Any negative views?

[aiken]

Does anyone here think that a lot of the past-rehashing was imposed by Putnam? I got the impression that someone at Putnam said, hey SRD, your story came out 20 years ago. You need to make sure everyone knows what you are talking about, so completely re-write your story to include that old stuff. That made the book longer and slower.

I am hoping that he hits his stride with book 2, and feels less need for explaining the past in detail.

[ur-bane]

I don't think it was Putnam that imposed the past upon us.
SRD has reiterated the past throughout both the First and Second Chronicles...why should it be different now?

But, on the thread topic, I felt while reading Runes that the depth of character present throughout the First and Second Chronicles is not there.

I have not felt a compassion or closeness with any of the new characters the way I did 20 years ago.
Who could not help but love Lord Mhoram? Saltheart Foamfollower was a priceless inhabitant of the Land, as were all the Giants.
The Haruchai in the role of the Bloodguard compelled awe at the depth of their Vow.
The Hearthhralls Tohrm and Baradakas........

I could go on and on. I had as much love for the inhabitants of the Land as I did for the Land itself.
So far, Runes has not invoked the same feelings about the characters. If anything, (and this could very well be deliberate on the part of SRD) I have a loathing for what has become of those whom I loved in the early works.

I can only hope that the future books reawaken the emotional bond I had felt for 2 decades.

[UrLord]

I don't know about you, but after reading LFB I never felt any particular attachment to Foamfollower or Mhoram...it took a while before these characters really displayed enough depth to endear them to me. Same goes with the new characters introduced in TWL...

[ur-bane]

...it took a while before these characters really displayed enough depth to endear them to me. Same goes with the new characters introduced in TWL...

I certainly hope that is the case. It would be a great disappointment were it not.

And, come to think of it, I have to agree with you, UrLord. It was not an instant attachment. There is hope.

[Roynish]

Stave regards some form of attachment. Bannor he is not.

The arrogant Manethrall

Liand is fine.

Esmer in his dichotomous torment is fascinating.

Anele is just one of those pathetic pained characters that SRD loves you to hate. He has the knack for making lives unpleasant.

Covenaant in the first book was incredibly unlikeable. The formula of resolve is apparent.

We wait for resolve and supplication of this rather crepuscular air.

[Lambolt]

ur-bane, you have hit the nail on the head my friend. I agree 100%, I also don't care much for the new characters and rather than complex I just find them boring and repetitive with the way they act and talk. Totally agree about the likes of Mhoram, Bannor, Saltheart etc

I think I also resent the repeating stuff, I mean, Kevins Dirt - wtf? Just sunbane all over again. Yawn

[Seareach]

I see "Runes" as a prologue, and I think that the test will be the next book. I actually thought the Prologue was fantastic. It's got a great pace and great suspense (all that practice SRD has had with writing mystery novels I guess). I actually think Jerimiah is a greatly written character and look forward to more about him in the next book.

Once Linden gets to the land....well, I was a little disappointed. I don't feel very much empathy with any of the characters. I can't stand Liand, and Linden got on my nerves. BUT I'm still hopeful. I think SRD is just trying to find his feet again.

[Davies_Hyland]

The story here has none of the flow and seeming inevitability of the past stories.

I did enjoy the description of Linden's new life, and I was very happy for her adoption of a son.

However, there was essentially nothing original in terms of the characters and even the overall situation. The new threats are discussed in various places, without much consistency. The major new dangers are very unsatisfying - "Kevin's Dirt" ??? How long has it been around? What's the history of the Land's people's reactions to it?

The falls and the whole theme of time travel is much more completely discussed, without much reason given. Why isn't the problem of defeating "Kevin's Dirt" given more attention (save very briefly at the end)? Furthermore, time travel is too science fictionish a theme to appear here...

Just a shame to see such a falling off from the standard of the previous series.
Nobody loves the first and second chronicles more than I.

[Ard Rhys]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one.

And Putnam didn't impose anything on the manuscript - all those references to the prior series were in the original manuscript when I read it. *shrugs*

I have a feeling that when the next book comes we could easily forget that RUNES ever happened and jump right into the real story.

