Kevin's Watch

hee hee

I am not familiar with that concept either! Dammit I don't want change! I want the stories I am familiar with!

Malik23 wrote:Maybe SRD feels that a prequel would be a sell-out, that it would be "mining" his creation solely for monetary reasons.

Since SRD himself doesn't want to write prequels, he is 100% correct. Monetary reasons are the only reasons he would have for writing such books.

If he were a faster writer, I would feel disappointed by that. But as it is, he will be 66 years old in 2013 when The Last Dark is supposed to come out. I'd far rather see him finish the Last Chronicles than spend his remaining years writing prequels for the diehard fans.

Would anyone say that the Silmarillion was pointless just because we all knew that the First Age came to an end? That Morgoth was defeated? That Earendil sailed into the West and later into the heavens? That Beren and Luthien ended tragically? No!

Actually, The Silmarillion was not a prequel at all. It was, in fact, written long before LOTR, but nobody wanted to publish it. After the immense success of LOTR, legions of fans were clamouring for The Silmarillion to be published, but Tolkien refused to release it until he had edited the story to be consistent with LOTR in every detail. Because he was an incredibly fastidious writer and a lifelong niggler, he died before that job was done to his satisfaction.

In all essentials, The Silmarillion as published in 1977 is the same story that Tolkien set aside in 1937 to write 'more about Hobbits'. So that's not the best example you could choose.

I was always interested in the King and Queen. I would love to hear more about them, what the Land was like when they "governed" it, and then, of course, what brought them down.

I think the Simarillion is a good example, people clamored for the prequel to LOTR. The fact they knew the ending didn't deter any of them. Look at the Star Wars films I-III, knowing the ending didn't stop them. What about Chronicles of Narnia. True fans still read them in published order, which means you read TMN as a prequel, and that certainly doesn't take away from the story. I love going back to find out how we got here.

I this thread exemplifies how people can be different. I myself have a Tolkienish relationship to backstories rather than Donaldsonian, which means that by constructing backstories I'm unconsciously trying to make the Land a little closer to my detailed Tolkienian ideal. I think The Silmarillion is the best book ever written while SRD doesn't like the book, as he has said in the Gradual Interview. I think it's funny that my favorite and favorite living authors have so different views. Well, not funny exactly, more like annoying since I'm heavily analytical and can't put my finger on a Grand Unified Theory of Literary Taste. (I'm trying, though.)

I think it would be great to have a Silmarillion for the Land. I think we could use more of that genre, which isn't even large enough to be called a genre[*], and the Land has so many untold tales which I think could be gathered into a coherent thematic arch about things like the growth of entropy (supported by SRD as a continuing factor in the Land) and the loss of innocence.

[*] There is The Gods of Pegana and its sequel by Lord Dunsany but I don't like them. I feel their world-building is too "dishonest" to genuinely work. (It's hard to describe. I think the biggest part is that the characters operate on dream logic instead of real world logic or myth logic) The Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon is more of science fiction.

The problem here is that I don't think Tolkien and Donaldson have differing opinions - although that's impossible to know, as Tolkien hasn't been around since 1973, if memory serves.

The Silmarillion is Tolkien's mythology for England. The Hobbit was part of that world almost by accident, and if not for The Hobbit's popularity, LOTR wouldn't exist.

Tolkien mined his work that became published as The Silmarillion to create LOTR.

So...it's not a prequel.

That said, I too would love to know more about the early days of the Land, but I respect and understand SRDs decision.

Regardless of how well Star Wars 1-3 did in the box office, they weren't great films. That's why they didn't do well - not because we knew the ending. The first two were just awful.

With regard to fiction, look at the garbage that Brooks has put out. He's just writing for money. That's understandable, but artistically inexcusable.

SRD once said if he had to write books he didn't beleive in, in order to feed his familoy...he would take up plumbing.

I tried to say that Tolkien and SRD have/had different opinions on worldbuilding and what constitutes a good story. I think The Silmarillion is fascinating and Tolkien must have thought the same or else he wouldn't have kept refining it. Strangely, in a way it can be said that both me and Tolkien are decidedly more "materialistic" (if that's a good word) than SRD, since we are interested in worldbuilding for its own sake. SRD has said that he has lately started caring about the dignity of characters, while I care about the dignity of entire worlds. In The Silmarillion, the world itself is the main character, but SRD just considers the individual people.

I know the main exports and imports of an imagined-by-me country called Lithira while I don't know where the hairball of a plot that considers Lithira should be going. I'm not saying my view is superior, but I can't change it.

