Worst book of the chronicles?

[Vain]

I'm guessing Gilden Fire

[caamora]

Right! That is the one book I read when it first came out and have not been able to find a copy since!

[Reisheiruhime]

Yeah, it's Gilden Fire. I wish my copy of TIW hadn't ran away.

[Guest]

Far and away my least fave was "The One Tree", which is also my least favorite SRD book. I've read everything SRDs written many times and while "The Real Story" is a bit of a clunker, "The One Tree" was painful to me.

Instead of expanding the world that The Land exists in, having Covenant travel to World's End brought up all sorts of ideas about The World that The Land is in. Is it a planet? Is it some other kind of thing? Is it the only place under the Arch of Time? Unlike The Land, everything else in The World felt flimsy.

The One Tree suffered in my mind from being too much like "Voyage of the Dawn Treader"

Also, I knew from the very start that Covenant would fail. It just seemed to easy. He finds the Worm at Worlds End, creates a new staff and there's some kind of apocalyptic battle at the end? Maybe if this was Piers Anthony, but I knew it wasn't going to happen in an SRD book. As soon as Covenant made his speech at the end of "Wounded Land", I knew "The One Tree" was going to be one of those Homeric "Journey Where the Treasure You Find Is Not The One You Seek", but somehow it made it more of a letdown when.... well, when "The One Tree" ended.

Oh. And Giants can spend centuries sailing the seas not finding their "brothers", but they can find the World's End no problem?

While I love all the books "One Tree" doesn't satisfy as much as the other five do.

I believe that Lord Foul's Bane (which seems to be getting knocked a lot in this thread) is a great book that allows for the better books. When I re-read it, there are things that I wish were written with SRD's more refined hand seen in "White Gold Weilder" or "Mordant's Need", but it is still a really great book; head and shoulder's above "The One Tree".

[Dromond]

Funny how we can love this story so much as a whole and yet disagree so much on its parts.

Oh. And Giants can spend centuries sailing the seas not finding their"brothers",but they can find the World's End no problem?

Fact is,'twas not easy or a given.
The Giants were shown the path to the one tree(World's end)
The Elohim unlocked the knowledge placed there by HT (CC)

he stretched out his staff to touch Covenant's forehead.
Instantly,a blaze like a melody of flame sang out over the eftmound; and at once all Elemesnedene fell into darkness.Night arched within the vision---a night made explicit and familiar by stars. Slowly, the mapwork of the stars began to turn.
"See you, Honninscrave?" cried the First hoarsley.
"Yes!" he responded."This path I can follow to the ends of the Earth"
For a time, the stars articulated the way to the One Tree. Then, in the place they had defined, the vision dropped toward the sea. Amid the waves, an Isle appeared. It was small and barren, standing like a cairn against the Sea, marking nothing. No sign of life relieved the desolation of its rocky sides. Yet the intent of the vision was clear; this was the location of the One Tree.

So, not finding their "lost" yet finding the end of the world is quite compatible, and I guess I've shown that TOT is not my least favorite. (To get back on topic)

[Nekhrima Vain]

I have this theory that SDR has this habit of having a tantalizing but weak first book, you see it all over, Lord Foul's Bane, The Wounded Land and The Real Story. I think my least favourite is LFB because it lacked all the massive confrontations in IEW and PTP. But you have to be careful because SDR does this in a way that leaves you with a thirst for the Land and its inhabitants. Just leaves you with the right amount of interest.

[GSG]

Dromond:

I totally spaced on that.

Maybe I'm fixated on the whole The World thing. Until The One Tree, The Land is all we see on that side of The Arch; and it's kind of nice that way. You don't think about weather it is a planet in some other solar system, or an entirely different creation, (or--to some extent--a figment of Covenant's imagination). But once you leave The Land, all of these other questions come up for me like "Just how big is this world" and "Why doesn't the sunbane effect all of the other islands" and questions about earthpower and wild magic.

On the one hand, this gives SRD a lot of opportunity to bring about new things (which, I admit, he does a very good job of doing) but on the other hand, I don't care. Or at least, I don't care, nearly as much about that stuff as I do The Land, its survival, and how Foul is going to be defeated (or at least diminished) and just how Covenant is going to survive the stab wound (which, in subsequent readings, I know).

By the time you get to the Second Chronicles, the whole unbelief thing is dormant (Covenant has decided that the existence of The Land doesn't matter because he loves it anyway) so you don't lose anything by leaving The Land, but Covenant's journey--while affording time for more emotional depth to his relationship with Linden--doesn't give you a whole lot.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

[Dromond]

Well I certainly don't think you're wrong. Opinions are like, well, we all have one, no?
Actually, you've given me a lot to think about that I hadn't considered before.
But We all knew TOT was not going to be the climax, where it hit the fan,simply because it wasn't the last book-and TC's dead told him he would have to come back to face Foul.
I love TOT because we get away from the Sunbane for awhile-don't think I could take 1500 pages ot it.
And TOT gives us Nom, Findail, and a distinct altering in the Harachai psyche. Anyhow, I sense that I ramble now,better scram!