Shawn

[burgs]

I think SRD has a hard time starting--LFB and TWL were both slow in long stretches also (as was The Mirror of Her Dreams). Yet the second volumes all more than make up for that.

I don't believe that SRD has a hard/difficult time starting. What SRD does in his beginnings is carefully and methodically set the stage. When I was 14 (24 yrs ago) and reading this for the first time, I was less aggravated than most of my friends that it took so long for the fantasy portion to get going. But when I read the book later as an adult, I realized that Donaldson was showing us (not telling us) Covenant's struggles with leprosy so that we would better understand his refusal of the land.

I do agree that in LFB he was finding himself as a writer, and that nearly every book that followed was an improvement on the one before.

About Runes. I seem to be the lone dissenter here. While we all know that this book was rushed to press, I believed that Donaldson's prose - and this was most vividly seen in the prologue with Jeremiah's constructs - was on par with Conrad's.

This is going to tick some people off, so I apologize in advance for saying it. I think there's a certain amount of "spoiled brat" syndrome going on - i.e., I WANT THOMAS COVENANT , and that is acting as a blinder. Again IMHO, I think that one of the great strengths of this book is that TC is barely in the book for ten seconds, and it's still a darn good story. A GREAT story, IMHO. And that's not blind "I Love Anything SRD Writes" praise. At one point during the Gap series, I returned Chaos and Order because I thought the intensity was going to cause neural shock, and that ultimately infuriated me because I did go back and read everything (and almost experienced neural shock) and was never able to get it back as a hardcover. As a result, the Donaldson section of my library looks a bit silly: hard, hard, hard, soft, hard.

[Davies_Hyland]

I for one, never expected to see TC again...

I accept death and I thought that what happened
was essential to the second chronicles and I am
happy even without TC.

Further, Linden's self-examination is also just fine
with me and I would not have it any other way.

Neither of these is my beef with the book, at all, actually.

Let me say that too many people here seem to be saying "give SRD a chance! the next books will be great!"

I think its quite fair to judge this book in and of itself,
however. SRD is making a mint, with only one of the four books
having been completed, and its fair to judge what we have so far...

(By the way, the amazon dot com site for the book has some good
criticisms, also (including mine, btw ; ) ))

As I've said, the style and flow of the narration are simply far below the par of the first two chronicles.

(For that matter, I thought that the man who wrote the Gap Series
was also far far better than this new SRD...)

[Edge]

Well, I for one am not saying, "give SRD a chance! the next books will be great!"

I'm saying THIS book is GREAT!

Maybe it's just a different viewpoint - you complain about no "flow and seeming inevitability" while I praise him for not being predictable, and not being afraid to take bold new directions. I don't particularly consider 'inevitability' to be a virtue in storytelling.

Or maybe we're somehow not even reading the same book! Considering you say there's "nothing original in terms of the characters and even the overall situation." The book I'm reading has major characters that have changed and developed considerably since the last book, minor characters that are taking on a whole new significance, and completely new characters that have nothing in common with any previous ones.

And as far as similarities between Kevin's Dirt and the Sunbane: if you think about it... the Land is under attack:because of the nature of the Land itself, the attack must be something to do with earth-power; obviously something that disrupts or impedes it. That is really the only similarity, and it's one that is true to the internal consistency of the Chronicles. What are the alternatives? Linden gets called to the land, to be told that "Everything's fantastic here, and we're all really happy"? That would be a really short story! Or... Linden gets called to the Land to fight a new super-villain? Maybe Joker or the Penguin?

The point is, SRD has introduced as many differences as is humanly possible (e.g. the Haruchai/Masters) without radically changing the whole nature of the Chronicles - and THAT would have been the only thing that would have really disappointed me.

[CovenantJr]

Well said, Edge.

[burgs]

Perhaps the most radical, and to me one of the most satisfying, being the conspicuous abscence of Foul's malice.

In the first two Chronicles the story was fueled entirely by his malice. Certainly, there would be no over-arching (pun intended) story without him in these Last Chronicles, but the story is dramatically different with Foul seemingly reduced to a bit player.

[ur-bane]

I think perhaps, more than anything, the fact that most of us have had 20 years to ponder what "could have happened next" is what is truly the cause of these so-called "reservations."

