Kevin's Watch

what is going on?

this is the worst book of the 3rd series so far. How many more pages of utter rubbish do I have to read before the end?

Hang in there. Surely you have read enough SRD to trust him. There will be some incredible moments coming.

Savor Dam wrote:Hang in there. Surely you have read enough SRD to trust him. There will be some incredible moments coming.

Agreed. This book tried my patience, but after all was said and done, I enjoyed having read it.

my personal view is that SD has lost the plot. He has tried to create a sequel with

1 - trying to continue where he left of after WGW, I believe he has shown he has failed.

2 - Taking his readers for a ride and conning us out of money, in which he has to some extent succedded.

It's f*cking horrible. All three books in these Last Chronicles have been f*cking horrible. I simply can't believe that this is the same guy that wrote TPtP and all of the Gap books.

The First and Second Chronicles are magic. They're chock full o' interesting characters that the reader cares about. There's action. There's introspection. There's always something going on.

In the LC, all we get is Linden, who is arguably the most irritating character in any fantasy series (including Xanth).

alanm wrote:my personal view is that SD has lost the plot. He has tried to create a sequel with

1 - trying to continue where he left of after WGW, I believe he has shown he has failed.

2 - Taking his readers for a ride and conning us out of money, in which he has to some extent succedded.

The basic premise of this continuing story seems consistent and sensible. In the first Chrons Covenant only reduced Foul. Kevin did basically the same thing a thousand years before with similar results: Foul came back. In the 2nd Chrons, Covenant reduced Foul again, although the latter did it to himself this time. Of course, Foul came back again. The only thing left to do, if this is truly the last Chrons, is eradicate Foul completely.

alanm wrote:

my personal view is that SD has lost the plot.

What do you mean by this? What plot has SRD lost? This is, after all, HIS story. Assuredly, it is qualitatively different than the first two Chronicles. If you trusted him with those stories, what has changed for you in these last ones? How has he failed to continue from WGW?

there seems to me to be no contunuity. the last 3 books in my opinion do not follow on the stroy line. there is just so much that is wrong with them.

Now to cap it all we have She Who Must Not Be Named in AATE. Sorry, When did Voldermorts wife appear in the Land of Thomas Covenant?

All the new characters in the latest books from the Harrow, the Insequent, the Ardent with his lovely flowing robes. It is all just utter nosense. I read the first 2 books of the last series just once, I will do the same with AATE just to say I have read it then it goes on the book shelf never to be read again. SRD has lost the plot?

ps just got to about 250 pages now. my opinion hasn't changed. The book is just a jumble on nothing. I believe you could take away at least 200 pages of SRDs ramblings which have no bearing on the supposed storyline.

What plot would you liked to have seen these Last Chronicles follow then?

ok hows about this then.

At the end of WGW, Covenant defeats LF. Now we know from facts that the only power able to preserve LF is earthpower but that was only when the Staff of Law was destroyed. There is now a new Staff of Law, the Sunbane is gone. What power can LF use to restore himself? Infact, at the end of WGW he cast all of himself against TC until there was nothing left. LF was utterly defeated.

New plot for the new books.

Where is the power that LF used to cling too to restore himself. Where is this explained?

A fair point. It was distinctly discussed or explained in the Second Chrons that Foul supped at Earthpower in order to return to power. And even though I don't have the books in front of me, and may be wrong about this, I don't think Foul necessarily needed Earthpower to return. He is an immortal being, not of the Earth or the Land. My feeling is that he would have returned anyway.

Perhaps we'll get some information about this matter in TLD.

infact I asked the same question to SRD on his web site the answer was disappointing

Alan: Thank you for the response to my question.

So it now looks like we have 'real' and 'illusional' defeats of Foul.

So if the defeats of Foul are real and we know that the only power able to preseve him is earth power itself, then is Foul now an 'illusion'?

thanks

Alan





I�m embarrassed to admit that I don�t remember the response you mention. I can�t answer your question because I don�t recall the context of my previous remarks.

(03/23/2008)

LF doesn't need earthpower at all.
And being defeated does not mean destroyed: one you can come back from, the other leaves no you to come back.

In order to destroy Lord Foul one must destroy Earthpower then...hence the haruchai tie in of "erradicating" Earthpower? Maybe they have it right? Far stretch I think. Ultimate sacrifice for Thomas C is destroying Earthpower leaving the Land free of Foul but "in the Dark" of Earthpower.

Does Foul use, want or need Earthpower...hmmmm

I never was really sure but interesting plot. I thought he only used Earthpower through other people/things. Not directly himself but in a way that I guess you can say he needed Earthpower. He himself didn't wield it but used others to wield it. Logic?

Vraith wrote:LF doesn't need earthpower at all.
And being defeated does not mean destroyed: one you can come back from, the other leaves no you to come back.

yes he does. book 4 and when TC has his writs cut he discovers that earthpower was where LF was able to resurect himself. Unless you are now saying this is wrong?

And the reason he could do this was because the staff of law was destroyed.

It is true that the soothtell revealed to TC how Foul had used Earthpower to return to himself, to his power...yet that does not mean that Earthpower is the only way for Foul to return.

Though we have not received any explanation about how he returned after depleting himself in an attempt to destroy TC in WGW, the story is not finished.

I also found this book to be difficult going, though their are some well written sections. The whole she thing just seems clunky and awkward and why choose a moniker that so closely resembles a character from the most popular series of books of this generation. It really just is curious and don't tell me he has not heard of JKR.
When its covenant at the end i went thank you, at last.

Roynish wrote:I also found this book to be difficult going, though their are some well written sections. The whole she thing just seems clunky and awkward and why choose a moniker that so closely resembles a character from the most popular series of books of this generation. It really just is curious and don't tell me he has not heard of JKR.
When its covenant at the end i went thank you, at last.

JKR may be the most popular (does that only include book sales in the genre, or overall? Does "popular" include box office take?), but it is for kids. It is clearly written for kids. I saw part of one Potter movie and saw nothing but tropes. I would have loved that stuff if I was 12 because I didn't know about tropes and because the main characters are kids.

However, I'm not 12 anymore, and would never have heard of the Rowling connection if someone on the Watch hadn't mentioned it.

The fact that Potter is written for children only makes the similarity (in this work written for adults) all the more disappointing.

However, I wouldn't have known about it either if not for this forum. I haven't read any Potter, and I've only seen 2 of the movies.

I wonder how people here would react if another author used, say, "Earthblood" in his work? Would the same people be defending it as a legitimate creative act, or would they think it's a rip-off of Donaldson? I'm not just being a smartass ... I really need that word for my own story. It's a completely different concept from Donaldson's Earthblood, but the word itself is just too essential and potent for me to come up with anything else to describe the idea I'm trying to get across. I suspect Donaldson fans would cry foul (heh), so I'm struggling to name it something else. But I don't want to give it up.

SRD has had the idea for these Last Chronicles in his head for a couple decades, so it's just possible that his name for this bane actually precedes Rowling's use of it in her story.