Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:21 pm**

Yeh, Foundation didn't leave me moody and emotionally drained for days after completing, like the GAP series. SRD has a way with sucking you so deep into a story you can come out of it loosing some sense of reality. I found myself contantly thinking about and dreaming about the character for at least a week after finishing.

This may sound bizarre but in a way the GAP series was too intense. I compare it drinking. I little buzz is a great thing, but getting smash faced drunk you pay for it the next day (as I get older it sometimes requires more recovery time) SRD gives you reading hangover especially with GAP.

I thought of using a sex metaphor but still to new to know how the moderators will react. Hell TDAGMD was like a 400+ page climax. (I guess it would be like having a one hour orgasm

, )

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:05 pm**

danlo wrote:
Jay wrote:the ending of book 4 made my head explode
Mine too!

More like an implosion for me.

I avoided reading any of the Gap until Chaos hit paperback. I'm not a fast reader, so I figured a couple months to read anything SRD (I take my time rereading the Chronicles), but I finished a month before This Day came out. Let me tell you, turning the last page of Chaos with nothing more to read is like running into a wall.

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:02 pm**

A little off topic here but FR was like that same wall with spikes, just because now we have to wait a loooooooooong time for the next one.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:13 am**

Cshaw71 wrote:A little off topic here but FR was like that same wall with spikes, just because now we have to wait a loooooooooong time for the next one.

It's more like you're walking through a desert, see a mirage of an oasis, stumble towards it and walk into a cactus (this fits your "spikes" idea) so not only are you hurt but you're still thirsty, because you don't have a knife to cut the cactus open to get the water out. The knife represents the knowledge needed to fully understand the events of the book. But now that you're at Kevin's Watch, there are a bunch of other SRD fans and, if you so choose, you can join in our effort to slice open that cactus. But don't get so eager to drink the water (find out the basic plot, figure out what's going on) that you miss those sweet and succulent fruit (the morally challenging, emotionally touching, super cool monsters/creatures parts of the book).

Though I actually don't go on the SRD discussion boards as often as I should, so it might actually be nothing like that. I'm just guessing.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:40 am**

Interesting! I also like Dark and Hung the best.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 1:11 am**

BTW, aside from the actual content of the book, does everyone agree Dark and Hungry has the best title?

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:39 am**

TDAGD >>> Any title ever written

-jay

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:12 pm**

I still remember a Donaldson blurb (maybe GI, I'm not sure. I havn't been there for a while, it's become a bit monstrous) about looking at a copy of ADAHGA with the title on the upc shortened to "Dark and Hung". He mentioned that might have been a more appropriate title.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 5:51 pm**

In the Gradual Interview, Donaldson wrote:Strangely, there is a bookstore where I live that uses title abbreviations on their price-stickers; and the abbreviation this store used for book three was "Dark and Hung."

(04/28/2004)

Posted: **Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:36 am**

C & O. Nothing has matched it before or since for the sheer edge-of-your-seat, so-into-it-you-almost-forget-to-breathe effect. Dark & Hungry was a close second, but then, I'm kinda biased.

And not really here. Really.

Posted: **Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:58 pm**

Sorus wrote:C & O. Nothing has matched it before or since for the sheer edge-of-your-seat, so-into-it-you-almost-forget-to-breathe effect. Dark & Hungry was a close second, but then, I'm kinda biased.

And not really here. Really.

Because you like books in which you die or something?

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:40 am**

I think my actual reaction was more along the lines of "Oh,

".

I can think of only a couple of other instances where I became so involved in a book that it was almost a shock to come back to the real world. I think I was literally a bit dazed, and no, TDAGD was not yet available.

SRD did the right thing. Nick had gone past the point of no return. While Sorus had a place in the series without Nick, it was more fitting for him to exact his revenge (at least in some fashion, and all the more ironic that he would never know), while Morn was able to move on and find a better answer.

There's a part of me that would have liked to see her survive to the end of the series, but practically, there was no realistic way. Especially not one I could empathize with.

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:06 am**

Sorus wrote:I can think of only a couple of other instances where I became so involved in a book that it was almost a shock to come back to the real world. I think I was literally a bit dazed, and no, TDAGD was not yet available.

