Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:14 pm**

peter wrote:This Radix series sounds interesting. Is it Sci-Fi or Fantasy?

They are Sci-Fi stories.
You can find out about them here at the Radix tetrad site.

Posted: **Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:27 am**

Krazy Kat wrote:
peter wrote:This Radix series sounds interesting. Is it Sci-Fi or Fantasy?
They are Sci-Fi stories.
You can find out about them here at the Radix tetrad site.

Thanks Kat.

Posted: **Tue Apr 20, 2010 1:25 pm**

Radix is ... well, hmm...

It's sci-fi, but not hard. It's a far future tale, but it's a tale about being human, so the science is background more than central. (In this, it is like, say, Neverness.)

The writing is eclectic and poetic and very catching. Attanasio, in this book, reminds me of Delaney. I think it's the era the book was written in. Like reading Donaldson, this can entertain you or put you off, depending on your tolerance for unusual turns of phrase.

The down side is what this book hasn't got. It doesn't have a meticulous plot, a well-drawn main character, or some sort of riddle or mystery to solve as most sci-fi novels have.

Of course, this is only a down side if you need to have these things. The book has something serious to say and an entertaining way of saying it. As the main character morphs from fat slob (literally) to godmind, you participate in his journey, share his experiences, and the book leaves you with a sense that the world is wide and deep, that there's beauty and love hidden in the cracks for the finding, and that we all might be more than we seem.

Posted: **Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:41 pm**

OMG, I completely forgot about Radix. Read the first a LOOONG time ago, and was absolutely fascinated, never found the others, then eventually forgot about it...was reminded about it once, but forgot again. Time to do some online shopping, thanks for reminder

Posted: **Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:54 pm**

Re: "the others" ... looking into it, this "tetrad" thing isn't actually what someone would call a series. I discovered that the second book in the tetrad was called "In Other Worlds", and I had actually already read it. It has nothing to do with RADIX whatsoever. And I didn't find it to be a comparable read, either.

Posted: **Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:14 am**

wayfriend wrote:Re: "the others" ... looking into it, this "tetrad" thing isn't actually what someone would call a series. I discovered that the second book in the tetrad was called "In Other Worlds", and I had actually already read it. It has nothing to do with RADIX whatsoever. And I didn't find it to be a comparable read, either.

Does that imply Wayfriend, that you don't see the need to read 'In other Worlds', or indeed the other two books in the (not quite) series - but would reccomend just reading RADIX and treating it as a sepparate entity.

P.S. Has anyone read Jack Vances 'Cugels Saga' - quite out in front the most incorrigable rogue ever set down on paper and fantastically written to boot!

Posted: **Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:26 pm**

I very much enjoyed the Azimov Robots and Empire series. They didn't have the depth of Donaldson, but they have stuck with me through the years. I also remember being intrigued by the Katherine Kerr Deverry novels, although it has been a long time since I started reading them.

Posted: **Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:47 pm**

peter: Radix is, I think, exceptional, and satisfying all by itself. The writer made me want to read the rest, [which I have now ordered] not incompleteness of Radix.

Posted: **Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:07 pm**

Yes, peter, RADIX is a standalone novel as far as I am concerned. There's certainly nothing incomplete about it.

Posted: **Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:00 am**

The novels are thematically related but there's no story arc or continuity.

Last Legends of Earth has concepts from the previous novels, but plot and characters (with one exception) stands alone.

LLoE does incorporate
- voors, distorts (from Radix)
- the Zotl (from In Other Worlds)
- a character from Arc of the Dream.

Oh, and its a ton better than the 2nd and 3rd books.

(actually LLoE was my first Attanasio novel I read)

Posted: **Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:36 am**

High Lord Prothall. We'd appreciate it if you would give somebody else a chance to post once in a while! I've been listening to your constant yammering for more than seven years, and enough's enough!

Posted: **Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:39 pm**

I just read this last night

When Sunder and Covenant first meet again, after the events of the entire TOT:

"When first you persuaded me from my home and duty in Mithil Stonedown," he said thickly, "I demanded of you that you should not betray me. You impelled me on a mad search of the desert sun for my friend Marid, whom you could not save - and you refused me the use of my blood to aid you - and you required of me that I eat aliantha which I knew to be poison - and so I beseeched of you something greater than fidelity. I pleaded of you meaning for my life - and for the death of Nassic my father. And still you were not done, for you wrested Hollian Amith-daughter from her peril in Crystal Stonedown as if it were your desire that I should love her. And when we fell together into the hands of the Clave, you redeemed us from that hold, restored our lives.

"And still you were not done. When you had taught us to behold the Clave's evil, you turned your back on that crime, though it cried out for retrubution in the face of all the Land. There you betrayed me, ur-Lord. The meaning of which I was in such need you set aside. In its place, you gave me only a task that surpassed my strength."

