How bad is it?

[zmulls]

I just finished AATE a few nights ago, and still mulling it. Creator knows it was a long, hard read.

I remember really being bored by ROTE when I first read it. Three years later, when FR came out, I reread ROTE to get ready, and liked it more, understood more of it. FR was a slog, though. This time, I reread both ROTE and FR and they flowed into AATE.

If you’ve grappled with The Tempest and King Lear, you’re very conscious that they were written by a great author nearing the twilight of his lifespan, and both has things to say and an enormous set of tools with which to say them. We’re at that point with these “Last” Chronicles. There’s a great reach and a great burden to them.

The First Chronicles were more of an adventure tale, good vs. evil, with a cool antihero. The Second Chronicles, introducing Linden, brought more introspection about guilt and responsibility, layering on meaning to Covenant’s journey in the first book.

This Chronicles has to top that. Clearly SRD didn’t want to write “just” another adventure story – it had to be more than that or he wouldn’t be interested. Any just judging by the vocabulary, this is an author who reads and thinks long and deep about things. He set himself goals that would be hard to reach.

There is a *lot* of journeying through difficult conditions, while pondering the meaning of it all. There is a lot of thinking in this book, in this series. And in any first read, I am sitting there going, stop thinking, and get on with it!!! I might have more patience on a reread, since I know what’s going to happen, and can ponder the meanings.

The other difficulty about this series is that the characters are too damn powerful now. They’ve got white gold, the krill and the Staff of Law, plus orcrest, plus giants and Ranyhyn and Haruchai. It’s the dream team. So any obstacles have to be monumental and any confrontation has to be cataclysmic. There comes a point where you can’t top it anymore.

I’m enjoying how the Insequent are woven into the story. They seem a counterpoint to the Elohim. But I dislike how new races (Feroce, and those quell-whatevers whose bones the Elohim threw in the pit) are toss in when convenient. She Who Must Not Be Named came out of freakin’ nowhere (and even more than Harry Potter, I keep thinking of Rumpole’s wife, “She Who Must Be Obeyed”)

I’m disliking how I can’t tell the giants apart (nor do I care); same with the Ranyhyn – one great horse is as good as another for me. Liand looked like a red shirt from the get-go.

The series has been most successful when it takes the mythology we’ve learned from the first and second series, and expands on them – the croyels, the sandgorgons, the forestals, the haruchai, the ur-viles. It makes the experience richer, rather than forcing us to learn a whole bunch of new stuff that it seems should have come up before.

So some set pieces satisfied me – the Lost Deep, Jeremiah building the bones – while others left me cold – Covenant confronting Joan, SWMNBN standing there waiting to eat everyone while they thought frantically, like the world’s most nervous Jeopardy contestants.

I think 50-100 pages could have easily been excised for pacing, and I know I’m not alone in thinking that.

Here we are going in to Book 4, and a lot of big stuff is done. Esmer dead (no more trying to have it both ways, and no confrontation between him and Kastenessen); Anele dead (that’s it? His whole purpose was to fix Jeremiah?); the Harrow dead (oh no! He has the staff and white gold!!! Oh, it’s OK, we got it back…); Jeremiah ‘cured’; Joan dead (no more Falls?). So the whole last book will be everyone walking around in the dark, bumping into rocks, pondering the meaning of it all?

I’m ambivalent about the experience of AATE as a whole, but I acknowledge the very very high bar it is trying to reach, and all the good stuff in this very big book.

[zmulls]

Oh, one other observation. I really enjoyed the sequence earlier on where Linden went back in time and encountered Berek. That was a highlight, giving flesh and character to the legend.

But in AATE, when we met Berek, Loric, Damelon and Kevin all at once, it turned into a showing of the Hall of Presidents at Disney World.

[TheFallen]

Age? No, it's nostalgia. My A-Team nostalgia example was intended to be applied to the Chrons, particularly since I see so many negative comparisons between the Last Chrons and the previous two. Those comparisons are the telling factor, not people's ages. The teenagers I referred to were never exposed to the original A-Team, and my point has nothing to do with anything so ad hom as them being teenagers. As a friend of mine said recently (ad hom again), "Oh well, what do teenagers know?" It's not what they know, it's what they don't know about the original A-Team series.

So, what you seem to be saying here is that the opinions of people with a more informed yardstick - namely a wider series of things against which to compare - are in some way less valid? With respect, that doesn't seem to hang together in any way - to use a small reductio ad absurdum here, if I only ever read one book in my whole life, that's invariably going to be the best book I've ever read. In this example, lack of exposure to all comparatives wouldn't make my subjective judgement *more* valid in any way.

But I suppose a thread such as this is necessary to allow some blowing off of nostalgia steam among the disappointed fanboy crowd.

