sure she has caused untold damage, not least by bringing back the Demondin and the enormous power they wield.
I think it significant in this context that the Creator of the Land had no words of guidance for her.

Somewhere in the Sarangrave, an insane Joan is yet to be confronted, decimating the arch. To the north, Kastenessen. And somewhere, Ravers. Somewhere, Nom. Yet Linden will dwarf these threats in power as she endangers the land to save one child, her son, following a precedent set by Covenant all those years and years ago. In that dynamic, what would Covenant himself do? Demand his ring back? What is a dead leper good for except fighting Foul, and Foul isn't the threat.

Those are the themes I think are to be explored in the next books, and they have to interact in subtle and unexpected ways for the story to work. Into that throw Linden's choice between her old love and her new ones and Covenant's between his old love and his wife, both destroying the Land in different ways with white gold, and he IS the white gold. Throw in the new characters who needed to be introduced. This book had to be the extended prologue that it was for all this to work. It would be most unfair to judge it any other way.

I would still say though that Linden was just a touch too stupid for plausability for my money, though to be fair Covenant has also behaved ridiculously stupidly and recklessly at times in the past. Something about that ring I guess. Come to think of it, everyone who puts those rings on seem to be prone to huge errors of judgement or mental illness. Foul himself was not immune to that. Perhaps this is a theme in itself?

[Revan]

Yeah, i agree with the point you people made before.... Thomas Covenant being missing screams on every page of this book... I felt sick because of it... The only times I felt comfortable reading it is when Covenant is talking... and he only says 3 or 4 lines... and even that was through Anele... no Covenant was badly missed in this book. Too badly.

[Romeo]

I also agree with most of the comments here. But particularly that he wrote it this way for a reason, and I think we need to wait to see how the rest of it unfolds before we judge the story. Remember that there were just as many people who thought The One Tree was a "useless" book, as there were people who said it was their favorite in the series.

As we all know, SRD starts with the ending, and figures out the story from the back to the front before he begins writing the first word. So he roughly knows what needs to happen in each book to get us from the beginning to the end. My feeling is that Runes is a large "prologue" that is needed to set the stage, and some of the actors, for the rest of the story. Every step in there is necessary to the whole of the story, and will be used later. When you were reading The One Tree for the first time, how could you have guessed that Vain and Findail would have been gone into the shaping of the new Staff? And how shocked were you when Covenant stood in front of Revelstone and calmly said, "Nom." < shivers >

Let's discuss the Hile Troy Syndrome. SRD said that he introduced Hile Troy to the first chronicles so that we could see the danger in coming into the Land and trying to kick a** (which is what a lot of people wanted Covenant to do). Foul had Troy from the start - the entire warward would have been destroyed if Mhoram didn't pull his butt out of the fire.

This is similar in the second chrons. Covenant is pissed, and wants to kick some Foul booty. But it doesn't work that way. He nearly destroys everything while trying to get a limb of the One Tree, and again in his battle against Gibbon. If he tried to blast Foul into oblivion in Kiril Threndor, the same thing would have happened. He was only able to defeat Foul through self sacrifice. And finally Linden came around from her own self loathing (similar, but different, to what Covenant went through in the first chrons) to save the Land after Covenanet defeated Foul.

Okay - now we have Runes. What's Linden doing? Running around trying to kick butt and take names. She's got a raging case of the Hile Troy Syndrome. And that just ain't gonna work. She's right on the path that Foul intended for her.

So who's the new self loathing person who comes through in the end and saves the day? My money's on Stave. I would love to see the rest of the books written from his point of view. On top of his physical scars, he's the only Haruchai (that we know of) that was ever in his moral position. How will he function cut off from the rest of his race? That has got to be a pretty hard thing to cope with, even if he thinks he did it for the right reasons. I can see a lot of self doubt and self loathing coming from him. And on top of it all, the Ranyhyn LAUGHED at him! Who could endure??

Anyway, as I said much earlier in these ramblings, I think we need to wait and see how all this pans out. Too many possibilities.

[Revan]

I agree that there are many possibilities... The Elohim, Thomas, Stave, Roger... loads more... but I won't lie to you; this book was seriously put down with the absence of Thomas Covenant... he was missed so badly. The few lines he was given were lame... I didn't like Linden that much at all... she just seems to be making an idiot out of herself every step of the way.

And my blood boiled when the Ramen said "They have shown you a greater honor than they showed Covenant". Man, that really pissed me off. And Linden not trying to be modest. News flash: no-one likes you. And then there's Liand, being the pussy he is.

Stave ruled in my opinion... I was quite suprised with the amount of feeling the Haruchai seemed to show in this book. I think he'll have no lack of inflection or expressionless when it comes to the later books.

I really enjoyed the talk about the Durance, Kastenessen, and Skurj (which are obviously the creatures he once trapped)

I got really pissed off as well, when Linden was having a go at all the Haruchai; she had such arrogance... it made me fume... I don't like Linden anymore, and have lost all respect for her as a character after Runes.

