The Gradual Interview

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These are my covers (and my favourites too as it happens:

filebox.vt.edu/users/resop/watch/covers/book1_6.jpg

filebox.vt.edu/users/resop/watch/covers/book2_5.jpg

filebox.vt.edu/users/resop/watch/covers/gilden_2.jpg

filebox.vt.edu/users/resop/watch/covers/book3_4.jpg

filebox.vt.edu/users/resop/watch/covers/book4_3.jpg

filebox.vt.edu/users/resop/watch/covers/book5_3.jpg

filebox.vt.edu/users/resop/watch/covers/book6_4.jpg

--A

[dlbpharmd]

At E'fest there was a question that I was burning to ask, but as I told Iquestor and Fist, I knew SRD would not or could not answer it. However, I talked myself into asking it in the GI - and of course, SRD did not answer it!

Don: Your comment the other night about "needing the ring more than Tolkien" has really had me thinking about Covenant and Joan and their relationship. Just as the state of the Land was mirrored in Covenant in First Chronicles, Joan's physical state reflected the plight of the Land in 2nd and now Last Chronicles. Is Joan connected to the Land simply because she and Covenant were married, or is there some deeper reason?

Well of *course* there's "some deeper reason". <grin> But I hope you don't expect me to tell you what it is. I mean, aside from obvious things like: she has a white gold ring (the "mate" to Covenant's); and her "betrayal" of her marriage vows has left her vulnerable to the insidious seductions of Despite. However, I will say that if you're willing to stretch a point or three, you could conceivably think of her as Covenant's thematic doppleganger. (How come there's never an umlaut around when you need one?)

(07/02/2007)

[dlbpharmd]

Michael from Santa Fe: I don't believe you've talked about this or that it is answered in the text but does the way a Sandgorgon answers a summons (by speaking it's name) similar in nature to the way that Ranyhyn can show up as soon as they are called? (If I remember correctly, Nom showed up pretty quick after Covenant spoke his name). Also, in summoning a Sandgorgon does INTENT factor into it, since it seems, especially with a name like "Nom", that it could accidentally be spoken (by a child, for example)?

I'm reluctant to compare the two (Sandgorgons and Ranyhyn). On one side of the issue, I'm not confident that Nom would have been able to answer Covenant in WGW if Covenant hadn't first mastered the creature in TOT. After all, the primary purpose of Sandgorgons Doom is to keep the monsters in, not to let them out. And Kasreyn created Sandgorgons Doom. Is he powerful enough to cast a spell that would work planet-wide? On the other side, the Ranyhyn answer because they *choose* to do so. They've already selected their riders: they don't respond to just any old whistle. In contrast, the Sandgorgons answer because they're *compelled* to do so. That sounds like a very different kind of magic to me.

(07/02/2007)

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Hmm, very interesting. At first glance, it appears to refute my opinion that the sandgorons and Ranyhyn travel by similar means...bridging time as it were.

But, on the other hand, the reply seems to deal more with Kasreyn's spell of binding and the reason that they travel than the actual method of responding to summons.

--A

[aliantha]

Right. In this answer, he didn't address at all the mechanism by which they get there so fast. I wonder whether he misunderstood the question, or whether he got it but chose to answer it the way he did.

Don -- I could just *hear* SRD give that non-answer!

[Cagliostro]

I used to wonder about people saying "Nom" accidentally, which always made me think Donaldson should have named the sandgorgons somethink like Ftumpch or Fiddlewaddlewix or something. Then I remembered that these stories aren't based on anything real, so I let it go.

[dlbpharmd]

I used to wonder about people saying "Nom" accidentally, which always made me think Donaldson should have named the sandgorgons somethink like Ftumpch or Fiddlewaddlewix or something. Then I remembered that these stories aren't based on anything real, so I let it go.

[Relayer]

Fiddlewaddlewix

He couldn't use this one... it's Foamfollower's grandfather

[Cagliostro]

Hee hee....


Oh, and Douglas Adams (of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame) used to have a forum that he occasionally dropped in and answered questions, and this was always one of my favorite responses.

