TheFallen wrote:ninjaboy wrote:I am indeed doing the exact same thing you are - an AATE re-read.
Ninjaboy, I'd be interested to hear if your opinion on AATE has altered as mine did after a second time read through.
OK Fallen.. I should make it clear that I had bought AATE on the first day of it's release, but waited 'till I'd read from LFB right up to the last page of FR before beginning it, so the first time I read it I was already kinda 'there', if you know what I mean.. And then my re-read began quite soon after I'd finished my first read through.
Your opinion of the book was raised when it was placed in sequence with the previous two books of the last Chronichles, as you said in an earlier post. And my opinion of the book was raised soley through reading it again.. I would like to think that your opinion of the book wasn't only improved because you read it as part of the proper sequence of the last Chronicles, but can't know either way for sure.
I supppose the biggest problem I had with my first read-through is that it felt kind of disjointed, and I had trouble keeping up with what was happening in the story. You wrote that some readers had problems with the pacing of events, where I had problems with the fact that so little time was passing, the entire span of AATE would just be 2 to 3 days. I couldn't really get my head around that on my forst read-through, but I understood it and appreciated it a lot more the second time around.
The other thing that you are right about is the internalised drama.. The story is going in vastly different places to the first 2 Chrons, everything is changing, and everyone in the Land is changing too - the Haruchai, the Ramen, the Demondim-Spawn.. These people have faced or are facing struggles about their identity, and it's mesmerising and really draws me in as a reader, and a lover of the peoples of that world. But at the same time things are also getting more symbolic, more unreal, and more significant.. There's just so much more to take in when you are reading these Last Chronichles, and AATE in particular.
I don't have a problem with the sudden deaths of particular individuals, but...
The Harrow was just getting really interesting.. Esmer's death really seemed anticlimatic.. I have no qualms with Liand's - it was so unexpected and brilliant.. But Galt's shouldn't have hapenned. there were many things he could have done to avoid that axe, or at least ensure it wasn't a fatal blow. And I don't mind Anele's death either, though it annoys me that he was always referred to as 'the last hope of the Land' and he didn't seem to achieve anything too great..
I do have to agree with you about the shallowness of teh Giants though - I am glad they are there, but I'm wanting to see more which sets them apart from each other.. in FR Coldspray said she's not the mightiest of the swordmannir, but the most cunning.. And I've not see her display any cunning in AATE, or any other Giants display more might than her.
SWMNBN. I think I have less of a problem with this character than most others.. People seem to think She appeared onto the scene with no warning, with no hints of Her presence.. I disagree. She wasn't specifically mentioned, of course, but we were given knowledge that there were more dire and foul banes down there. Someone aware of that and curious about the story of Diassomer Mininderain may have put them together.. And even if she had been mentioned - if Prothall said there were tales of a sentient ball of flaming hate, called the Joanferice, living in what could only be described an an underground volcano - would we have literally believed him?
People still seem uncertain whether the Fire Lions actually ARE fire lions, or just lava that just seems to come down when necessary, and not sentient lions of fire that are totally badass.
But what I like about this character is that she accounts for the fact that the Insequent rarely come to the Land, which is why we didn't get to know them till the Last Chrons. (Kenaustin Ardenol aside - but we didn't know he was Insequent then, and nor was that in the Land..)
What does continue to annoy me though is the Feroce. I like them as characters, but I don't like the references to the Illearth Stone they come with.. There was no need for Donaldson to use emerald again, unless there is some IS connection.. There are other colours out there! But what I have a problem with is the power they demonstrated over Linden. Sending her back into her memories and changing them.. I enjoyed reading that sequence, but where the hell did they learn to do that? Their ancestors seemed to have no magicks at all. And surely it would require some sort of mind-reading ability to put her into that specific memory, and perhaps even a 'real-world' perspective to understand how she would respond.. And it's a sort of ability that I've not come across in the Chrons at all before either.. It doesn't seem to fit.
Ultimately though I should emphasise that I did enjoy AATE more the second time.. It's building up to something incredible, it seems.. You know what, personally I would have liked it if TC and Linden were doing similar quests as in the First and Second Chrons. But this is right. This is so much deeper, darker, more cataclysmic and significant, it seems, than the previous stories. There's so much more at stake. I think to appreciate this book you really have to accept the nature and direction the Last Chrons is taking.. It's really the same story, but elevated to a higher plane, with more powerful forces, deeper symbolism, and blurring the distinctions between worlds.
Forgive my death.
It was my flesh that failed you, not my love.