[Ard Rhys]

The last few posters, you all are still talking about story. I have no problem with the story at all. I think it will be a great story at its climax and over the course of the next three books.

But the writing style is changed, and changed not in a good way. That is why I didn't like the book. A book is supposed to be several different parts that make up a sum, and one of those parts is missing. There is a just change from the first two chronicles and the beginning of this last set. A big change.

Shawn

[native]

But the writing style is changed, and changed not in a good way. That is why I didn't like the book.

It's unarguable that the style has changed, but it changed between the first chronicles and the second as well, and for the better I should say. This is a more subtle writer and mature writer for my money, trying to avoid the pompous architypes that populate fantasy writing. At this point who needs a Mhoram type with a big sword and Camelot diction, or a tree hugging Druid talking in songs? I'm personally quite pleased that

Spoiler

the Giants haven't turned up with their corny bonhomie.

For me, the prose style is part and parcel of the story being told appropriate for the place in which it is set, and so it is more understated, less dramatic. We are not describing the beautiful Lorien style Land of the first chronicles, or the tortured wreck of the second - we're talking about another kind of Land altogether. The prose well matches the tale that's being told IMHO. Therefore the question remains 'Do you like the story?' One could conclude that both prose and plot are teetering on the edge of being dull and unconvincing, but the next book will be the acid test for me. Either it's clever prologue or it's aimless rambling.

[Creator]

I'm personally quite pleased that

Spoiler

the Giants haven't turned up with their corny bonhomie.

Hey!!!! I like the

Spoiler

Giants

!!! I hope we see them in the next book!!!

[Ard Rhys]

You are still missing one thing: The Land is absent. The Land as the character that we know and love. It is non-existent in this first book. Why? Because the writing does not bring it to life.

Characters are nice. Conflict is nice. But this still doesn't change the fact that Donaldson KNOWS that he isn't the same writer anymore. And I fell in love with this series because of the OLD writer from the 80's. So you are right, this might be a more "mature" story, but that still doesn't change the fact that people like myself are NOT going to like this series if continued in the same manner.

Like I said, it takes two sides to make a novel - the writer and the story. Right now I am only seeing 1/2 of it.

Shawn

PS: And I miss the Giants too. They brought the levity to a serious situation.

[native]

You are still missing one thing: The Land is absent. The Land as the character that we know and love. It is non-existent in this first book. Why? Because the writing does not bring it to life.

Yes this is true and valid. The Land and Covenant are both missing. I miss both. But above all I don't want a rerun of the previous books. I want something new, and I think I got it.

[Romeo]

Perhaps he doesn't bring it to life like he did in the other books because that's the way he wants it to feel. Kevins Dirt really takes a lot out of the Land as a character. The only earthpowerful thing the people of the Land know is Aliantha. There's hurtloam, but they know nothing about it.

[Ard Rhys]

It's not about story devices like hurtloam or Kevin's Dirt.

Here is an example. The first paragraph of WGW:

Awkward without its midmast, Starfare's Gem turned heavily toward the north, putting its stern to the water clogged with with sand and foam which marked the passing of the One Tree. In the rigging, Giants labored and fumbled at their tasks, driven from line to line by the hoarse goad of Sevinhand's commands, even though Seadreamer lay dead on the deck below them. The Anchormaster stood, lean and rue-bitten, on the wheeldeck and yelled up at them, his voice raw with suppressed pain. If any compliance lagged, the Storesmaster, Galewrath, seconded him, throwing her shout after his like a piece of ragged granite because all the Search had come to ruin and she did not know any other way to bear it. The dromond went north simply to put distance between itself and the deep grave of its hope.


Now, what a piece of writing. It resonates with the utter futility of what has just happened, and it speaks on many volumes: about team work, about the sea and the land, about those who lead and those who follow. It does this through "fumbling" and "driving" and "hoarse"ness and "clogging"ly.

This is only the first paragraph.

There is NOT ONE PARAGRAPH in all of RotE that is like this. Not ONE. This is what I mean about writing. Real writing. Even as I typed that paragraph I got enveloped into the story again. The feeling I get when I read that paragraph was completely lost and not in RUNES.

Now go to Chapter Two of Part I of Runes. It is a setting as well, but this is how Donaldson approaches it now:

She knew where she was. Oh, she knew. Her brief look around had shown her the truth. The echo of Jeremiah's name had confirmed it. She had been here once before, then years and a lifetime ago. This stone circle with its parapet was Kevin's Watch, a platform carved into the pinnacle of a leaning stone spire high above the line of hills which divided the South Plains from the Plains of Ra.


Donaldson is completely lost in a character's head. The fault here is that overly simplistic and yet always part of writing SHOW, DON'T TELL. In the first paragraph from WGW, Donaldson showed the character's futitlity against the elements. We could FEEL it. It resonated due to his word choice. The second paragraph is almost entirely in Linden's head. Not only that, but then the last sentence seems like he just looked at a map and threw in some directions. He didn't need to add any of that. SHOW it, don't TELL IT. Let Linden look over the edge if she can and see what she sees. He condensed all of this into one boring paragraph.