Or, to take this thread at face value and describe it in a more reasoned way, a thread such as this is useful for people with subjectively valid opinions of all colours to air them - one of the guiding raisons d'être of this message board, I'd have said. Again with respect, it's not much of an argument - any more than it is taking the intellectual high ground - for anyone merely to throw playground stones at all of those who don't share theirs. I'm more than prepared to accept that most if not all opinions expressed here are a little more thought-through than a mere "blowing off of nostalgia steam" and I'd take it on trust that most posters are a little more reasoned than either disappointed "fanboys" - or indeed fervid ones on the other side of the fence.

And I myself am not unaffected by the nostalgia factor by any means. But I have to ignore it because, as subjective, it stands in the way of my attempts at appreciation for what Donaldson is trying to do here.

Finally, it is frankly an impossible task to appreciate any piece of art in an inanimate and inhuman fashion - shades of Pratchett's ironically portayed Auditors of Reality here, who pick apart the Discworld's equivalent of the Mona Lisa down to pigment molecule level in a futile attempt to discover where beauty is located. One's reaction to any work of art is de facto bound to be subjective and therefore necessarily different, dependant upon all sorts of purely personal factors... the books one has read, the music one has listened to, the life experiences one has undergone, the emotional state one is in and so on ad infinitum. To suggest otherwise is, in my admittedly entirely subjective view, misguided.

[peter]

But WOTWE, you say it yourself above. "Those comparisons are the telling factor." This is it in a nutshell. In comparison the last Chrons do not stack up, neither do they (in my opinion at least) when taken on their own. Nostalgia for some 'rememberence of things past' does not eliminate ones capacity to make a judgement about what is in front of one in the here and now.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I just finished AATE a few nights ago, and still mulling it. Creator knows it was a long, hard read.

I remember really being bored by ROTE when I first read it. Three years later, when FR came out, I reread ROTE to get ready, and liked it more, understood more of it. FR was a slog, though. This time, I reread both ROTE and FR and they flowed into AATE.

If you’ve grappled with The Tempest and King Lear, you’re very conscious that they were written by a great author nearing the twilight of his lifespan, and both has things to say and an enormous set of tools with which to say them. We’re at that point with these “Last” Chronicles. There’s a great reach and a great burden to them.

The First Chronicles were more of an adventure tale, good vs. evil, with a cool antihero. The Second Chronicles, introducing Linden, brought more introspection about guilt and responsibility, layering on meaning to Covenant’s journey in the first book.

This Chronicles has to top that. Clearly SRD didn’t want to write “just” another adventure story – it had to be more than that or he wouldn’t be interested. Any just judging by the vocabulary, this is an author who reads and thinks long and deep about things. He set himself goals that would be hard to reach.

There is a *lot* of journeying through difficult conditions, while pondering the meaning of it all. There is a lot of thinking in this book, in this series. And in any first read, I am sitting there going, stop thinking, and get on with it!!! I might have more patience on a reread, since I know what’s going to happen, and can ponder the meanings.

The other difficulty about this series is that the characters are too damn powerful now. They’ve got white gold, the krill and the Staff of Law, plus orcrest, plus giants and Ranyhyn and Haruchai. It’s the dream team. So any obstacles have to be monumental and any confrontation has to be cataclysmic. There comes a point where you can’t top it anymore.

I’m enjoying how the Insequent are woven into the story. They seem a counterpoint to the Elohim. But I dislike how new races (Feroce, and those quell-whatevers whose bones the Elohim threw in the pit) are toss in when convenient. She Who Must Not Be Named came out of freakin’ nowhere (and even more than Harry Potter, I keep thinking of Rumpole’s wife, “She Who Must Be Obeyed”)

I’m disliking how I can’t tell the giants apart (nor do I care); same with the Ranyhyn – one great horse is as good as another for me. Liand looked like a red shirt from the get-go.

The series has been most successful when it takes the mythology we’ve learned from the first and second series, and expands on them – the croyels, the sandgorgons, the forestals, the haruchai, the ur-viles. It makes the experience richer, rather than forcing us to learn a whole bunch of new stuff that it seems should have come up before.

So some set pieces satisfied me – the Lost Deep, Jeremiah building the bones – while others left me cold – Covenant confronting Joan, SWMNBN standing there waiting to eat everyone while they thought frantically, like the world’s most nervous Jeopardy contestants.

I think 50-100 pages could have easily been excised for pacing, and I know I’m not alone in thinking that.

