Some General Impressions

[Hiro]

Today I finished reading AATE. As stated earlier, repeatedly, like Fist I am not so enamored by the Last Chrons, certainly after the astonishing Gap series. Still, after the baffling conclusion of FR, I was curious about what would happen next. And the pull of another trip to the Land drew me back in.

First of all, the book itself. I don't care much anymore about the covers, I guess I have come to agree with SRD on this issue. They look to generic for me. However, the binding and the actual cover, I like a lot. The title page with the black and white 'engraving' is just beautiful. As is the typeset. All very classy. I wish that the First and Second Chrons were also republished in such a terrific manner!

My feelings of the reading are still mixed afterwards. I had followed the earlier spoiler threads, as my curiosity had gotten the better of me, so the story was not a surprise anymore. A lesson for the last book. So what was left was the way SRD tells his story.

Getting older for me means that I've become less bothered by imperfection in life and art. An imperfect work can sometimes reveal much more than a perfect yet hermetic work. Like Renoir said about leaving a window open on a film set. The Last Chrons are a bit drafty, though. But I have tried to approach AATE on its own terms.

Pacing

I confess of getting impatient in places. There is a lot of repetition, often necessarily so in the shape of memories that contain hints or clues. SRD does his best, thru the eyes of Linden and Covenant to show how each one of his characters is doing each step of the way in AATE. And there are a lot of characters to keep track of in our company. So this drags the pace down.

While reading I did think of a reason for this microdetailed writing, as the end of the world draws near, each day, each hour, each moment gains in importance. It's as if time is slowing to a crawl as the characters try to make sense of the forces unleashed.

And I agree with the feeling that many of the side characters (such as the Giants and the Humbled) don't seem to carry so much impact as in the First and Second Chrons. Is it the amount of characters that is so different?

However, the reason the action scenes carry so much punch is because there are juxtaposed with these long scenes of conversing, waiting, resting etc. And when during an action scene some crucial moments are rendered in just a few words and sentences, the speed and urgency leaps out. This is an effect of the pacing.

One repetition in the action I disliked. Roger's escape on a cavewight, while hurling lava to cover his flight. Didn't Roger escape in a similar if not the same manner in FR, during the battle of Woodhelven? Why didn't he use the glamour to disguise himself and flee? Or why didn't Linden extend her fury to finish him off?

Editing

Still, I do feel that this book good have benefited from more editing. There are a lot of passages in which there are multiple descriptions of the same state. While these passages often serve to create the effect of contradiction, at times they do not. And more words lessen the impact in my opinion. Less words would have created more space for the reader's imagination, and thereby created a more powerful effect. A word alone can suffice to set off multiple meanings and echoes in the reader's mind.

Mind-time

What I found interesting and generally successful is the blending of the realities such as Covenant experiences when he walks into the caesure. I can appreciate the difficulty in doing this. And I remembered fondly the scene in FR with the Theomach, Roger, Jeremiah and Linden while being translated into the distant past. The scene where the Feroce push Linden into a nightmarish Haven's Farm was well done as well. Reminding me of the excellent prologue in ROTE.

Cohesion

While FR left me rather frustrated with so many new characters and so little direction, I must say that AATE serves to illuminate the shape of things to come and the shape of ROTE and FR in hindsight. It was high time for some payoffs after seemingly endless setups. From the faery castle that Jeremiah constructed, to the significance of the Horserite, the culmination of Anele's and Joan's arcs. The clarification of the threats and how they are being lined up. It all serves to create much-needed suspense.

On the other hand, I am still not convinced of the necessity of the many new powerful characters and their implications for the history of the Land. Such as the Insequent. What I tried to do during reading is to accept the story of the Last Chrons as a given and find my way through it. I have to see how I feel in a few weeks. As FR also was a rollercoaster ride to read, but left a bitter aftertaste.

So within SRD's Last Chrons framework I found AATE much more cohesive and organic than FR.

Still, compared to the previous Chrons and the Gap, the plotting is to me still messy, while less so than in ROTE and FR. Perhaps already because of the lack of timetravel as a device. And the limited amount of days that are depicted in AATE create their own cohesion.

She

Unfortunately, I must admit to finding 'She Who Must...' the least successful and most problematic element in AATE. There are many reasons for this, for example, I don't see any necessity for She being present in the story. And the execution is to me not satisfactory at all. A mass of screaming and moaning faces... She seems more of a concept than a character and therefore as well fails to thrill me. Of all the new characters and powers, She is on the bottom of the list for me.

Human beings

That said, I realized that one of the things I like about the Chron's is the pitting of ordinary fallible human beings against archetypal characters in an archetypal arena. In AATE there are many many passages of Linden and Covenant doubting, hesitating, despairing and doubting again. The impression I got was that this is what made them human. Their uncertainty. Compared to the iron certainties of let's say the Haruchai for instance. And life is a movement. I understand and can empathize with the pains and doubt of Linden and Covenant because while one may have won a battle in life, it is never the whole story. There is always a new challenge awaiting us. And mortal flesh remains mortal, and open for doubt and despair. So to posit 'Attempts must be made, even when there can be no hope', seems to me a life affirming insight. To oversimplify: While there is life, there is hope.

In other words, I was not bothered so much with the lamenting of Linden.

When I think of more impressions, I will post them, or post responses to replies.

[Hiro]

Regarding the Insequent (and coherence), I found this quote from SRD at the gradual interview:

Frankly, the Insequent never crossed my mind until the Mahdoubt walked into the story (although of course I knew that I would need *somebody* who could do X, Y, and Z). If I had thought of the Insequent 30+ years ago, I probably would not have been able to resist the temptation to "prepare the way" for them somehow.

So they are a late arrival to the party.

[earthbrah]

He also said the following from the GI:

The Insequent. There's an underlying issue here. In the approximately 20 years that I *wasn't* working on "Covenant," my good ol' subconscious had plenty of time to come up with new ideas, some of which are a d*mn sight *better* than the ones I had while I was working on "The Second Chronicles." Inevitably this has introduced--and will no doubt continue to introduce--some internal inconsistencies. Well, I'll do everything I can to minimize those inconsistencies. But I'm not going to turn my back on good ideas just because I failed to plan for them perfectly 25+ years ago. We're all just going to have to live with the occasional snag.

I can live with that.