During that time, we have all wondered different things....how were Sunder and Hollian received with the Staff in the absence of the Sunbane......what transpired with the Sandgorgons; did Nom unmake the Doom?....how have the Bhrathair rebuilt after the demise of the Kemper?....how many new tales have the Giants brought to the land?..........what did Brinn do after the sinking of the Isle of the One Tree?.........if the Law of Life was broken, who else besides Hollian and (now we know) Anele, her unborn child, were brought back from the dead?.......and I could go on and on.

Perhaps the correct word is not "reservations," but rather "not what I expected."

But even that cannot suffice. The fact is, this is a great read, and we have been reintroduced to the Land after 20 years and untold millennia.
I for one am glad to be back in the Land.
Yes, it would have been cool for Jeremiah to have been Covenant's actual son, but it will not change anything for me. (That was my personal disappointment.....over the last 20 years, I honestly thought Covenant and Linden could have conceived a child on Starfare's Gem.)
But the fact that he is not changes nothing: I will stilll read and reread every book......

Evolution my friends; the Land and it's peoples are evolving. And I for one am curious to know what happens next.

[Davies_Hyland]

Well, this might be considered "unfair" or a mortal sin, or something else, but I am simply going to quote here a review someone posted on Amazon dot com regarding the book, with expresses my own reactions also:

"Let me start by saying that I disagree that this would be a good book for readers new to the Covenant series to start with. It's true that Donaldson does a good job of explaining events from the prior books as he goes along, for the benefit of readers who may have forgotten various details over the years, but these explanations would act as spoilers of the six prior books for new readers. It would be much better for new readers to start with Lord Foul's Bane and read the first two series through first, rather than to start with this book and find that the first two trilogies have been ruined for them.

The Runes of the Earth lacks both the scope and the imaginative detail that Donaldson's writing displayed, in particular, in the second Covenant trilogy. The action is confined to a relatively small part of The Land (and to one small area of the "real" world), and takes place over a very brief timespan from the point of view of Linden Avery, the main character.

There are of course some new concepts introduced, and a new threat from Lord Foul. But too much of Runes merely recycles old themes and characters and peoples from the first two series. In the second Chronicles, Donaldson was not merely content to rehash the first trilogy. Instead, he brought us Elohim and Sandgorgons, venom and Sunbane, Bhrathrair and the Clave - and Linden herself. Runes offers nothing comparable to the shock which The Wounded Land presented to readers familiar with The Land.

Even the new characters are too dependent on the prior series. Linden's son, Covenant's son, even Cail's son and Sunder's and Hollian's son. Why not somebody brand new? 7,000 years after the first trilogy, we are still seeing Stonedowners, Haruchai, and Ramen. Do no new peoples ever arise from or migrate into The Land?

Before the publication of JRR Tolkien's Silmarillion, many readers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy feared that exploring Middle Earth's past too thoroughly would destroy the "impression of depth" that was such a compelling facet of that series. A similar effect may be at work here. By tearing away the scenery and showing what really happened with Cail, the merwives, Kastenessen, the ur-viles, the Ranyhyn, etc., Donaldson may be answering 20 years worth of accumulated fan questions, but what is he leaving for the reader to wonder about?

Runes is too dependent upon Linden, the only significant point of view character. The second trilogy gave us Linden as a counter to Covenant, as the first had given us Troy and Mhoram, but in Runes Linden must stand alone. This is problematic in several other ways besides imbalance. First of all, Linden is not nearly as compelling a character as Covenant. She is not a leper, she is not responsible for Elena's misdeeds, etc. Also, there is no longer any real reason that Linden cannot use a combination of Wild Magic and the Law to achieve basically anything. Unlike Covenant, she is unhampered by leprosy, lack of health sense, etc. And her character had already been thoroughly explored in the second trilogy, and her paralyzing refusal to act no longer applies.

So Donaldson has to contrive reasons to keep Linden from simply winning the day with White Gold or Law, and those reasons seem just that, contrived.