Here we are going in to Book 4, and a lot of big stuff is done. Esmer dead (no more trying to have it both ways, and no confrontation between him and Kastenessen); Anele dead (that’s it? His whole purpose was to fix Jeremiah?); the Harrow dead (oh no! He has the staff and white gold!!! Oh, it’s OK, we got it back…); Jeremiah ‘cured’; Joan dead (no more Falls?). So the whole last book will be everyone walking around in the dark, bumping into rocks, pondering the meaning of it all?

I’m ambivalent about the experience of AATE as a whole, but I acknowledge the very very high bar it is trying to reach, and all the good stuff in this very big book.

Fantastic thoughtful post!
Unfortunately it came right in the middle of a shitstorm about opinions.
I hope everyone reads it.
Welcome aboard!

[ur-Timewarden]

...lots of stuff...

zmulls,

I found myself nodding my head as I was reading your review. I tend to agree with most of your assessment.

The power levels in this book have definitely ramped up, and it's clear that everyone's personal power limitations relating to their psychological state will probably disappear at some point in TLD. When Linden was torching Cavewights, I breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Finally!", only to have her suffer her 19th nervous breakdown (sorry Mick...). So she's all for saving Jeremiah, regardless of the cost, unless it involves killing bad guys, and then she has to cut herself?

I love the filling in of the back stories though, and I hope that we are given some information relating to the croyel. Or maybe I'm the only one who cares about that story? With the world ending, that's probably the case...

And your point about Anele was something that didn't ring true for me when I looked back at it after finishing the book. So his whole purpose was to provide Jeremiah with Earthpower? That being said, that would mean that Sunder and Hollian would have had to know that Jeremiah was going to be in the Land (i.e., knowledge of the future), he would need a transfer of power for some reason, Anele would lose the Staff, and he'd end up 3500 years in the future. Oh, and on top of all that, Covenant would have to speak through him and tell Liand to grab the orcrest. Just seemed like a stretch to me once Anele's "purpose" was revealed. I'm banking on the fact that once we see what Jeremiah is going to do, it will validate Anele as the "last hope of the Land".

But overall, just wanted to comment about how your post seemed to echo a lot of my sentiments. I've just never put them in such a coherent format.

[High Lord Tolkien]

And your point about Anele was something that didn't ring true for me when I looked back at it after finishing the book. So his whole purpose was to provide Jeremiah with Earthpower? That being said, that would mean that Sunder and Hollian would have had to know that Jeremiah was going to be in the Land (i.e., knowledge of the future), he would need a transfer of power for some reason, Anele would lose the Staff, and he'd end up 3500 years in the future. Oh, and on top of all that, Covenant would have to speak through him and tell Liand to grab the orcrest. Just seemed like a stretch to me once Anele's "purpose" was revealed. I'm banking on the fact that once we see what Jeremiah is going to do, it will validate Anele as the "last hope of the Land".

I got the feeling that something had changed. That Anele's "purpose" wasn't supposed to be what took place.
It has been said ( i forget who) that he damaged himself to make it seem like he wasn't a threat otherwise he'd never have been allowed near Jeremiah.

[zmulls]

I would buy that Anele's purpose was derailed, that all the obstacles prevented him from getting to where he could do whatever it was he was supposed to do, *but* his foresight in transferring the earthpower to Jeremiah winds up allowing Jeremiah to complete his purpose. There are plenty of examples of "Hail Mary" passes that wind up saving the day, in this series.

What I have trouble buying is that this was Anele's purpose all along, for the reasons outlined above.

These are all my first thoughts on reading. I'm not about to jump in and say "Bad Book" as I'm sure it will grow on me. I do think there were longeurs and flaws, but you have to scale your criticism to the scale and complexity of the work.

One of my other favorite authors is Dorothy Dunnett, who writes erudite and entertaining historical fiction (very different set of books than SRD, though she operates at the same intellectual level). She wrote two long series, the six-book Lymond Chronicles (takes place between Henry VIII's death and Elizabeth I's ascension); and the eight-book House of Niccolo (15th century European trade, beginning in Bruges). The first series is fun, the lead character is magnetic, there's a lot of swashbuckling in between the (untranslated) Latin and French quotes; the second series is more thoughtful, more introspective, more veiled in purpose. I used to love Lymond and had a love/hate with Niccolo, but with every reread, I love the depth and maturity of Niccolo more. I still love Lymond, but Niccolo is a superior series.

I suspect I'll eventually have the same reaction here. Though my favorite book is still TOT, for a lot of reasons.

(One of my complaints about this series was that I had to wait two freaking books before Thomas Covenant became a character again)

[thewormoftheworld'send]

Age? No, it's nostalgia. My A-Team nostalgia example was intended to be applied to the Chrons, particularly since I see so many negative comparisons between the Last Chrons and the previous two. Those comparisons are the telling factor, not people's ages. The teenagers I referred to were never exposed to the original A-Team, and my point has nothing to do with anything so ad hom as them being teenagers. As a friend of mine said recently (ad hom again), "Oh well, what do teenagers know?" It's not what they know, it's what they don't know about the original A-Team series.