I think the best point about a Silmarilllion-like prequel would be that by needs it wouldn't be so character-based and therefore there wouldn't be so much need to build tension on whether someone like Berek or Kevin will succeed.

As people have said, any 'prequels' about the Land have a vast amount of informatoin and choices to draw on.

As well as those already mentioned such as the old Lords, Amok, Giants etc. there are plenty of other untold stories such as how did the Ranyhyn gain the service of the Ramen? Perhaps a Gilden Fire style story about the Bloodguard's first arrival in the Land? A Giantish story could tell us the whole story of the Brathair and Sandgorgons. I believe somone mentioned 'Giantish Chronicles' lol.

KAY1 wrote:As people have said, any 'prequels' about the Land have a vast amount of informatoin and choices to draw on.

As well as those already mentioned such as the old Lords, Amok, Giants etc. there are plenty of other untold stories such as how did the Ranyhyn gain the service of the Ramen? Perhaps a Gilden Fire style story about the Bloodguard's first arrival in the Land? A Giantish story could tell us the whole story of the Brathair and Sandgorgons. I believe somone mentioned 'Giantish Chronicles' lol.

I want all that as well.
But are you people wishing for an independent book of some kind?
In my last post I was joking (and making fun of myself mostly) but thinking more seriously today, from a writers point of view, how can any of those stories mentioned above be written?
From who's perspective?
SRD always writes from the prespective of TC (ideally even Linden will be a figment of TC's imagination at the end of the 3rd Chron )
How could SRD possibly write any of the above stories as books?
The best we can hope for is a small glimpse via a cesaure somehow.
Tales told by other cesaure cast refugees is my hope.

I think a lot of this is just not wanting to leave the Land behind. To be honest I think the keystone of the books (other than TC) is actually the Lords. The 2nd Chrons kind of lacked a little for me as they didnt have those original characters in.

Saying that though, it is not just not wanting to leave the Land behind. For me personally, the Covenant books have drawn me in in a way very few can so that this created world seems almost real and as though it has a life of its own, so that these stories do actually exist somewhere, just waiting to actually be written down.

Kay1 said:

this created world seems almost real and as though it has a life of its own, so that these stories do actually exist somewhere, just waiting to actually be written down.

And so we get into the whole created-universe thing. Better minds than ours have tackled it: Stan Lee and Issac Asimov, for starters. Stan Lee will bend your ear (bless him) about Spiderman's existence for days, and Asimov coined the term Ficton. It's about observance, and reality, and creation, and physics. And fanfiction. It's all very complicated.

I lean toward the quatum slant, myself. Why not? But if that's too creepy, just do what the muse tells ya:

If there's a story out there you want to read, the universe is telling you to write it.

I'll read it, for one. That's why God created fanfic.

itd be a bit much to hash all those old lord's stories...but fragments and stories, recounting by the bloodguard etc could make for an interesting collection, maybe even written by others, for an apocrypha.
GF

It would be wonderful to read a "Prequel" fanfic by a fellow Watcher. aTOMiC wrote a few pieces a while back that are scattered around the Hall of Gifts.

On my reread I noticed that one has to be careful with the sources. I found out that people like Lena and Atiaran are not absolutely trustworthy when it comes to history and are contradicted by other people at some points.

Write! Write, write, for pete's sake write!

I'll read it and so will many others. SRD is on record with having no prob with fanfic. What's stopping you?

It's so innocent.

Giant Friend wrote:itd be a bit much to hash all those old lord's stories...but fragments and stories, recounting by the bloodguard etc could make for an interesting collection, maybe even written by others, for an apocrypha.
GF

This just got me thinking.

Perhaps a short story collection, á la Reave The Just/Daughter Of Regals would be cool. Except it would be purely TC. Eight or so short stories set in the Land's history, pre-Desecration. That way it wouldn't have to result in a decade-long trilogy for us, and we could get all sorts of things in, rather than just the Old Lords. Heck, he could just write it between books of the Last Chronicles

"The Last Dark" needn't be the last thing Donaldson ever writes about Covenant.
How about this? We explore the childhood, youth, and eventual marriage to Joan of Covenant, pre-leprosy.
We could find Lord Mhoram discovering that he needs to alter Covenant's past in order to forge Covenant into the hero he would later become.
Mhoram uses powerful lore to transport himself to our world, where he guides young Thomas Covenant through his troubled life.
What the Hell, if Donaldson won't do it maybe he'd graciously allow it to be published as fan fiction.

bump for current interest (ouch!)