So does the conflict between Linden and the Haruchai as represented by Stave, a carbon copy of Cail. The Haruchai are committing their usual fatal mistake, oversimplistic certainty. As usual, they recognize that they have erred in the past, but they are unable to see that how they always err is to be too certain that they will not err again. This offers nothing new to readers of the first two series. Linden futilely attempts to argue Stave and the Haruchai out of one specific stance without addressing their meta-flaw, that they just can't admit they might be wrong.

Certain plot elements seem half-baked. A supposed added motivation for Linden to oppose Foul is that he has kidnapped her son. But surely, if the fate of the world rests in your hands, saying that the fates of the world plus that of your son rest in your hands doesn't really ratchet up the stakes any. The my-child is-in-danger device seems melodramatic as well, as if this series should be subtitled, "This time, it's personal." Is Linden Dirty Harry or Charles Bronson? Of course not. So why go down this road?

Another annoying and unconvincing device is that of madness on the part of a key character. His madness causes this knowledgeable but unreliable character to drop cryptic hints for Linden and the others to try to puzzle out rather than to just say what's on his mind. This is of course highly convenient for an author who wants to carefully ration out information to his readers, but for just that reason it is obvious that it is authorial cheating. Donaldson readers have already been through this with Adept Havelock - they deserve better than this redux.

Donaldson may simply have run out of things to say. The fact that he continues to repeat himself with his anti-absolutist stance regarding the Haruchai tends to suggest as much. He has already explored the ideas of power equaling guilt, its absence equaling freedom, and the danger of certainty. If this third trilogy is going to have a new theme, its first entry does nothing to suggest what that theme might be.

Runes is very much a 2004 book, in that it follows the current epic fantasy trend of merely being one chapter in a longer work with a single ending. In this respect is suffers by comparison to its predecessors such as The Illearth War and The One Tree, which were complete novels in and of themselves as well as being parts of larger works.

The bottom line for die-hard Donaldson readers is that of course Runes is a must-read. Though it is a somewhat unworthy follower to the two previous series, it is certainly not an irrelevant abomination such as the later Ringworld books of Niven. But it will be bound to disappoint many who go in with high expectations, hence the two stars. Let us hope that its successor books contain less setup, and that some of the new characters are allowed to develop. The new series badly needs, if not its version of Foamfollower or Pitchwife or Mhoram or Elena, at least a Sunder."

[Davies_Hyland]

more from an amazon dot com reviewer:


"The largest pain I had with this story - and it was almost a physical pain on the eyes - was the way the story was told. Donaldson has spent the last several books writing in the first person. That first person narrative came over into the third person narrative and really wrecked this story. As a reader, I was being told what was going on rather than being shown what was going on. All adjective use ended, particularly where the beauty of the Land was concerned. The Land, a character in the other novels, was not present in this book.

If you want a book that tells you what is going on, this is your book. But if you enjoyed the other Chronicles because you got enveloped in the Land and the story, then realize when you read this it isn't going to be up to snuff. Merely read the first chapter from White Gold Wielder, then pick up Runes and read the first chapter of the Land, and you will see what I mean easily.

Donaldson, in his Locus Interview, admits to not being the type of fantasy author he was when he wrote the first two Chronicles. He ADMITS it. So there really isn't any arguing on the issue of how this new book is written. My expectations were not met. "

[burgs]

Donaldson also admits that he is a harsher critic of himself than anyone - as are most writers.

I have a review on Amazon as well (as of last glance it had a 25 out of 25 helpful votes, the "most helpful" review of Runes on the site), and I'll just say that "I am content".

[Edge]

Both those reviews quoted pretty much prove my point. They whine that 'Runes' is not different enough, then they whine that it's not like the previous trilogy. Sorry, can't have it both ways. I repeat: it's as radically different as possible while remaining consistent to the spirirt of the previous books.

And ur-bane raises an excellent point - I agree; I think the people that are disappointed, are just ticked off that SRD didn't do it the way they imagined he would.

[Davies_Hyland]

Look carefully at what was said there.

The two reviewers are not contradictory.

One writes that new peoples and characters and not introduced.

The other is talking about the style of the writing, and how poorly it compares with what was presented in previous books (He compared White Gold Weilder with Runes).

There is not a contradiction there.

Its possible to agree with both reviewers without "having it both ways".