Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:18 am**

sindatur wrote:
Variol Farseer wrote:If the name of the Insequent means anything, it means that they are out of sequence — not part of the natural causal order under the Law.

My guess — and this is no more than a guess — is that they were not meant to exist in the Earth's past; when they do show up in the past they are invaders out of the future, like the caesures, and part of the corruption of Time that seems to be Lord Foul's last and latest play to break the Arch. Their visible effects have been very subtle — things that could easily have happened by other means not involving time travel — for the same reason that the Sunbane was originally subtle. The inertia of the past is enormous, and a time-traveller can insert himself into the stream only as an unnecessary cause: Berek learned about hurtloam from Linden, but could have discovered it another way; the Theomach became ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol, but it could have been some great explorer of the ancient Earth who guided Berek to the One Tree — you see the game. But each intervention pushes the history a little closer to the point where time travel becomes necessary to the past — where the causal sequence cannot be explained without it. And then, I suspect, the Arch cracks and breaks; or so Lord Foul hopes.
I can buy most of that, but, The Guardian of the One Tree puts a Kink into that, Doesn't it, since it seems to be a "natural"progression for all of Covenant's and Linden's time in The Land?

Until I read the Last Chronicles I believed Ak Haru to be an ancient legendary Haruchai, their Berek or the Ranyhyn's Kelenbhrabanal.

Posted: **Tue Aug 07, 2012 8:27 am**

Does anyone remember one of the 'DragonLance' fantasy series (maybe a Weiss and Hickman one) where in the third book of a good 'sword and sorcery' trilogy, at the very end the planet was invaded by 'ray' weilding aliens in UFO's from outer space.

No Donaldson! Noooooo!!!!!

(A case of 'How Bad Can It Get' rather than 'How Bad Is It')

Posted: **Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:15 pm**

I am proud to say that I never read any Dragonlance books. Based on what I knew of them, I concluded that would despise them so I spared myself the misery.

Posted: **Wed Aug 08, 2012 11:12 am**

Not necessarily a good move Hashi. The original two Weiss and Hickman trilogies (Starting with 'Dragons of the Autumn Twilight') were, I would have said, two of the best 'Sword and Sorcery' trilogies ever written. The standard rapidly went into decline after that, but if you are a S&S fan don't miss these - they are cracking reads!

Posted: **Wed Aug 08, 2012 5:29 pm**

No offense, but I thought Dragonlance was immature fluff as a teenager, I can't imagine reading them again as an adult. But maybe they'd surprise me now.

Posted: **Wed Aug 08, 2012 7:33 pm**

Zarathustra wrote:No offense, but I thought Dragonlance was immature fluff as a teenager, I can't imagine reading them again as an adult. But maybe they'd surprise me now.

Heh...I was already thoroughly adult when I was introduced to them [or as adult as I'm likely to get, at this point].
If we did anything like an analysis/dissection, I'm not sure I could find anything good to say about them...except maybe, MAYBE one character [Sturm], and that "well, they're better than those Dark Elf books."
And yet...I just like them [the two tril's peter is talking about...the seasons one and the Twin ones].
Guess they're a literary version of my Kiss thing...I just purely enjoy the band.

Posted: **Wed Aug 08, 2012 8:43 pm**

Variol Farseer wrote:If the name of the Insequent means anything, it means that they are out of sequence — not part of the natural causal order under the Law.

My guess — and this is no more than a guess — is that they were not meant to exist in the Earth's past; when they do show up in the past they are invaders out of the future, like the caesures, and part of the corruption of Time that seems to be Lord Foul's last and latest play to break the Arch. Their visible effects have been very subtle — things that could easily have happened by other means not involving time travel — for the same reason that the Sunbane was originally subtle. The inertia of the past is enormous, and a time-traveller can insert himself into the stream only as an unnecessary cause: Berek learned about hurtloam from Linden, but could have discovered it another way; the Theomach became ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol, but it could have been some great explorer of the ancient Earth who guided Berek to the One Tree — you see the game. But each intervention pushes the history a little closer to the point where time travel becomes necessary to the past — where the causal sequence cannot be explained without it. And then, I suspect, the Arch cracks and breaks; or so Lord Foul hopes.

Good, thought-provoking post, Variol. The Insequent do strike me as unnatural to the world of the Land, as do their powers. It is their inxplicability that makes them feel like a deux ex machina. SRD has made no attempt (that I know of) in the Last Chrons to explain their origins or the origins of their powers (or their immortality). Your idea that their presence in the past may eventually break the Arch is interesting (if a bit too meta for my taste

), but it doesn't look to me like there is enough 'time' left in the Last Chrons for this to play out.

u.