So, what you seem to be saying here is that the opinions of people with a more informed yardstick - namely a wider series of things against which to compare - are in some way less valid? With respect, that doesn't seem to hang together in any way - to use a small reductio ad absurdum here, if I only ever read one book in my whole life, that's invariably going to be the best book I've ever read. In this example, lack of exposure to all comparatives wouldn't make my subjective judgement *more* valid in any way.

But I suppose a thread such as this is necessary to allow some blowing off of nostalgia steam among the disappointed fanboy crowd.

Or, to take this thread at face value and describe it in a more reasoned way, a thread such as this is useful for people with subjectively valid opinions of all colours to air them - one of the guiding raisons d'être of this message board, I'd have said. Again with respect, it's not much of an argument - any more than it is taking the intellectual high ground - for anyone merely to throw playground stones at all of those who don't share theirs. I'm more than prepared to accept that most if not all opinions expressed here are a little more thought-through than a mere "blowing off of nostalgia steam" and I'd take it on trust that most posters are a little more reasoned than either disappointed "fanboys" - or indeed fervid ones on the other side of the fence.

And I myself am not unaffected by the nostalgia factor by any means. But I have to ignore it because, as subjective, it stands in the way of my attempts at appreciation for what Donaldson is trying to do here.

Finally, it is frankly an impossible task to appreciate any piece of art in an inanimate and inhuman fashion - shades of Pratchett's ironically portayed Auditors of Reality here, who pick apart the Discworld's equivalent of the Mona Lisa down to pigment molecule level in a futile attempt to discover where beauty is located. One's reaction to any work of art is de facto bound to be subjective and therefore necessarily different, dependant upon all sorts of purely personal factors... the books one has read, the music one has listened to, the life experiences one has undergone, the emotional state one is in and so on ad infinitum. To suggest otherwise is, in my admittedly entirely subjective view, misguided.

Are the opinions of people with a "wider yardstick" less valid? When you're talking about subjective opinions, that is just the truth they carry around with them, and call their own. However, there is an undoubtedly strong bias toward the past. That's why the term "nostalgia" was invented, and its existence is a well-established factor in many judgments regarding the past, particularly when it is the personal past.

Consider the following quote:
AATE "uses tired fantasy tropes and spends hundreds of pages exploring a character's inner conflicts."

And so did the First Chrons, and the "hundreds of pages" comment is highly exaggerated. Nostalgia forgives or forgets all the negatives about a past personal event, and creates positive longing feelings about only the perceived positives. In the case of the quote above, the fact that Donaldson uses "tired" fantasy tropes is a given, and has been for 9 books now, but for some peculiar reason it is being forgiven for all except the Last Chrons.

Is it possible to appreciate a piece of artwork objectively (or as you say, in an "inanimate and inhuman fashion")? Of course not, it is only possible to make an effort to be fair to the work, particularly if it deserves to be treated fairly and with respect. So I reject the false alternative handed to me that one must be either subjectively biased or think like a computer. And I don't consider even the former alternative to be completely human. I have never reduced art to the level of personal, subjective feeling because that is nothing more than arbitrary.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

And your point about Anele was something that didn't ring true for me when I looked back at it after finishing the book. So his whole purpose was to provide Jeremiah with Earthpower? That being said, that would mean that Sunder and Hollian would have had to know that Jeremiah was going to be in the Land (i.e., knowledge of the future), he would need a transfer of power for some reason, Anele would lose the Staff, and he'd end up 3500 years in the future. Oh, and on top of all that, Covenant would have to speak through him and tell Liand to grab the orcrest. Just seemed like a stretch to me once Anele's "purpose" was revealed. I'm banking on the fact that once we see what Jeremiah is going to do, it will validate Anele as the "last hope of the Land".

I got the feeling that something had changed. That Anele's "purpose" wasn't supposed to be what took place.
It has been said ( i forget who) that he damaged himself to make it seem like he wasn't a threat otherwise he'd never have been allowed near Jeremiah.

Anele damaged himself so he wouldn't appear to be a threat because he sees himself as the last hope of the Land; he wouldn't know where it was all going at that point.

[Zarathustra]

... in the case of the Last Chrons, it's about what people know about the first two and the memory of their reactions at the time of first reading. Their reactions to the Last Chrons are necessarily colored by these previous experiences (as can obviously be seen in their comments). Nostalgia also makes the first two Chrons appear better than they really were, the long and boring sections have taken a backseat to the dramatic parts and are no longer remembered as strongly.