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Here's how they stack up for me:

LFB: my fav, a lil ruff on da edges, but still, this is the one that made all
the others possible and I think it's underrated
IW: not a fav of mine, but it's the one that made the Chrons
PTP: I like it, but I don't like how it's written on many levels
WL; Drags on, but I think I started crying like five times, amazing
OT: Fun, somewhat contrived, made for the big screen
WGW: Important things happen, including the single greatest moment
in fantasy history, but mostly just drags and drags and by the
time we get to Foul, we've still almost forgotten why

My least fav is WGW. I had to read the 2nd Chrons twice all the way through four years apart to get myself to finish that book. Was worth it in retrospect and this time around I see things a little differently, but still, meh.

[dlbpharmd]

WGW: Important things happen, including the single greatest moment
in fantasy history,

I'm interested in what you think that might be.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

...Nom.

You?

[dlbpharmd]

See, I think that was better in TOT than in WGW.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Yeah, it was amazing either way.

And then there's the caamora in WL, or Cov's dead, or the effects of the fertile sun on the Land, man.

[Seven Words]

my least favorite would be One Tree.

My favorite would be White Gold Wielder.

I get chills EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that I read Linden's struggle with the Raver. that one final sentence.

"And broke free."


I really don't like Linden all that much in 2nd Chronicles. Don't actively DISLIKE her, just...bleh.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I'm glad this thread drifted from "worst" to "least favorite" book. Who here is qualified to say which one is worst? Worst in what way? SRD himself thinks that TWL has structural difficulties beginning at the part where LA and TC parted ways in Andelaine. Perhaps, for that reason, TWL has the poorest structure. And SRD should know.

Which book is my least favorite? Maybe ROTE, because it suffers from "sequel envy," and is full of padded material.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Wrong forum, homes.

But if we're including it, then yeah, RofE is my least fav, though I'm now only half-way through. Man it's slow. I get alot of it, but it's slow, and I don't really care all that much, and Foul isn't very menacing, and Linden is well, Linden.

WGW seemed so redundant to me, they retrace half their steps from WL, the Arguleh are completely contrived, almost as if SRD didn't know what he was going to write before he started the last installment, and linking it up with OT just because it has a croyel doesn't explain anything. And yes, it should explain something as enigmatic as our introduction to croyel. Plus, HT's death to give life to Hollian and Alene just wasn't at all convincing to me, and I had not the faintest hint it was coming, no forshadowing whatsoever...

...but hey, I miss things, maybe I'm wrong.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Wrong forum, homes.

There was nothing in the title about which Chronicles.

But if we're including it, then yeah, RofE is my least fav, though I'm now only half-way through. Man it's slow. I get alot of it, but it's slow, and I don't really care all that much, and Foul isn't very menacing, and Linden is well, Linden.

WGW seemed so redundant to me, they retrace half their steps from WL, the Arguleh are completely contrived, almost as if SRD didn't know what he was going to write before he started the last installment, and linking it up with OT just because it has a croyel doesn't explain anything. And yes, it should explain something as enigmatic as our introduction to croyel. Plus, HT's death to give life to Hollian and Alene just wasn't at all convincing to me, and I had not the faintest hint it was coming, no forshadowing whatsoever...

You are very observant, the Arguleh are indeed contrived. And before someone gets their britches in an uproar over that statement, SRD admitted as much on the inside of the album cover to his personal reading from WGW which I owned back in the 1980s. He called the Arguleh a product of "serendipity" (?) or something like that. It's been 25 years.

...but hey, I miss things, maybe I'm wrong.

As I read the Last Chronicles, I get the feeling I'm reading the Second Chronicles all over again. But hey, maybe that's just me.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

There's a massive issue that aches inside me concerning the Arguleh.

Think about it:

Physically, the Arguleh are going directly up against the power of the Sunbane. This should create a tornado alley that dwarfs anything we've seen previous, all just north of Revelstone, the cold and hot battling like warrior lovers, and what does SRD do about it? He skips it. He already used storms a billion times, so he just skipped the greatest weather battle imaginable.

Thematically, the Arguleh were going directly up against Foul's plans, and while in the end it could have different meanings, it seems contradictory, sortof.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

I don't think the mindlessly hating Arghuleh were doing anything except obeying a Croyel. What alleged purpose did a Croyel have against LF's plans? What power did it hope to achieve by controlling Arghuleh? And what did it hope to gain by attacking the Search?

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

The Arguleh made a deal with the croyel...the question is exactly what was their intent, probably, "we hate warmth, arrr!!!"