Kevin's Watch

Zarathustra wrote:I keep seeing TPTP ranked consistently lower, especially relative to the other first 6 books. I was wondering what issue people had with it.

Personally the issue I have with it is that it loses the flow from the first two books. I think the swapping back and forth between different events happens too often and I've always had a problem with the way that Covenant defeats Foul. It makes sense, but it seems to end events in the Land in a somewhat unsatisfactory way for me.

On its own it's a good book, but is a bit of a dip in that trilogy for me.

I have no particular problem with TPTP, I just think that TWL and TIW are more "epic" in scope and impact, and something about the departure from the Land in TOT always intrigues me.

Oddly I rank the first six books in exactly the order they were written.

LFB - my first introduction to TC and the Land as it is meant to be. How can it not be best

TIW - fantastic second book with some of the most heart wrenching stuff I ever read [the forced march etc] - but we loose TC for a while.

TPTP - strangely my least fav of the first 3 [TC's wandering around, the Bloodguard have f***** off, but Hell! - we're still in the Land that I love - and for the last time ever! Nothing will ever be the same again untill the end of TLD [and then it will be in some un-understood way 'wrong'.]

TWL - Hooray, we're back in the Land - but there's something wrong. But we have Giants and flat faced Haruchai. [And Linden - hmmmm.]

TOT - We're going travelling! Well - it's an interlude but hellfire - a damn good one!

TWGW - A consummation devoutly to be wished.

It was always the Land I loved and 2C. never had me quite as much as when on the odd occasion the Land of old suddenly poked through and a glimpse was had of what we were striving for [eg when Sunder is persuaded to eat aliantha - sounds wrong given Ali's presence on the watch. Sorry about that Ali ]. Thus the second Chrons will always fall below the first for me - but I loved them deeply [except Linden who I sort of got used to in the end].

The Last Chrons. Of them I will not speak.

peter wrote:[eg when Sunder is persuaded to eat aliantha - sounds wrong given Ali's presence on the watch. Sorry about that Ali ]

My ranking may change somewhat over time, based on my mood, whether it's raining outside, what day of the week it is, etc.....but I'm pretty solid on the top book, and the bottom.

1. TWL
2. TIW
3. TPTP
4. WGW
5. LFB
6. TOT
7. FR
8. ROTE
9. TLD
10. AATE

michaelm wrote:

peter wrote:[eg when Sunder is persuaded to eat aliantha - sounds wrong given Ali's presence on the watch. Sorry about that Ali ]

It's okay. I've had almost a decade and a half to get used to it.

aliantha wrote:

michaelm wrote:

peter wrote:[eg when Sunder is persuaded to eat aliantha - sounds wrong given Ali's presence on the watch. Sorry about that Ali ]

It's okay. I've had almost a decade and a half to get used to it.

That's a long time for someone to ea...

OK, I'll stop there...

michaelm wrote:

aliantha wrote:

michaelm wrote:

It's okay. I've had almost a decade and a half to get used to it.

That's a long time for someone to ea...

OK, I'll stop there...

Ohh boy, what I could do with a straight line like that...

This is an interesting discussion but, speaking only for myself, it has never been possible for me to think of the volumes of the Chronicles as stand-alone books and so I don't really feel able to rank them.

Hmmm...even something as simple as ranking your favorite Covenant books could become a touchy subject.

However, I'm emboldened to do my own ranking, since we seem to be getting along so well on this topic.

1. The Power That Preserves
2. The Illearth War
3. Fatal Revenant
4. The Wounded Land
5. Against All Things Ending
6. The Last Dark
7. The Runes Of The Earth
8. Lord Foul's Bane
9. White Gold Wielder
10. The One Tree

TPTP moved me greatly with the excellent "Lord Mhoram's Victory", with the plight of the jheherrin, the fact that Covenant's turning point to become the hero of the rest of the series occurred when he rescued the snakebitten girl, to the beauty of Foamfollower's vanquishing the Despiser by laughter...all really great moments.
TIW was the book that really hooked me on the series, what with Covenant having to grapple with his Unbelief and guilt by dealing with the presences of Troy and Elena.
TOT I now like the least because of the realization that after they left Elemesnedene everything else they go through is pointless (though of course they and I didn't know at the time that Findail was all they needed).

aliantha wrote:

michaelm wrote:

aliantha wrote: It's okay. I've had almost a decade and a half to get used to it.