Ah, so you *are* explaining people's opinions to them as if they're not qualified to explain or understand their own opinions themselves. Dude, maybe this is why you get a little "pushback" from others (like me, now Cail). It's a bit presumptuous. I enjoy your enthusiasm and your love for Donaldson's work, but you're going way "beyond the text" (to use a Donaldson phrase) when you psychoanalyze other people's opinions this way.

Nostalgia might apply to the A Team. I don't know, because I didn't bother seeing the movie, and I can view my childhood fondness for that TV show as childhood silliness. I'm sure I knew even then that there was a HUGE difference between the A Team and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I don't have an exaggerated fondness for the first 2 Chronicles based on my immature infatuation formed during that time. I've reread the books many times since then, and my appreciation for them has actually grown. I realized that I didn't understand how good they were when I was a kid. Sure, I liked them. But I was too young and inexperienced to understand their significance at 13, even though I could recognize it. This is the opposite of nostalgia!

Now, I truly hope that when I'm 50 I can look back at AATE and realize that I didn't understand how good it was. But I'm an adult now with a kid who is also (legally) an adult. I don't really think I'm going to get much wiser when it comes to a genre of literature I've been reading for 25+ years.

Your theory also seems contradictory. If it takes nostaligia to ignore the "long and boring" parts of the 1st and 2nd Chrons, then are you saying there were parts that were actually, objectively boring? And we'd see this if we weren't so damn nostalgic? If so, then it's also fair to say that passages of AATE are actually, objectively boring, too. And we're simply correcting the mistake this time around.

[Zarathustra]

Fantastic thoughtful post!
Unfortunately it came right in the middle of a shitstorm about opinions.
I hope everyone reads it.
Welcome aboard!

I loves me a good shitstorm, but I certainly read his post. I'm glad to see all the new faces around for this extremely niche (and unfortunately dwindling) interest in this author's work. Thoughtful people who like the artists I like rock! And that means every single person here with whom I've disagreed! I love you all. (Yes, that might be the beer talking. Hopslam by Bell's just came out.)

The First Chronicles were more of an adventure tale, good vs. evil, with a cool antihero.

I realize you weren't trying to do the 1st Chrons justice here. I don't want to give the impression that I'm being nit-picky, but I don't think "adventure tale" does the 1st Chrons justice. That's not to disagree with you as much as it is to justify my disappointment with the Last Chrons as something other than a disappointment in getting a similar "adventure tale." I like when authors grow. I think the Gap is better than the Chrons. But I'm not just going to assume that because it's his latest, it must be his best.

The other difficulty about this series is that the characters are too damn powerful now.

Perhaps, but Donaldson does a heroic job at finding limits for these apparently illimitable beings.

I’m enjoying how the Insequent are woven into the story. They seem a counterpoint to the Elohim. But I dislike how new races (Feroce, and those quell-whatevers whose bones the Elohim threw in the pit) are toss in when convenient. She Who Must Not Be Named came out of freakin’ nowhere (and even more than Harry Potter, I keep thinking of Rumpole’s wife, “She Who Must Be Obeyed”)

I enjoy the Insequent counterpoint, too. In fact, I don't have problem with any of the new aspects you brought out in that paragraph. I *like* that he's inventing new races/characters/banes. My problems with the LC are entirely from a story-tellling perspective, not the extent to which he expands his created world.

I’m disliking how I can’t tell the giants apart (nor do I care); same with the Ranyhyn – one great horse is as good as another for me. Liand looked like a red shirt from the get-go.

I agree completely.

So some set pieces satisfied me – the Lost Deep, Jeremiah building the bones – while others left me cold – Covenant confronting Joan, SWMNBN standing there waiting to eat everyone while they thought frantically, like the world’s most nervous Jeopardy contestants.

I'm the opposite on some points, agree with others: I disliked the Lost Deep, but loved Covenant confronting Joan. I didn't have a problem with She-Who, other than how those sequences were written (the Jeopardy comparison is one I haven't seen before ... thanks for that!). I *loved* Jeremiah's birth from the "womb" of bones. That's one of the most powerful and original scenes I've read in any fantasy story ... EVER!

The series has been most successful when it takes the mythology we’ve learned from the first and second series, and expands on them – the croyels, the sandgorgons, the forestals, the haruchai, the ur-viles. It makes the experience richer, rather than forcing us to learn a whole bunch of new stuff that it seems should have come up before.

Absolutely. This is where the LC shines, consistently. When he adds to the mythology he has created, Donaldson can do no wrong.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

... in the case of the Last Chrons, it's about what people know about the first two and the memory of their reactions at the time of first reading. Their reactions to the Last Chrons are necessarily colored by these previous experiences (as can obviously be seen in their comments). Nostalgia also makes the first two Chrons appear better than they really were, the long and boring sections have taken a backseat to the dramatic parts and are no longer remembered as strongly.