Subject: What kind of Apple Mac did Arthur Dent have?
Posted by Rick Tanner

I don't even know when he bought the machine, but it definately says in So Long and Thanks for all the Fish that he bought an Apple. Was it a snazzy little all in one number, or a hideous boxy thing?

Posted by Douglas Adams

I never know how to answer questions like this.

I hate to sound curmudgeonly, and I really don't mean to, but I am genuinely mystified as to what it is that people mean. I will try to explain why I'm so mystified, and if it sounds as if I am stating the very, very obvious then it's truly because I don't know what else to do.

The book is a work of fiction. It's a sequence of words arranged to unfold a story in a reader's mind. There is no such actual, real person as Arthur Dent. He has no existence outside the sequence of words designed to create an idea of this imaginary person in people's minds. There is no objective real world I am describing, or which I can enter, and pick up his computer, look at it and tell you what model it is, or turn it over and read off its serial number for you. It doesn't exist.

At the time I was writing the book I wrote that he had an Apple computer because writing those words helped to unfold the story I had to tell. If it had helped the story to say that it was a particular model, running a particular version of the system software then I would have done, but in fact I think it would have been a rather dull extension to the story and would have held up the narrative rather than furthered it. So I didn't put anything like into the story. With the result that the information doesn't exist. It's not that I chose not to reveal it - it actually, really and truly doesn't exist.

So what you're doing if you ask me what sort of computer Arthur Dent had is 'please would you make up a story for me which has to do with what sort of computer Arthur had'. So I have to start thinking in a story kind of a way. 'One day, Arthur Dent woke up and went and sat at his computer...' which makes me then ask myself - what did he want to do at his computer? Was he writing a letter to somebody? Was he going to play a game? The question of what what kind of computer it was still isn't asking to be part of the story. A story about how he chose his computer and why he chose the one he did would probably be very dull.

So you see the problem? "What kind of Apple Mac did Arthur Dent have?" is a completely unanswerable question. I like to think he's the kind of person who would have an Apple Mac, but at the same time it's a fairly meaningless statement, and to try and specify which model he had... it can't be done. He doesn't exist.

[wayfriend]

I would have just said "IIe" and done something important for the next ten minutes.

But I agree with his answer 100%.

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--A

[Usivius]

GREAT answer...

[matrixman]

GREAT answer...

Do you mean Wayfriend's answer or Adams's?

[dlbpharmd]

Robert Cordo: Stephen,

Will there be any hardback special editions (US & UK) of "Fatal Revenant" as was done for "Runes.."?

E.g., I have the slipcase, signed, numbered UK "Runes..".

Thank you!

Gollancz released a "collector's limited edition" of "The Runes of the Earth" in the UK. All of their efforts with/for "Runes" were highly successful; so I assume that they will also produce a collector's limited edition of "Fatal Revenant".

There was no collector's edition of "Runes" in the US, limited or otherwise. I don't expect to see anything of the sort for any of "The Last Chronicles". At least not from Putnams: they aren't making enough money to justify the added expense.

(07/11/2007)

Not making enough money.....geez. Perhaps if they would improve their marketing? Runes was so poorly advertised that we had new members showing up here 2 years after the book's release, having just discovered the book. Now we have a sub-par cover for FR. Retards!

I say, SRD, when all this is over and the Last Chronicles is complete, you should give Putnam the finger.

[aliantha]

At least Putnam's published him. I say all us US Watchers pack up and move to the UK, where they actually appreciate fantasy fiction.

[Relayer]

I was thinking along similar lines... maybe all of us in the US should buy the UK version. It'll significantly boost his sales over there and maybe send a message to Putnam.

[dlbpharmd]

I was thinking along similar lines... maybe all of us in the US should buy the UK version. It'll significantly boost his sales over there and maybe send a message to Putnam.

That's not a bad idea, but seems like it would only hurt SRD.

[Relayer]

You're probably right.

[Avatar]

Out of interest, why? The same amount of books would still be sold. *shrug*

(Anyway, we only get the UK editions, so I'm fine. )

--A

[Seareach]

Out of interest, why? The same amount of books would still be sold. *shrug*

Because he has different publishers in the US and the UK. So his UK publishers would be happy but his US publishers would not...which wouldn't be a good thing.