Kevin's Watch

I'd be interested in seeing a poll or something on fans of LOTR vs. TCTC...

Great idea You can post your own poll post

I have a great friend in Santa Fe who looks like a cross between Tryion Lannister and Pitchwife, with a belly as big as George R. R. Martin. Quite endearing thou...He lives vicariously through me when I tell him of concepts in the Chrons. But, no, still "hasn't found the time 2 read them." After 18 years of urging... And Charlie, who has played Bridge w/SRD, has read the 1st trilogy and says he likes them...but he has a habit of bcoming as talkative as about them, so: Praise Jah-man 4 the Watch!

the few friends I have, that have started to read the books, well, they all gave me back LFB after the rape of Lena.


-Drool Stupidhead

Welcome Drool! U just gave me and idea 4 Covenant fan/fic! A Cavewright version of Dumb and Dumber! Thanks!

yeah Drool .. I'm with you! .. most people I have talked to about the chronicles balk in LFB or just plain refuse to read the chrons at all ..

When talking about the books .. its difficult to accurately sum up the gist .. I find .. most people cant get past the leper scenario let alone other stuff ..

I find it a little close minded .. its like they just cant envision the larger picture at work in Donaldsons creation.

To me it is a work of brilliance .. the choice of a leper as the antagonist/reluctant hero .. the way this guy is victimised and mistreated within his own community .. the choice of the inclusion of the the enormity of the ethical dilema - the size of the 'fantasised/dreamed' alternative reality rape scene ..

just brilliant components to weave into an already intense fanstasy .. absolute genius!

SRD hones in on the 'humanity' of the reader .. with the exactness of a laser technology .. he stimulates our 'humanity' .. awakens it where it lies dormant .. or otherwise heightens it to a more profound appreciation of humankind ..

.. Donaldson to me is unique as an author .. his work TCTC is imho outstanding in the extreme ..

danlo- thats what I was thinkin' when I typed this name

Skyweir- my opinion exactly

My dad gave them to me, I love them, so I tried to get two of my friends to read them... They liked the first two books, but thought that TC was far too annoying to finish the 3rd... They just don't understand... tisk tisk tisk.

yeah sad but true .. a lot of people just dont get the chrons.

I have come to the conclusion that you can't make anyone like a book unless it's an obvious winner from page one. TCTC doesn't have the fluffy side LOTR has, nor does it have the rippling muscles of most of Eddings' books, what it does have is depth, intelligence and thought.

I know of five other people who have read and loved the books, one of them I introduced to it. My brother read it, was totally glued and introduced me to it and I loved it from the start, the concept simply blew me away from page one, totally gripping. The other three had read them years ago.

One guy I recommended it to read half of the first book and decided he hated Covenant and couldn't read anymore, somehow don't think he got it.

The simple depth of the first Chronicles is staggering, a masterpiece in it's own right. I don't think it can be compared to LOTR in the same sentence, sure there are similarities in names, weapons etc. But the storytelling is entirely different from Tolkien and Eddings and should not be compared to them.

none of mine have ever heard of them

grrrrrrrr

Hello fellow inhabitants of the Land. This is my first post as Strumstring Starchaser (although I did post what I thought was a pretty funny reply as Dukkha in another thread).

I have convinced a friend to read the first chronicles at least. I had tried a few years ago, but she never got off Kevin's Watch - she was not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, but after seeing LOTR and then reading the books, she is re-interested.

Since she is new to fantasy, LOTR is very fresh in her mind, and she remembers EVERYTHING, she cannot help but notice the many parallels and outright "lifts". She is enjoying LFB, but is continually distracted by the similarites. Not just in general theme (magic ring, grand quest, magical Lords, magic horses, etc) but in more specifics like:

Volcanos: Mount Thunder - Mount Doom
Uruk-Hai - Haruchai (Pardon my spelling)
Rivendale- Revelstone/wood
Line of Rohan - Eoward

and some others I can't recall right now. I of course went through the normal responses of "Well JRRT practically invented the modern fantasy novel, everything is going to look similar". Which she conceded, but when specific names or places look so familiar she is almost angry. My point in this post is not to rehash what I am sure as been beaten to death here (although I haven't seen anyone else mention the incredible similarity between Uruk-Hai and Haruchai), but to instead offer you all what occurred to me in my dicussions with my friend. Specifically I said this:

Remember the pamphlet that the old beggar handed Covenant on the sidewalk. What was it called "A Question of Ethics" or something like that? What if SD's entire point was to ask: "What would you do if you were transported to Tolkein's Middle Earth under these conditions?" Then all of the parallels were intentional, to remind you of Middle Earth and what transpired there.

