Kevin's Watch

variol son wrote:Amok tells TC in The Illearth War that the Sandgorgons dream about White Gold, when TC asks him about it.

Sum sui generis
Vs

ghosa: Firstly I'd like to say how grateful I am to hear that your continuing work on the thomas covent chronicles.

Secodly I'd like to ask you some questions concerning ravers.

1. I dont know If im right about this but, Is it correct to assume that within the three raver brothers there exists a kind of hierarchy itself? I ask this because of samadhi/sheol's role as the possesor of the na-mhoram in the second chronicles and his role as satansfist in the frist, also (I maybe wrong about this) but isnt samadhi the orginal possesor of the king who fought berek?.

Dont worry I wont trobule you to much more with my idle curiousness, just one more question concerning ravers.

2.When Nom the sandgorgon consumes samadhi and absorbs all the intelligence and knowledge from the raver, does this mean the raver is dead? or will the raver eventually corrupt the snadgorgons after thousands of years? (if sandgorgons livethat long).

thank you, I wait eagerly for 'runes of earth'.

Ah, Ravers. I don't see any hierarchy myself. (These aren't Ringwraiths, after all.) Perhaps that's because none of them have enough individuality or personal history to outrank the others. They started out as brothers, they became Ravers as brothers, and they serve Lord Foul as brothers. (See "Runes" for a bit more information on the subject.)

Samadhi, of course, wasn't *killed* by Honninscrave and Nom: the Raver was "rent," torn to shreds. Not the same thing at all, especially for a being which exists almost entirely as "spirit." So it seems natural--doesn't it?--that absorbing the scraps of a Raver would have a profound effect on Nom. But exactly what that effect might or will be I'm not prepared to say. However, you might ask yourself this: are the Sandgorgons inherently savage (and destructive)? or were they made savage by their imprisonment? or is the whole idea of their savagery simply a perception on the part of the vulnerable Bhrathair?

(05/13/2004)

SRD wrote:In the Land, the bones of the planet are striving to communicate in the only way they can.

SRD wrote:I have a stereo that can make semis stagger as they drive by.

Matrixman wrote:The question of Covenant's name goes right to the heart of the meaning of the Chronicles...I think.

I'm not sure how to react. I'm touched that your daughter cared enough about Hile Troy to cry over him. But I'm also baffled: he didn't fascinate or move *me* to the same extent. And I'm a bit troubled that a 14-year-old was reading "Covenant" in the first place. I didn't intend the story for someone so young. Doubtless she's been traumatized for life, and it's ALL MY FAULT. <grin>

Just try to imagine what would have happened to the Land if Troy were the ring-wielder.

dlbpharmd (Don): Have you had an opportunity to review the "Dissecting the Land" forum on kevinswatch.com? If so, what do you think of the detailed, almost rabid way your fans examine every minute detail of your work?

I've had occasion to glance at some of the "dissecting" threads on KevinsWatch.com. Frankly, I'm flattered. FINALLY (or so it seems to me) I have readers who are willing to put as much thought into reading my books as I put into writing them. When you spend as many hours laboring over every aspect of a book as I do, you're just plain *grateful* to be read with such attention to detail.

(05/29/2004)

Mr. Donaldson wrote:I don't see how anyone can even try to be a writer without both writing and reading consistently, stubbornly, regularly, deliberately, whatever you want to call it. If you don't "apply the seat of your pants to the seat of the chair and write," you're just kidding yourself about being a writer. And if you don't read constantly, even obsessively, you're denying yourself the greatest possible source of tools to write with. After all, we don't just write with words: we write with sentences and paragraphs, with imagery and timing, with mood and detachment, with denotation and connotation, with insight and irony, with ideas and emotions, with character and self-understanding: and other people's books are the best school in the world for studying how to do those things.

Thomas Ferencz (Amanibhavam): Dear Mr. Donaldson,

first of all thank you for anwering my previous question. Your answer to my next one may shed light on a very intriguing problem. I concerns the Seven Words of Power. As far as I know, the words we know from the books are: Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minas mill khabaal!
Now please tell me, whether:

- the seven words are in fact six:-)
- there _are_ seven words, but the seventh one is Yet To Be Revealed
- the whole phrase above is _one_ word, and we do not know anything about the other six (this is contradicted by the fact that Elena says about Melenkurion Skyweir that it shares its name with one of the Seven Words)

I am really looking forward to your answer.

Amanibhavam

There are in fact *seven* words, of which only six have ever been revealed. All such lore was hidden in Kevin's Wards, but several of the Wards were never recovered. Presumably Kevin hid the seventh word for the same reason that he concealed the Seventh Ward: he was trying to create a sequence of knowledge (a curriculum) in which people would learn (and earn) their way from one level to the next. The idea is to try to ensure that people only receive knowledge/power when they're ready for it.

Now, of course (I mean after "The Second Chronicles") *all* of Kevin's lore has effectively ceased to exist. (Linden's new Staff of Law doesn't even have *runes,* for crying out loud.) And without that lore to give it substance, the seventh word--if anyone chanced to discover it--would be meaningless.

(06/01/2004)

First an announcement (the relevance of which will become apparent shortly):

Very soon now I will begin answering questions in this interview much more slowly. Between now (or whenever they arrive) and the end of July I will need to proofread four (!) novels: "Runes" in both its US and its UK incarnations; "The Man Who Risked His Partner" in paperback; and "The Man Who Tried to Get Away" in hardcover. At the same time, my US and UK publishers want me to undertake a project which I'm not supposed to talk about, but which will be so back-breakingly burdensome and vastly time-consuming that I'll have no choice except to simply cease living until the project is done. (Sorry, I can't tell you more than that.) So if you think I'm answering questions slowly now, wait until you see what happens soon.

<sigh>