After I'd read The Chronicles, I thought I'd better read Mordant's need, but I only got about 100 pages in and thought "This isn't as good as The Chronicles".
That was a long time ago, and I havent had the motivation to try again.
Give me a good reason to have a bash at getting all the way through.
"It's good" isn't a good reason BTW.
Why couldn't I get "into" Mordant's need?
Moderator: Cord Hurn
-
Phantasm
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 1720
- Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2005 10:52 pm
- Location: Cumbernauld, Scotland
Why couldn't I get "into" Mordant's need?
Quote - John Smeaton (Terrorists take note)
"This is Glasgow- we'll just set aboot ye"
"This is Glasgow- we'll just set aboot ye"
It's good!
The characters are great! The arch-enemy is diabolical, the twists and turns of the plot are intricate and it's a superb piece of Donaldson writing! If you don't read Mordant's need all the way through you're really missing out!
The depth of emotion it makes you feel are amazing, you can feel joy one moment and then despair the next as he rips away something you loved. Imagine the chronicles, but faster paced and compressed into a shorter time-frame, then multiply it by ten, and you have the excellence of Mordant's need.
The characters are great! The arch-enemy is diabolical, the twists and turns of the plot are intricate and it's a superb piece of Donaldson writing! If you don't read Mordant's need all the way through you're really missing out!
The depth of emotion it makes you feel are amazing, you can feel joy one moment and then despair the next as he rips away something you loved. Imagine the chronicles, but faster paced and compressed into a shorter time-frame, then multiply it by ten, and you have the excellence of Mordant's need.
[spoiler]If you change the font to white within spoiler tags does it break them?[/spoiler]
I thought exactly as you did before I read it; and then danlo put me in my place! 
!
At any rate, it took me a bit of a while to get into it, but once I got did, I read the pages avidly. And dearly burst when I couldn't find the seond book anywhere, and danlo sent me it to me
The second book is, in my opinion, much better than the first, but that doesn't take the value of the first one away, becaues i also thought that was very good; I enjoyed both books throughly.
!At any rate, it took me a bit of a while to get into it, but once I got did, I read the pages avidly. And dearly burst when I couldn't find the seond book anywhere, and danlo sent me it to me
The second book is, in my opinion, much better than the first, but that doesn't take the value of the first one away, becaues i also thought that was very good; I enjoyed both books throughly.
-
Phantasm
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 1720
- Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2005 10:52 pm
- Location: Cumbernauld, Scotland
Reserved it online and went to the library on Saturday morning to pick it up. Got there and the librarian says "sorry it wasn't on the shelf where it was supposed to be, we'll have to order it in from another library."
Grrrrrrr
Got home from work tonight and the wife told me it's arrived today, so a trip to the library again tomorrow.
Hope they haven't lost it again.
Grrrrrrr
Got home from work tonight and the wife told me it's arrived today, so a trip to the library again tomorrow.
Hope they haven't lost it again.
Quote - John Smeaton (Terrorists take note)
"This is Glasgow- we'll just set aboot ye"
"This is Glasgow- we'll just set aboot ye"
I can recall (many years ago) picking up Lord of the Rings no less than 3 times in my youth, not getting past about 100 pages and putting it down, saying to myself "This is so boring!"
There are certain authors who need about 100 pages just to set the scene, build a character and slowly build a plot before EXPLODING action, intrigue and mayhem upon you. SRD is one of these and Mordant's Need is an example of this. I personally loved the first book more than the second, but the second does have more action. I have read MN no less than 7 times. I love it. It is great story-telling, fantastic characters, especially the villian/s, and lots of twist and turns.
Geneerally it is 'lighter fair' than TC and Gap, but no less enjoyable on any level.
Read it, man!....
There are certain authors who need about 100 pages just to set the scene, build a character and slowly build a plot before EXPLODING action, intrigue and mayhem upon you. SRD is one of these and Mordant's Need is an example of this. I personally loved the first book more than the second, but the second does have more action. I have read MN no less than 7 times. I love it. It is great story-telling, fantastic characters, especially the villian/s, and lots of twist and turns.
Geneerally it is 'lighter fair' than TC and Gap, but no less enjoyable on any level.
Read it, man!....
~...with a floating smile and a light blue sponge...~
I think I posted this in another thread....
but there are a few reasons you might not get into it right away:
(a) main character starts out as very submissive. It made me uncomfortable anyways. Geraden was the main relief from that created tension, for example when he keeps interrupting Eremis. (no more said in case you haven't read that far, but it made me laugh out loud when I was reading it)
(b) the story is set so that the reader is initially kept from having much more information than the main character has. So that the reader is somewhat forced into the experience of the individual characters.
(c) intially, the events all take place in maybe three or four rooms of a castle.... it's claustrophobic in a way. I think for allowing the reader to better experience what the main character is experiencing.
That being said, it's all to a good end. Just as you reach the end of the first book, everything unfolds, and it becomes a little more like the kinds of stories you are used to reading, but it's all the better because of the context established by the people and events of the first book.
