Bloodguard are riding with the perceived Covenant

[Roynish]

So is there earth sense mistaken. Or are they manifestations of some skurj or what.

The time travel thing has obviously given Donaldson a way out.

Not that I don't think its a clever piece of writing and a very effective chaos effect.

But as has been pointed out we don't want time paradoxes to come into this tale...or do we.

Of course he has set it up rather well. Jerimaiah now seemingly gesturing and speaking and Covenant by his side.

[I'm Murrin]

An interesting ending. A good ending, actually. Is it Covenant? Isn't it? I would be willing to accept the appearance of Covenant himself, if it were not for the presence of Jeremiah with him - especially a healthy Jeremiah. We shall have to wait and see how they explain themselves.
Beware the Halfhand.

[Thaale]

If you can have time travel, you can have hurtloam. Maybe you can have it in any case. Not everything is amenable to being healed – Covenant’s fingers never grew back – but it’s possible Jeremiah could become more communicative.

But it’s true that it would be naïve to accept everyone who shows up at face value, and I don’t think Linden will; not after being warned.

I was not a big fan of the cliffhanger ending at all. Donaldson hasn’t done that before (in a TC book). You have to give your readers a complete story, even when it’s part of a longer story. That’s what he did well in LFB, TIW, TWL, and TOT.

[I'm Murrin]

I get the feeling that there was no other point at which he could have cut it off - unless you wanted a trilogy with one book twice as long as the others. Or perhaps he will surprise us by switching to Covenant's PoV immediately after that last chapter (the ending did seem similar to points in other books where the PoV would switch to the subject on which the previous chapter ended). I liked the ending - it worked. It felt like the right point to stop.

And he did other things in Runes which he hadn't done in Covenant books before - like not showing us her attempt to enter Anele, and not directly showing the Horserite. In the First Chrons, you saw pretty much everything that happened to Covenant, as it happened. In the Second it was much the same, apart from places where the PoV character did not know what had happened/was happening to other PoV characters.

[Thaale]

It felt to me like it stopped before it ever really got going. I see what you’re saying about that being a good place to stop, given that he was going to write the first 500 pages the way he did, but that’s where I thought he really fell down. The book needed more action, better characterization (and other POV characters to share the stage with Linden), and either more resolutions or fewer puzzles. Runes was Robert Jordan-esque in piling riddle upon conundrum.

If this were merely a set-up book like The Real Story, it should have been a lot shorter and should immediately be followed by the next installment. But that’s not what Runes was, nor is such needed for the Third Chronicles. We already know the Land and many of the characters. It’s not like the Gap series where SRD felt he was doing something different enough in the genre that he had to have a set-up book and an afterword where he spelled it all out.

[Aleksandr]

And he did other things in Runes which he hadn't done in Covenant books before - like not showing us her attempt to enter Anele, and not directly showing the Horserite. In the First Chrons, you saw pretty much everything that happened to Covenant, as it happened.

Not quite true. In TIW we don't follow Covenant through his encounter with the Unfettered One of Glimmermere. Instead we hear about it afterward while Covnenant is talking with Mhoram the next evening.

[PitchDude]

Aleksandr, you're right about the Unfettered One and Covenant.

I once asked SRD if he'd 'edited' that scene out, owing to the length of TIW. He said he never wrote the scene - that he, "...rightly or wrongly" left it up to the reader to interpret what happened there.

Jim

[duchess of malfi]

The riders at the end are definately referred to as Masters -- more than once. This to me indicates that they are haruchai of the Land's present rather than Bloodguard from the Land's past?

[ur-bane]

The riders at the end are definately referred to as Masters -- more than once. This to me indicates that they are haruchai of the Land's present rather than Bloodguard from the Land's past?

Yes, I would have to say they are Haruchai from the present.
If you recall, scouts were sent out to watch the Demondim Horde.
The Voice of the Masters is speaking in Runes:

"Certain of our scouts seek to return. They run before the host of the Demondim,
seeking to forewarn us as they ride. And they are not alone. They have retrieved two"--
he paused and glanced away as if consulting the air, then met Linden's gaze again --
"two strangers from the path of the Vile-spawn."

[High Lord Tolkien]

"Certain of our scouts seek to return. They run before the host of the Demondim,
seeking to forewarn us as they ride. And they are not alone. They have retrieved two"--
he paused and glanced away as if consulting the air, then met Linden's gaze again --
"two strangers from the path of the Vile-spawn."

[/quote]

2 strangers?
Don't they collectively know Covenant by now?
Interesting.

I know, they're not sure but still....

[TincupCPG]

I really don't think this was an intentional cliff hanger by SRD. I think it was more an attempt to really, really shock us at the end of a book. Sure, it can be argued that that is what a cliff hanger is...but I just get the feeling that is is simply meant to shock us out of whatever we were feeling after the Masters "trial" of Avery. Now a long time ago there was a nighttime TV soap opera called "Dallas". I never watched it, but remember the famous cliffhanger that was on everyone's words??

"Who shot JR?" That is a cliffhanger..this was a shock.