Kevin's Watch

Greetings, Raven! Married with child and step-children myself. Enjoy!

Thanks very much; yes I would consider coming to a meeting; the last time I saw Donaldson in person was in the summer of 1988, I think. Before such a meeting, I'd love to have made some breakthrough with Hollywood that could be useful to him -- will have to work on that, though my connections are few.

Yes, Donaldson and Tolkien have been central to my life; I've done a lot of work on Kierkegaard as well, and of course I'm influenced by many philosophers, but there are ideas that T & D draw from what might simply be called Northern European mythology (and other sources in world myth) that one does not find in the Western philosophical canon. And some of these ideas have been central to my work.

I wonder if there is some place here that I might post some of my essays, including the one on epic fantasy delivered at Kingswood-Oxford, and another on romance literature and fantasy done for the Yale Literary Magazine. There are also those commentary manuscripts, but they need some work. There are a couple essays within the commentary that I could probably extract and post -- if this sort of thing would be of interest to folks here (I'm not sure how much use academic essays would be). There are also three or four decent lectures from my Fantasy and Philosophy class (the paper on "The Lord of the Rings as Epic Fairy Tale" can be found in my website). I've got an agenda of work on personal autonomy, free will, and global government to publish in the next few years, but maybe someday I'll actually have time to write a book on Tolkien and Donaldson.

mhoram99, I don't remember exactly where, but there is definitely a place somewhere around here to post such writings, and I would love to read at least a few of them.

Hi mhoram99, and welcome to the watch.

I also would be extremely interested in reading your work.

As far as where to post it:

The Hall of Gifts may be the spot you're looking for. I think it's for creative writing, generally, as opposed to critical work, but that's where I'd start. The mods may feel the need to move it though, but if they do, I wouldn't take it personally.

Mortice Root wrote:The mods may feel the need to move it though, but if they do, I wouldn't take it personally.

At least we'd know where such writings are supposed to go then.

Welcome Raven.

Another bloody Kiwi...just what we need.

--A

Welcome to the Watch Mhoram. A philosopher huh? You'll surely want to join us in the 'Tank and the Close for some very interesting discussions.

As for writing, the Hall of Gifts is one option, although for "academic" stuff you may want to pick a forum germain to the subject...the Close for philosophy, the 'Tank for sociology, the Gen Sci-Fi for sci-fi and fantasy.

There's also a writers workshop forum, but that's more for...well...workshopping. It's hidden away, you have to apply to it. I'm sure somebody will tell you who to if you're interested...LuciMay for one I think. (I've been terribly remiss in my own attendance actually, but I've had unavoidable interferences.)

Anyway, there's far more to this site than Donaldson, or than meets the eye. Explore.

--Avatar

Welcome, Raven! Glad to have you here.

mhoram99 wrote:
I teach Philosophy at Fordham University. Though it was doubtless Tolkien (and a couple books on the history of philosophy) that got me into this, a lot of my own ideas -- especially on the will -- are deeply indebted to Donaldson's work. I've published one essay on Tolkien (in *The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy*) that makes some mention of The Chronicles of TC, but there was not room for more discussion there. Life is busy with a family and many wonderful courses to teach (including one titled "Fantasy and Philosophy") but if time permits, I hope to publish a couple other articles related to themes in The Chronicles and other Donaldson works. I still have incomplete drafts of three "commentaries" on each of the three books in the First Chronicles, written back when I was in college. I may try to post these, along with a couple essays on epic fantasy and romance literature, on a section of my subpage of my professional website.

Welcome to the Watch, Mhoram99. As a Tolkien fan, and as an English major- person, I can tell we'll get on smashingly.

Welcome Mhoram and thank you everyone for the the warm welcome you have given me .

mhoram99 - what Avatar said

G'Day from Australia! First time poster, long time reader. Have read all COTC books at least twice. The first chronicles about 4 times. Love them! 3 years is far too long to wait between releases for the next installment. Counting down 'till 2010.

Cheers,

Beetle.

Be welcome to the watch, Beetle.
Be Well Come and True.

Welcome to the Watch!

Welcome, beetle. Nice to have you aboard.

Hello, Beetle. Glad to have you here. Enjoy!

Andy

Hello,
I've never really looked for a Covenant site, so I found this mostly by accident. Let me just say that The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is my favorite fantasy story ever, and I've read most of what is out there. This story is definitely in the top 5 fiction stories ever written IMHO.
I feel SRD should be my brother or something ! 8^)

Thanks for the site. Very interesting. Now if I can just bear waiting until 2010 for book III.

I design and implement software and have done so for more than 25 years. Currently I work at Medco Health Solutions, Inc. where I work on the 24x7 mail prescription fulfillment web site. My specialties are Unix and C++ which are the main reasons I get hired anywhere.

I wish I could program as well as SRD can write. My daughter attends the University of Lowell, where she has a dual major, English/Writing and Business. She writes really well. Maybe some day I'll be reading some of her work. I used to think I could write, until I read one of her papers.

Lastly, I just introduced an off-shore fellow programmer/developer to Covenant. I envy him, because he will get to read Covenant for the first time. I look forward to discussing it with him.

Thanks to All,
Michael Fortenberry

Welcome to Kevin's Watch, Michael! From one new person to another, it is a great place. Enjoy...

Be welcome to the Watch, Michael.
Be Welcome and True.

Welcome to the Watch!

hello fortenbm