Ah, so you *are* explaining people's opinions to them as if they're not qualified to explain or understand their own opinions themselves. Dude, maybe this is why you get a little "pushback" from others (like me, now Cail). It's a bit presumptuous. I enjoy your enthusiasm and your love for Donaldson's work, but you're going way "beyond the text" (to use a Donaldson phrase) when you psychoanalyze other people's opinions this way.

Dude, I am only responding to statements which explicitly compare the Last Chrons to the previous two. Now you can say that I am speculating that there is a nostalgia factor present, but if you look through all those comments you can verify for yourself the presence of nostalgic sentiments. Psychoanalyzing is another thing.

As for me, I don't care about nostalgia or psychoanalyzing; and objectively speaking, there is a noted downhill progression from the First Chrons. That first one simply cannot be equaled or surpassed. Conceptually, the idea of an Unbeliever in a fantasy world, then, a contrary to Unbelief named Hile Troy, and then, a classic fantasy hero such as Lord Mhoram - one cannot improve on such perfection, and the attempt to imitate will be seen for what it is. The instant Unbelief no longer mattered, the entire concept behind the Land ended. I'm not saying it ended for me, as an opinion. I'm saying it ended objectively.

So Linden Avery was brought in as a new psychologically-maladapted protagonist, but this didn't set well with a lot of fans of the previous Chrons. Her internal conflicts are simply not that interesting, and in order to drive this kind of story Donaldson needs to rely more on shocking the reader. The twist ending was also a major plus for readers who enjoy surprises.

As a result of this ending however, Covenant isn't even present most of the time in the Last Chrons, and when he is brought back to save the story from Linden it just isn't suitable enough for many or even most readers who find Linden distasteful as a character.

Nostalgia might apply to the A Team. I don't know, because I didn't bother seeing the movie, and I can view my childhood fondness for that TV show as childhood silliness. I'm sure I knew even then that there was a HUGE difference between the A Team and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I don't have an exaggerated fondness for the first 2 Chronicles based on my immature infatuation formed during that time. I've reread the books many times since then, and my appreciation for them has actually grown. I realized that I didn't understand how good they were when I was a kid. Sure, I liked them. But I was too young and inexperienced to understand their significance at 13, even though I could recognize it. This is the opposite of nostalgia!

Now, I truly hope that when I'm 50 I can look back at AATE and realize that I didn't understand how good it was. But I'm an adult now with a kid who is also (legally) an adult. I don't really think I'm going to get much wiser when it comes to a genre of literature I've been reading for 25+ years.

Your theory also seems contradictory. If it takes nostaligia to ignore the "long and boring" parts of the 1st and 2nd Chrons, then are you saying they were they actually, objectively boring? And we'd see this if we weren't so damn nostalgic? If so, then it's also fair to say that passages of AATE are actually, objectively boring, too. And we're simply correcting the mistake this time around.

I don't feel particularly nostalgic about the A-Team, although I enjoyed the series up to the point where it became formulaic to me. My experience of the movie was along the lines of, "that's not the Face I knew! Bring back Face!" Yet I know this is impossible, just as it is impossible to bring back the First Chrons. However, I appreciated the movie for bringing to life the back-story behind the original series. And that's kind of what I mean when I speak to appreciating the Last Chrons.

Very few readers, that I've seen, can actually negotiate Linden's incessant internal dialogue, moaning, and constant questions, without responding in the negative. FR also had a lot of this too, but with Covenant now back in the picture the contrast with his more dynamic character makes Linden seem even worse than she was in the last book. That's not caused by nostalgia, but I am saying that such passages are subjectively more boring this time around because of the contrast. Covenant is back - well, bring him back so he can save us from all the psychodrama. While Linden is just riding around hemming and hawing to herself, Covenant is actually doing something when Donaldson releases him from his mental discomfiture, and this just doesn't occur often enough. [edit - "discomfiture" is not the word I wanted, but what word describes it best?]

It's still, as I always say, a case of "wait and see." Covenant has returned to 100% capacity, he even wields a white gold ring, the only issue now is the long wait for the next book to prove my point. The last chapter of AATE gave us a hint of what's to come, and the next book will not fail to impress.

[Horrim Carabal]

But I suppose a thread such as this is necessary to allow some blowing off of nostalgia steam among the disappointed fanboy crowd. And I myself am not unaffected by the nostalgia factor by any means. But I have to ignore it because, as subjective, it stands in the way of my attempts at appreciation for what Donaldson is trying to do here.

This is the best analysis.

In the end, though, there's no trying to convince someone that their opinions are wrong. Books are too subjective for that (at least to me).