But Sunder was still not done. "Therefore," he went on hoarsely, "it is my right that you should hear me. Ur-Lord and Unbeliever, white gold wielder," he said as if he were addressing the hot streaks that stained Covenant's face, "you have betrayed me - and I am glad that you have come. Though you come without hope, you are the one hope that I have known. You have it in your hands to create or deny whatever truth you will, and I desire to serve you. While you remain, I will accept neither despair nor doom. There is neither betrayal nor failure while you endure to me. And if the truth you teach must be lost at last, I will be consoled that my love and I were not asked to bear that loss alone.

"Covenant, hear me," he insisted. "No words suffice. I am glad that you have come."

I actually had tears in my eyes reading this....

Posted: **Thu Apr 22, 2010 8:24 pm**

If I thought long and hard about literary characters who have touched me like TC I'm sure I could make a list as long as my arm: Oliver Twist, Gollum, Papillion, to name just a few. But Earthblood's post made me realise that an equal amount of characters within the TCTC could also be made.

Having only just finished reading the One Tree after a good many years its Findail who has been foremost in my thoughts.

How can a being contain so much misery, and yet sing such a beautiful song to the "Star's" crew. I hold that the quest would never have found the Isle of the One Tree without Findail. It was he who guided Honninscrave stood on the bow faced towards their journey's end.

Posted: **Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:54 am**

I had no idea there was a third set in progress. I devoured the first two as a teenager and was just thinking of hunting them down again. No, nothing's touched me like them.

Posted: **Wed Apr 28, 2010 2:03 pm**

larocca wrote:I had no idea there was a third set in progress. I devoured the first two as a teenager and was just thinking of hunting them down again. No, nothing's touched me like them.

Why not head over to the Summonsing and introduce yourself?

Welcome to the Watch

(Hope I'm not treading on anyone official's toes with my welcomings!)

Posted: **Thu Apr 29, 2010 3:16 am**

larocca wrote:I had no idea there was a third set in progress. I devoured the first two as a teenager and was just thinking of hunting them down again. No, nothing's touched me like them.

Welcome, Larocca! I've only just started and finished the first, second, and part of the third set. I can only imagine what the wait has been like for the majority of people who post here.

The third set is being created, it's true. Runes of the Earth and Fatal Revenant have been released (I'd recommend not peeking in the Final Chronicles Forum until you've read them

). You should say "hello" in the Summonsing and introduce yourself when you get a chance.

Posted: **Thu Apr 29, 2010 9:20 am**

larocca wrote:I had no idea there was a third set in progress. I devoured the first two as a teenager and was just thinking of hunting them down again. No, nothing's touched me like them.

The other thing I would say (and I was in pretty much the same position as you) is that having access to the Watch whilst rereading the Chronicles has added to my enjoyment (and, yes, understanding!) of them immeasurably. It is a FANTASTIC site and resource.

All Hail the Watch (and its many members), I say.

Some of the Chapter Dissections, especially, are very enlightening.

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 7:27 am**

If we exclude literature like Faulkner, Foster Wallace, Joyce, Pynchon etc Donaladson rules dark fantasy for me. RR martin would if he released the next dam book be rated above.
What SRD does is almost unimaginable. He writes pain and loathing in a fantasy setting that reminds us of the cruelty of real life and within a character that is well unlikable. Why?

Because the land in the first chrons. is so beautiful .

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:17 am**

I am begining to realise much more so of late that TC is for me not exactly a dispensable element of the Chrons - this would be going way too far - but not the chief source of attraction for me in the Chrons that I thought he once was. I am in full agreement with Roynish above that the beauty of the Land and it's rich diversity of peoples is where much of the draw lies. I most definitely prefered TC in the first Chrons when he was in his 'difficult phase' even though he did terrible things (or one at least) during this period.
The Lands loss of beauty in the second chrons together with the re-introduction of old friends to some extent carried the second series for me - TC's charachter had lost some of it's 'edge' for me by this time, and though not a THOOLAH member by any means, I have always had a bit of a problem connecting with Linden. The Haruchai and giants for me, came to life in the second series - though that is not to down play the role of the Bloodguard in the first, who were to some extent like Haruchai with brass knobs on.
The third series we cannot discuss here, and on reflection that might be just as well.....

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:01 pm**

Lord Foul wrote:
Vraith wrote:
Lord Foul wrote: Try Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson, Brinn. Kind of gritty but also conventional (but innovative conventions!) fantasy, with a very, very in teresting world. Any GRR Matrin fan would be pleasantly surprised.
Hmmm...is that the same guy who's finishing Jordan's series?
Yeah. But Elantris and his Mistborn trilogy are 10x better than Wheel of Time--and have more pace. Well, just having pace is more pace than Wheel of Time.

rcfHow I agree with the "pace" of WOT but still looking forward to see how it ends up. With the whole Chronicles I was always so overwhelmed with how much sheer anguish, pain and suffering that TC goes through. Really depressed me the first time through. But now I must be on my 10/11 so it cant be all that bad can it

Kevin's Watch

Has anything touched you like TC?