That's a long time for someone to ea...

OK, I'll stop there...

Ohh boy, what I could do with a straight line like that...

The world spun wildly, then sprang straight. Cool juice filled Covenant's mouth with a sapor of peach made tangy with salt and lime. At once, new energy burst through him. Deliciousness cleansed his throat of thirst and dirt and blood. All his nerves thrilled to a sapor he had not tasted for ten long years....


....What? Don't mind me, just quoting TWL out of context. No particular reason.

. . .
Now do not make me post berry erotica here. Let us remain in the wonderful world of Giant pin-ups...

Cambo wrote:

aliantha wrote:

michaelm wrote: That's a long time for someone to ea...

OK, I'll stop there...

Ohh boy, what I could do with a straight line like that...

The world spun wildly, then sprang straight. Cool juice filled Covenant's mouth with a sapor of peach made tangy with salt and lime. At once, new energy burst through him. Deliciousness cleansed his throat of thirst and dirt and blood. All his nerves thrilled to a sapor he had not tasted for ten long years....


....What? Don't mind me, just quoting TWL out of context. No particular reason.

I tend to agree with an earlier reader that it can be difficult to splice apart the books from the series as a whole. Taken together the volumes represent an arc and a journey. I experienced them as individual books, however, so here is my ranking.

1 The Power That Preserves (the first book I ever read in the series)
2 The One Tree (loved all of the exotic locations)
3 The Illearth War (forestals and Hile Troy!)
4 The Wounded Land (the Land has gone all wonky)
5 Fatal Revenant (TC returns! or does he? SRD makes good use of his time travel mechanism in this volume)
6 White Gold Wielder (sacrifice and healing)
7 Lord Foul's Bane (where it all began)
8 Against All Things Ending (a bit overwritten and heavy, but splintered TC and Jeremiah finding his power was pretty cool)
9 The Last Dark (if I wouldn't have read SRD's summary of the Last Chronicles in Senor's book all those years ago, this one might have been higher on my list. A poetic, spiritual end to the series. Would have liked TC and company to return to the Real World, but what SRD did is growing on me.)
10 The Runes of the Earth (A bit claustrophobic for my taste. Missing that epic feel. Love the first chapter, though! And good to finally go back to The Land.

I enjoyed all of the books, but sometimes The Last Chronicles felt like they sometimes lost the narrative momentum. We spent so much time internally with characters that the story was lost. Perhaps that was intentional and was meant to mirror the journey coming to an end.

Can't wait to reread all of the books one last time later this year.

Nice to see you around, Mr. Land!

1 The Illearth War
2 The Power That Preserves
3 Lord Foul's Bane
4 The Wounded Land
5 The One Tree
6 White Gold Wielder
7 Runes of the Earth
8 Against All Things Ending
9 The Last Dark
10 Fatal Revenant

I'm going to nominate my first two:

The Power That Preserves
The One Tree

which is as much as I feel confident to do. I don't feel that I can rate either better than the other, or rank the other eight in any kind of order.

Mr. Land,

I hear you! TPTP was my first as well, then I got the remaining books. It is hard for me to include the last series in the ranking at all since I was sorely disappointed in the last two books (especially that last one). But my ranking would likely go like this:

TIIW
TPTP
LFB
TOT
TWL
WGW

As for the last series, it seems to me that the writing got more tedious and constrained after TC was resurrected than before. Although there were some good parts after.

I have read some off the Final Chronicles, but not sure where they rank, so only ranking the first 6.

TPTP
TWL
LFB
WGW
TOT
TIW

DrPaul wrote:I'm going to nominate my first two:

The Power That Preserves
The One Tree

which is as much as I feel confident to do. I don't feel that I can rate either better than the other, or rank the other eight in any kind of order.

alright! You decided to rank some of them... yeah, figuring out your exact "favourites ranking" of the books is probably not the most necessary...


Edit: just had my ranking at first. Added talking to fellow Watcher.