It's just a bloody book! Isn't it?

[ozrics]

Yep I did the grand re-read. In fact I did it before each of the LC books came out so 4 re-reads in total. For me, the crux of the matter is that whilst I was looking forward to whatever ending SRD decided upon, when it finally came I'm upset that its over now and there isn't going to be another book to look forward to. Yes its just a bloody book but its been with me for over 30 years and to have no prospect of any further adventures in the land is really really sad. I suspect that I'll be doing many re-reads of the whole 10 books until the day I die. So all I can say is a big thank you to SRD - its been a wonderful experience and will continue to be so in every re-read

[oktophonie]

I started from the beginning from LFB (what seems like an age ago now) in preparation for TLD and read all the way through to the end. I finished TLD this morning.

Speaking, obviously, only for myself, I'll say that I found TLD in some ways a disappointment, BUT, I expected to feel that way. Specifically, I felt this way about each of the LC as I read them. However as others have said, I've enjoyed them all immeasureably more on the second reading.

In fact of all the Chronicles the book I've read most often is ROTE. This is because when I first read the 1st and 2nd Chrons, only ROTE was out. (i.e. I'm newer to this series than many of you.) And I found the sudden change of pace/style a bit jarring. But I reread ROTE when FR came out, and then reread both of those when AATE came out, and then obviously read all those again in the current re-read. So ROTE is the book I've read most often of them all (I only read the 1st and 2nd Chrons once previously). And I have to say I've enjoyed it more every time.

In part this surely has to do with SRD's method of working out his stories backwards, and also from the obvious thing that the experience of reading something for the first time is a different experience from a reread, and by definition can only be had once.

I must say I liked FR a lot the first time, but I LOVED it the second time and loved it even more the third time. In fact if pushed I'd say it's probably my favourite of all ten books, for all sorts of reasons, and that's from someone who feels at least as strongly about TIW or TPTP as many of you do. A similar thing happened with AATE - I found its weird sagginess and lurchy pacing offputting the first time; but the second time through, having a sense of context and where everything was going was pretty untroubled by it, and actually enjoyed e.g. the brutality of the shifts from long, languid inaction to explosive, er, overaction, for what they were.

So in TLD I had lots of conflicting thoughts, and was trying to process everything as it happened, and was unhappy about lots of it, but I entirely expect my feelings about it to change a lot on the second read.

(Obviously this applies to re-reading anything, and it applied for me to the first six books too, but in a less extreme way, and certainly not in a way that more or less caused a total personal re-evaluation of them.)

For what it's worth, which is very little, I'll also add that the LC have made me cry several times - this is largely Stave and Liand's fault - whereas to the best of my recollection the 1st and 2nd Chrons didn't. That is to say, as intense as my emotional engagement is with the first six books, somehow in the last four it's been even stronger, or at least more direct.

And... given that I love Wagner, I like the fact that the LCs just ramble on, and on, and on, and on... ;)

[Iolanthe]

For what it's worth, which is very little, I'll also add that the LC have made me cry several times - this is largely Stave and Liand's fault - whereas to the best of my recollection the 1st and 2nd Chrons didn't. That is to say, as intense as my emotional engagement is with the first six books, somehow in the last four it's been even stronger, or at least more direct.

ingemisco I had exactly the same experience, although more with TLD. Even on the third read I still had to get the tissues out - particularly in the last 2 chapters of Part 1; the calm before the storm you might say.