My experience was similar. I recall wanting (needing?) to talk to someone about it, but no one I knew was even reading it. A couple weeks later, a speed-reading friend finished, but I was past that WTF moment.

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:57 am**

ItisWritten wrote:
Sorus wrote:I can think of only a couple of other instances where I became so involved in a book that it was almost a shock to come back to the real world. I think I was literally a bit dazed, and no, TDAGD was not yet available.
My experience was similar. I recall wanting (needing?) to talk to someone about it, but no one I knew was even reading it. A couple weeks later, a speed-reading friend finished, but I was past that WTF moment.

That's what KW is for. I think I made my first post on the Gap discussion

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 6:11 am**

Holsety wrote:
ItisWritten wrote:
Sorus wrote:I can think of only a couple of other instances where I became so involved in a book that it was almost a shock to come back to the real world. I think I was literally a bit dazed, and no, TDAGD was not yet available.
My experience was similar. I recall wanting (needing?) to talk to someone about it, but no one I knew was even reading it. A couple weeks later, a speed-reading friend finished, but I was past that WTF moment.
That's what KW is for. I think I made my first post on the Gap discussion

But that was in Jan of '96. I wasn't on the net, and did KW exist? Too late, but not to wish that I had then what I have now.

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:34 am**

As a sci-fi fan who ranks Simmons, Banks, Reynolds amongst the space opera guys, what is one to make of Donaldson.
Well the science ideas are well lame. Character and plotting and people you hate are right up there.

This is barely science fiction but simply a thriller with a bare bones sci-fi concept.

I read a lot of sci-fi and for some reason this series had eluded me. It is Donaldson no doubt.

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:44 am**

I dunno, I think the series definitely rates as *hard* sci-fi, and even fails to cheat where a lot of *hard* sci-fi does. (Damn artificial gravity and inertial dampeners, one of the most pervasive and silly concepts in Science Fiction) The story just isn't about science, it's about people, unlike Asimov. Hell, a lot of so called "hard" sci-fi relies on a lot of technobable and technology that makes the story work better. The only real *lie* in the Gap is, well, The Gap. Everything else (the amnion, cybernetics, most of the weaponry) stays pretty damn plausible. Even some of the stuff that really isn't (Matter Cannon) he at least makes an attempt to fabricate some science around it. (and the technology as described is just damn cool, it would look great on film if they did it right. Think strobe lights that make huge explosions)

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:10 am**

The Dreaming wrote:I dunno, I think the series definitely rates as *hard* sci-fi, and even fails to cheat where a lot of *hard* sci-fi does. (Damn artificial gravity and inertial dampeners, one of the most pervasive and silly concepts in Science Fiction) The story just isn't about science, it's about people, unlike Asimov. Hell, a lot of so called "hard" sci-fi relies on a lot of technobable and technology that makes the story work better. The only real *lie* in the Gap is, well, The Gap. Everything else (the amnion, cybernetics, most of the weaponry) stays pretty damn plausible. Even some of the stuff that really isn't (Matter Cannon) he at least makes an attempt to fabricate some science around it. (and the technology as described is just damn cool, it would look great on film if they did it right. Think strobe lights that make huge explosions)

Excellent post, The Dreaming.

Posted: **Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:19 pm**

Gotta go with TDAGD.

GCES scenes are phenom
Angus and Holt's mommy
Hashi Hashi Hashi
Sib's last stand
Angus Angus Angus
Ward and Angus
More Hashi
Last bit with Angus
and Morn's gut wrenching letter.

Nope, for me there ain't nothin' better ever been written.

stutt

Posted: **Sat Jan 09, 2016 9:36 pm**

I voted for Chaos and Order.

Hashi and Min become more multi-dimensional characters, the GCES scenes get more intense, Nick finally becomes completely unglued, Morn realizes her sense of purpose beyond protecting Davies, Koina Hannish emergers as a formidable protagonist, Dolph Ubikwe rises up as the arbiter of right and wrong, Sib has his noble sacrifice, and Sorus saves the day and absolves all her sins. Yeah, THIS is the one!

Kevin's Watch

Which is the best Gap book?