The paragraph could easily have gone something like:

Linden felt the warm stone beneath her hands as she gasped from the spiralling blackness that swam in her head and that which still clutched at her heart. A soft wind blew over her, summer laced upon its touch like a caress that awakens slumber. With jaw clenched from disorientation and pain, she forced herself to regain her lost composure, the echo of Jeremiah's name still reverberating from the darkness she had just come from. That echo followed her as she for a mere moment wondered where she was. The permanent stone under hands came back to her, and she knew.

Oh, she knew. Her brief look around had told her as much, from the azure, crystal-clear sky above, the smooth, warm stone beneath her body, and the stone circle she sat in with parapet.

She was on Kevin's Watch, a platform carved into the pinnacle of a leaning stone spire high above the line of hills which divided the South Plains from the Plains of Ra. She was in the Land.


Now, I am NO writer. I am not a published author. But I know what I like and I know what I miss. Anyone with eyes can see the difference between the first paragraph and the second one. It glares in how different they are. WGW, the last book in the series before RUNES, is written like the first paragraph. It's graphic, it's musical in its word choice, and it is alive because of both. All of that is gone in this new effort.

Could it be dry and boring to the senses for a reason? Sure. This is one of the writing devices I was going to give Donaldson the benefit of the doubt if appropriate. He may not want his writing to be alive because of Kevin's Dirt. It was mentioned earlier. But I tell you, when Linden and group travel back in time when Kevin's Dirt isn't there, the writing should have changed. It didn't.

So, we shall see. This is all I am saying. I think the story would have been a great deal more enjoyable if written like the other two series. They were written similarly - this third one doesn't fit with the other two so far. I get excited by a good author who puts words together in a beautiful way. This new book doesn't have that.

There, I end my rant. No reason to get huffy at me. I am, after all, just one opinion, and may of you may like the direction of writing style he has taken. But you can't argue that the the styles in the first two are the same as this third one - it isn't. And he even admits it, as I have already said.

Shawn[/u]

[Revan]

I didn't mind the writing style so much as the fact that Thomas wasn't in the story... it didn't really feel in par with the 6 previous books...

[Variol Farseer]

SRD mentioned at Elohimfest that his current editor doesn't approve of 'high style' or elaborate language and made him tone it down a lot. Evidently the editor thinks, and has taught him to believe, that readers today are less literate than those of 20 years ago, and will not tolerate $1.50 words.

I think this is a serious mistake, but I cannot blame SRD for it. There's no point in his writing a book unless a publisher will buy it, and the publishers have loaded the dice against him.

[Revan]

Damn! I'm gonna write to these damned publishers and complain about this, and so should the rest of you, show them what we really like.

[native]

SRD mentioned at Elohimfest that his current editor doesn't approve of 'high style' or elaborate language and made him tone it down a lot.

I find that hard to swallow. These books are guarenteed best sellers. He could write them how he likes surely. He's not some kid who can be pushed around by his editor???

If this is indeed the case then it is absurd. The people who read the first and second chronicles are the main audience of the third chronicles, and they will be more literate, not less. I can't imagine these books being readable for anyone not familiar with the first six books.

I take the intention to be to make a story that is much more pychological and character driven and less about the Land itself. The effect of the rich writing, as mentioned, is to draw the characters out of their own heads and that's perhaps less the intention here than in previous books.

I would also say that the whole 'fantasy author as geographer/architect' routine is highly derivative of Tolkien, however well done. The cause of originality suggests it should be avoided.

I agree though that it's not necessarily playing to the writer's strengths to turn down 'Description Mode' to this extent. But I still think the next book will be the time to judge whether the losses outbalance the gains.

[Revan]

SRD mentioned at Elohimfest that his current editor doesn't approve of 'high style' or elaborate language and made him tone it down a lot.

I find that hard to swallow. These books are guarenteed best sellers. He could write them how he likes surely. He's not some kid who can be pushed around by his editor???

If this is indeed the case then it is absurd. The people who read the first and second chronicles are the main audience of the third chronicles, and they will be more literate, not less. I can't imagine these books being readable for anyone not familiar with the first six books.

I take the intention to be to make a story that is much more pychological and character driven and less about the Land itself. The effect of the rich writing, as mentioned, is to draw the characters out of their own heads and that's perhaps less the intention here than in previous books.

I would also say that the whole 'fantasy author as geographer/architect' routine is highly derivative of Tolkien, however well done. The cause of originality suggests it should be avoided.

I agree though that it's not necessarily playing to the writer's strengths to turn down 'Description Mode' to this extent. But I still think the next book will be the time to judge whether the losses outbalance the gains.

Very good post native.

i think you're right... if the publishers did indeed instruct Donaldson to do this, then they are just plain stupid. And Stephen should change publishers again... I mean to stop him writing a certain way is silly.

Though you raised the change that it might not be true... with that, I partly agree with you; seems a bit hard to believe.