Either you like the Last Chronicles, or you don't. I do.

[thewormoftheworld'send]

But I suppose a thread such as this is necessary to allow some blowing off of nostalgia steam among the disappointed fanboy crowd. And I myself am not unaffected by the nostalgia factor by any means. But I have to ignore it because, as subjective, it stands in the way of my attempts at appreciation for what Donaldson is trying to do here.

This is the best analysis.

In the end, though, there's no trying to convince someone that their opinions are wrong. Books are too subjective for that (at least to me).

Either you like the Last Chronicles, or you don't. I do.

If one doesn't like it, then I say, learn to appreciate the story and where it's going.

Mostly I am defending myself against attacks and striving unsuccessfully to be understood. I'm not attempting to persuade anybody to like the Last Chrons. That would be juvenile.

I don't even use the term "like" unless I have to, I prefer to say "appreciate." It is much easier to attempt to appreciate something than it is to attempt to like something. Liking is too spontaneous, its sources are deep within the psyche and firmly entrenched; appreciating is more intellectual. Consider my example in the comment above of not liking the A-Team movie but appreciating it for at least one thing.

[finn]

Here we are going in to Book 4, and a lot of big stuff is done. Esmer dead (no more trying to have it both ways, and no confrontation between him and Kastenessen); Anele dead (that’s it? His whole purpose was to fix Jeremiah?); the Harrow dead (oh no! He has the staff and white gold!!! Oh, it’s OK, we got it back…); Jeremiah ‘cured’; Joan dead (no more Falls?). So the whole last book will be everyone walking around in the dark, bumping into rocks, pondering the meaning of it all?

If you look back at the previous page, I think you'll see how truly and amazingly close our reactions have been to our first reading, even to the point of 'she who must be obeyed' !!! But I differ in the this respect (above). Whilst much has been done as you've pointed out, so much is still left to do. We have:

Lord Foul, (who whilst working through proxies will still need a slap or two)

The Ravers

Kastenessen

The Worm

SWMNBN (Mrs Rumpole)

The Skurj

Roger

The Sandgorgons

.......and that's just the bad guys.

We also need to look to the Dead, the various broken laws, the Haruchai/Masters, the relationships between LA and TC and Jeremiah and what becomes of them as well as potentially the Giants, Forestals, Colossuses, Elohim, Viles, Ur-viles/Wahnym......and more.

It's a mammoth undertaking to fight those battles and salve the survivors as well as plan for the future of the Land and its peoples abilities to resurrect its wonders.....too much imho for one book which makes me fear we will see some cataclysmic solution proffered to cope with the sheer weight of adversity.

I think another read in some months time will feel warmer with the benefits of familiarity and nuance, but I hold that there's too much to do in the last book and whilst I hope SRD will astound us all, I have a worrying feeling the next book could be a disaster!

[TheFallen]

WHOA... a whole hatful of comments above that I whole-heartedly agree with above. Almost too many to acknowledge by quoting, however...

<i>...mostly everything he posted but especially the following extracts...</i> I’m enjoying how the Insequent are woven into the story. They seem a counterpoint to the Elohim. But I dislike how new races (Feroce, and those quell-whatevers whose bones the Elohim threw in the pit) are tossed in when convenient. She Who Must Not Be Named came out of freakin’ nowhere...

The series has been most successful when it takes the mythology we’ve learned from the first and second series, and expands on them – the croyels, the sandgorgons, the forestals, the haruchai, the ur-viles. It makes the experience richer, rather than forcing us to learn a whole bunch of new stuff that it seems should have come up before.

Here we are going in to Book 4, and a lot of big stuff is done. Esmer dead (no more trying to have it both ways, and no confrontation between him and Kastenessen); Anele dead (that’s it? His whole purpose was to fix Jeremiah?); the Harrow dead (oh no! He has the staff and white gold!!! Oh, it’s OK, we got it back…); Jeremiah ‘cured’; Joan dead (no more Falls?).

I’m ambivalent about the experience of AATE as a whole...

GREAT, well-argued and thoughtful post, which just about nails it for me - it's pretty much a neatly concise précis of my muddled thoughts and reactions to AATE.

I don't have an exaggerated fondness for the first 2 Chronicles based on my immature infatuation formed during that time. I've reread the books many times since then, and my appreciation for them has actually grown. I realized that I didn't understand how good they were when I was a kid. Sure, I liked them. But I was too young and inexperienced to understand their significance at 13, even though I could recognize it. This is the opposite of nostalgia!

Absolutely likewise, though I was a couple of years older at first reading.

If one doesn't like it, then I say, learn to appreciate the story and where it's going.