Curious to hear your reactions.

Re-reading the series for the fourth time or so, halfway through TWL. I'm not the only one who cried when TC met his dead in Andelain am I?

SS

To really get SRD's take on Tolkien, you have to read his interviews. There's links around here somewhere, I believe... Romeo's site? His intention was never to lift but to honor, and I think your proposal is a viable one.

It's also noteworthy to consider that Tolkien himself based large portions of his work on pre-existant mythologies, and I once read an article in the back of SF&F about how Tolkien came to write the Hobbit as a way to continue some stories his son was into concerning small manlike creatures who lived in comfortable underground homes and whose names ended in -bo or -do.

Just for the record...First time I read the chrons (FCs, didn't know about the second) I WASN"T new to fan/sci-fi....and I still nearly dropped the whole series because of the similarities... The really deep stuff doesn't hit you for awhile, or at least it didn't me..

The chronicles were almost the first thing I read after the lord of the rings, and I was never conscious of the similarities between these two books at all. What I knew by the time I knew that this was a book I was certainly going to finish was that this was DIFFERENT from Tolkien on a very basic level.

This happened to me in "The Celebration of Spring" where the wraiths show up for the first time. After reading LOTR I had this picture of wraiths as a kind of ghostly creature, only more evil, and suddenly here was these small things like a cross between kittens and candles. That was when I knew that this was not going to be a book like LOTR at all, and that I just had to know how it ended.

After that I have always considered it a mark of quality for fantasy to either have little resemblance to Tolkien, or by using his imagery in a completely different way. If you really consider it there are loads of things in the chronicles that on the surface appears like something Tolkien used, the magic ring being the most obvious, but the closer you look at these things the more different they become. The rings are a good example. The white gold appears to be quite similar to the One Ring at first, both are potent talismans and the dark lord wants them. But the more you learn about the white gold the further it departs from the One Ring. Where the One Ring has an evil will of its own the white gold is only an extension of its wielder in a very fundamental way. Where the One Ring has the power to corrupt and enslave people the white gold can save or damn the world, but it has little or no effect on people. And the list goes on.

The Chrons were not the first fantasy I had read, I had read the Hobbit, LOTR, and Lewis' Narnia series previous to it, but I was still new to fantasy. I did see similarities. Ryzel, I agree with all your statements but this...

the white gold can save or damn the world, but it has little or no effect on people. And the list goes on.

I disagree. The white gold has effect on people, but in a less direct way. This is because, like you said, the white gold is an extension of the wielder. The white gold, through Covenant, had an effect on the Land's people. But in the second Chrons, it actually performed feats of its own..

I think you are correct, except I cannot remember any place where the white gold acted independently of its wielder. Where was that?

Anyway what I meant was that the white gold did not have any effect on people as opposed to the One Ring. I.e. it did not corrupt them and enslave them. But its wielder might do so, of course.

Ryzel wrote:Anyway what I meant was that the white gold did not have any effect on people as opposed to the One Ring. I.e. it did not corrupt them and enslave them. But its wielder might do so, of course.

Your right. The One Ring was made out of malice, to enslave the holders of the other rings of power. The White Gold is different in that it's neutral, not corruptive like the Illearth Stone. There was no power, even that of the Lords that was pure in the Land, because the essence of the books is that power corrupts. TC's story is one of finding the ability to wield power and maintain, barely, sanity.

Ya know, I gotta say...it's always been interesting to me how each week new Chrons lovers find the Watch, and it's not just a couple a month, either. Awesome.

It used to be more like a couple a year. I think the rate of new arrivals has improved noticably since SRD made us official.