Posted: **Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:43 am**

Zarathustra wrote:No offense, but I thought Dragonlance was immature fluff as a teenager

No denying that Z but like candy floss (or Marilyn Monroe) it 'aint good for you - but you can't help liking it!

(p.s. Thanks Vraith for that albeit qualified bit of support. I was begining to feel a bit isolated there for a moment!

)

Now back too the thread which I so rudely diverted from.......

Posted: **Thu Aug 09, 2012 12:13 pm**

I totally get the Kiss analogy. That's why I qualified my own post by saying that maybe they'd surprise me now.

My personal guilty pleasure is ACDC. As Eddie Van Halen once said, they play the same song over and over, but damn it's a good song!

Posted: **Thu Aug 09, 2012 5:38 pm**

Zarathustra wrote:My personal guilty pleasure is ACDC. As Eddie Van Halen once said, they play the same song over and over, but damn it's a good song!

Amen to that.

"Ok, blues riff in A, sing about booze and girls....go!"

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2012 1:15 am**

For Dragonlance, here's the essentials.

1) Dragons of Autumn Twilight

2) Dragons of Winter Night

3) Dragons of Spring Dawning

then read:

4) Time of the Twins

5) War of the Twins

6) Test of the Twins

then finally read:

7) Dragons of Summer Flame

Then stop. Nothing else with the Dragonlance name has ever been good. Most of it is God-awful. Those seven novels are acceptable to very good, however. Remember they are not going to be Donaldson or Erikson in complexity, but they are as good as (better than, actually) Eddings.

Posted: **Wed Aug 15, 2012 3:46 pm**

HC above gets it bang on - I'd certainly put the books he cites above Eddings and agree with the rest being nonsense. Never read Erikson - maybe it's time.

Posted: **Thu Aug 16, 2012 2:04 pm**

peter wrote:HC above gets it bang on - I'd certainly put the books he cites above Eddings and agree with the rest being nonsense. Never read Erikson - maybe it's time.

Thanks, peter.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on Erikson's books. If you do read them, let me know what you think!

Posted: **Thu Aug 16, 2012 4:34 pm**

HC - Will do. Will order 'Gardens of the Moon' to take on holiday shortly.

Posted: **Thu Aug 16, 2012 9:10 pm**

I can move the "Dragonlance" related posts into a separate thread if that would be helpful.

Posted: **Fri Aug 17, 2012 4:11 pm**

I think we're all done now dlbpharmd. Sorry for the thread hijak. Won't repeat it again.

Posted: **Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:33 pm**

Pffft, everybody is so down on DragonLance. (That wasn't a DL book btw...maybe Death Gate Cycle?)

Anyway, Weiss & Hickman wrote a few series I would recommend to anybody.

The Darksword trilogy, and the Rose of the Prophet trilogy. And I quite like Weiss' Star of the Guardians series too. (Ok, maybe a touch derivative, but good.)

Ok, now we're done.

--A

Posted: **Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:34 am**

Avatar wrote:Ok, now we're done.

Oh no, we're not, I'm out of the closet too. I LOVE the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon!! Yes, I do have to squint and fast-forward through some of the love scenes-- waaaaayy too much information in some of them-- but the characters and psychology are great. I am sure that for some here, the word "godawful" might come to mind (here comes that bloody big Scot, kilt and red hair flying again?) but they are great storytelling. Time travel, to boot.

Posted: **Tue Aug 13, 2013 12:59 pm**

Cail - [just in case you keep an eye on this topic] - Have you read AATE yet? Just re-read your original post here and wondered whether you had decided to continue with the 3rd Chrons or not, and if so what your take on the 3rd book was. [Sorry if you've spoken elsewhere on this - I'm not very good at hunting stuff out here.] We're coming to the end of the road what with TLD but a few short weeks away and I wonder if this influences your position on continuing at all. Like you, the third series didn't do it for me, but I have stuck with it [possibly out of a combination of desparation and bloody-mindedness], and now the end-game approaches I'm looking forward to getting it done. I don't know If TLD can pull off a master-stroke where [in my view] the other 3 have failed - but SRD is a master at his art and anything has to be possible!

Posted: **Fri Aug 16, 2013 5:22 pm**

peter did you ever read those Erikson books?

Kevin's Watch

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