Mostly I am defending myself against attacks and striving unsuccessfully to be understood. I'm not attempting to persuade anybody to like the Last Chrons. That would be juvenile.

I don't even use the term "like" unless I have to, I prefer to say "appreciate." It is much easier to attempt to appreciate something than it is to attempt to like something. Liking is too spontaneous, its sources are deep within the psyche and firmly entrenched; appreciating is more intellectual. Consider my example in the comment above of not liking the A-Team movie but appreciating it for at least one thing.

My my! Thesis, followed by antithesis and finally synthesis... do we now have a consensus? Surely not! This series of posts is like a classically written essay...

Mr. Worm, I largely agree with your clarified comments above, except I didn't notice any legion of "attacks" per se, and I'm a little uneasy with your advice that people should "learn" to appreciate something - I don't think one should <u>need to</u> learn anything when responding to a piece of art and don't think the validity of people's responses to the LCs should be called into question because they are in some way "unlearned"?

Anyhow, I'm probably being picky. What I *think* you're saying is that, even if one doesn't react positively emotionally speaking to a book (piece of music, painting, whatever), it is worth trying to take into account what the author was attempting, even if such an appreciation is bound to be more detached and intellectual. Or to put it more simply, one can intellectually admire the objective but emotively dislike the result? I think that's more than valid.

Maybe I'm just trying to square the circle here. I absolutely take on board Cail's (and many others') clearly crushing disappointment when faced with the LCs and nobody can question their reactions, which they've given clear personal reasons for - whether one agrees with them or not. I am after all partly of like mind. Equally though, if I've got what you're saying right, I fully agree that it would be unrealistic to utterly damn the LCs as not having one shred of quality, even if that quality mainly lies in an appreciation of what SRD is setting himself to achieve, even if this is notably different from what he has achieved before.

(Mind you, it's a little dubious to only ever judge something or someone by the standards and goals it/he/she has set it-/him-/herself - on that basis, Adolf Hitler wouldn't come out so badly, up until the Eastern front).

Oh, what the Hell do I know? I'm now third and fourth-guessing myself. I remain - oxymoron alert - firmly ambivalent, like zmulls and Zarathustra above.

[Man Of Westernesse]

....... blowing off of nostalgia steam among the disappointed fanboy crowd.......

.....This is the best analysis.......

?

[zmulls]

finn:

I agree, there are certainly plenty of 'bad guys' to fill up another book. Even if it's dark.

I loved going back in time and meeting Berek -- I was hoping for a few more trips like that to really experience the Land's history, and I think I'm not going to get it. I would rather sections like that than more cataclysmic battles where people shoot beams of magic at each other from their personal fission reactors.

A lot of how I eventually feel about AATE will depend on how TLD builds on it. Is there a progression of ideas, or is AATE a placeholder to stall them getting to Lord Foul? Will we get some history and satisfaction about the Elohim and how they fit into the whole tapestry? Can I haz mor Insequent pleez? Etc.

Mostly, I wanted to care more about individual characters and specific events in AATE than I did. I think that's where the general dissatisfaction is coming from. There were a lot of "big scenes" (both character- and event-driven) where I really wanted to care more, but was secretly bored. Like Covenant and Joan -- we got flashes of Joan's POV towards the very, very end, but at that point it was too little, too late, I just wanted her dead.

A quick comment on the side-conversation about interpretation, reaction, nostalgia and fanboys young and old....yes, everyone's reaction is subjective, personal, individual. One thing to remember is that someone who "grew up with" Covenant, and has developed as a person along the same timeline as Donaldson will experience the books along their own personal journey in life; while a younger person, reading the original two trilogies for the first time skipping directly from one to the other and then to the recent books -- will experience them totally differently. (It's the difference between someone watching the films of Lord of the Rings without ever having read the books, versus someone who has been reading the books for forty years -- at some point you have to consider whether the movie 'works' as just a movie, rather than as an adaptation of a loved set of books).

[zmulls]

And one comment that really didn't fit in the stuff I wrote just above (at some point I need to move my comments away from the "is this a bad book" thread, but this seems to be the going discussion at the moment).

One sequence I totally loved in FR was where Linden added to the Mahdoubt's dress. It was fabulous. It gave a sense of the Insequent's "different' sort of magic. It was a 'new' narrative concept (based very loosely on elements of middle European fairy tales, I think, but as usual Donaldson made it his own). It was character-driven. It was a "quest" but one that was internal and small, and didn't involve long journeying and looking for aliantha. Nobody was flinging Earthpower all over the place.

It was just a glorious, unexpected, enthralling moment. So when I turn over my ambivalence about AATE, one of the things that is nagging at me is "were there any of those moments in AATE, and did they balance out all the walking, riding, thinking and complaining?"