Even if it's a slow read for you at first, you'll really appreciate it all as you start into the second book. I read both in about a month, sometimes sacraficing a little sleep because I didn't want to put it down.
but there are a few reasons you might not get into it right away:
(a) main character starts out as very submissive. It made me uncomfortable anyways. Geraden was the main relief from that created tension, for example when he keeps interrupting Eremis. (no more said in case you haven't read that far, but it made me laugh out loud when I was reading it)
(b) the story is set so that the reader is initially kept from having much more information than the main character has. So that the reader is somewhat forced into the experience of the individual characters.
(c) intially, the events all take place in maybe three or four rooms of a castle.... it's claustrophobic in a way. I think for allowing the reader to better experience what the main character is experiencing.
That being said, it's all to a good end. Just as you reach the end of the first book, everything unfolds, and it becomes a little more like the kinds of stories you are used to reading, but it's all the better because of the context established by the people and events of the first book.
Even if it's a slow read for you at first, you'll really appreciate it all as you start into the second book. I read both in about a month, sometimes sacraficing a little sleep because I didn't want to put it down.
I wonder if the differing writing style turned a lot of SRD fans off Mordant's Need. There's no doubt that it's deliberately less 'wordy', less literary - and for me the richness of the Land is directly related to the richness of SRD's prose. He's said before that he 'sees' in words - so for me, the attempt to create a world without using the full range of his vocabulary is to risk making something flat or lifeless, like painting a landscape with only two colours.
That, IMHO, is exactly the problem with MN - the characters and plotting are wonderful, the world itself is fascinating, but the descriptions lack originality and solidity. Orison is just a big castle, where Revelstone is an inviolable buttressed wedge limned with coigns and parapets . . . well, you know what I mean. I hope.
That, IMHO, is exactly the problem with MN - the characters and plotting are wonderful, the world itself is fascinating, but the descriptions lack originality and solidity. Orison is just a big castle, where Revelstone is an inviolable buttressed wedge limned with coigns and parapets . . . well, you know what I mean. I hope.
<i>Orthanc enta geweorc</i>
IMO there's only one reason why anybody wouldn't get into Mordant's Need, and that's because they didn't get far enough into it. Once you get to the last third of TMOHD the pace picks up dramatically and you just won't look back.
Q. Why do Communists drink herbal tea?
A. Because proper tea is theft.
A. Because proper tea is theft.
I can understand how readers fresh from the Chronicles might be turned off by the much more deliberate pace of MN -- at the beginning, anyway. I don't recall that the slower pace of The Mirror of Her Dreams bothered me, though. I think at the time (the '80s really weren't that long ago, were they?), I was just excited to be reading anything by Donaldson.
Good assessment! SRD's writing in MN may not be as "ornate" as in TC, but I don't think that means it's inferior writing. MN showcases aspects of SRD's writing which were, I assume, deliberately downplayed in TC. In particular, a whimsical sense of humour and a sense of fun in playing with language. The Covenant books are all serious business, the stakes so enormous, that there's little room for chit chat. The Mordant books have more time for fun and games, since the stakes are on a more down-to-earth, human scale. Worlds won't shatter if Geraden or Terisa fail. So SRD allows himself and his readers breathing room to have some actual fun.
Perhaps the horror element is the other main quality of MN that distinguishes it from TC (and we touched on this in the Mordant Dissection group read). Yes, horrible things happen in TC, but there are spooky, even terrifying passages in MN (particularly in the 2nd book) that specifically recall the "tropes" of the horror genre. MN surpasses TC in this respect at least. I'd say A Man Rides Through contains some of SRD's most gripping writing ever. (Hey, even danlo was impressed!
)
Krilly wrote:Though I agree the vocabularly and descriptions are not as rich and I do prefer TC over MD--I find the characters in MD quite a bit more engaging and interesting. It seems like every person, no matter how minor, was well thought out, planned, and executed to his or her fullest.
Good assessment! SRD's writing in MN may not be as "ornate" as in TC, but I don't think that means it's inferior writing. MN showcases aspects of SRD's writing which were, I assume, deliberately downplayed in TC. In particular, a whimsical sense of humour and a sense of fun in playing with language. The Covenant books are all serious business, the stakes so enormous, that there's little room for chit chat. The Mordant books have more time for fun and games, since the stakes are on a more down-to-earth, human scale. Worlds won't shatter if Geraden or Terisa fail. So SRD allows himself and his readers breathing room to have some actual fun. Perhaps the horror element is the other main quality of MN that distinguishes it from TC (and we touched on this in the Mordant Dissection group read). Yes, horrible things happen in TC, but there are spooky, even terrifying passages in MN (particularly in the 2nd book) that specifically recall the "tropes" of the horror genre. MN surpasses TC in this respect at least. I'd say A Man Rides Through contains some of SRD's most gripping writing ever. (Hey, even danlo was impressed!
)I agree with that assessment, too. All hell breaks loose in the 2nd book, and you're completely under the spell of a master storyteller. If by the 2nd book MN still has had no effect on you, then maybe you should check your pulse to make sure you're not a zombie. Particularly a cockroach zombie, heh heh.Nav wrote:IMO there's only one reason why anybody wouldn't get into Mordant's Need, and that's because they didn't get far enough into it. Once you get to the last third of TMOHD the pace picks up dramatically and you just won't look back.
