Kevin's Watch

OKay, most of us here Love the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

Although, some of us love the First Chronicles more and the 2nd and 3rd. Some of us love the first two more than the third; but we all have some sort of love for the Chronicles.

And don't worry; I won't put any kind of spoilers about any of the final Chronicles here.

All three stories though, and very linear. Covenant/Linden show up in the Land, and its fairly clear what they will have to do: Beat Foul.

Granted, it never turns out the way the reader expects; and there are enough twists and turns to keep us reading; but its basically one story going on. Even the Illearth War, though there were more than one thing going on, was only broken up for half of the book.

Many of us here read Stephen Erikson. (Including Donaldson). Many of us read George R Martin. I'm pretty sure that a bunch of people read (or used to read) Robert Jordan too.

Their stories (I'm just guessing about Jordan here, I've not read any Wheel of Time books, but I know there is a lot of them) have SO many characters, so many interchanging plots going on at once, and they take place over so many books, it can be difficult to know what the actual story is until you are a couple of books in(and maybe not even then!!) But they are written well enough, that we want to get to know every character, and every detail of every little town that the story goes through.

The Chronicles are not written this way though. Its clear from the get-go of each story, at least who the main character is, and what the main problem they are going to face is going to be.

So again, in reading a series which takes place over five, or ten (or more) books, stories where one chapter is in a different part of the world than the next chapter, and you don't know how they will relate until later on in the book (or maybe even later on in the series); in reading stories like this, does it take away now, from how you read the Chronicles?

no not at all. different worlds, different stories.
(well...all hero journeys are the same story but
normally that's where the similarities end for me)

some worlds are more attractive to me than others.

the land was never my favorite story world in fantasy.
tolkien has always held that spot, or middle earth rather.
then along came erikson.
erikson's and esslemont's world usurped tolkien's world
in terms of my favorite fantasy world.
as i said in another thread, it doesn't much matter what
happens in that world (plot or character-wise), it's the world
i like.

as to sci-fi, until i read the Gap, it was Asimov's Foundation
that was my favorite sci-fi story world. (altho when i was
younger, i loved edgar rice burroughs' mars books and
john carter, the fighting man of mars!!) and the Gap's world
is very similar. i could see both hari seldon and hashi lebwohl
in the same universe. i could see the UMCP existing in the Galactic
Empire. well you get the idea.

anyways, interesting thinking about this, drewfish.

No, doesn't bother me, either. Different people set out to do different things, and they do things in different ways. Any format (heck, and genre of human creativity) can be done superbly, or badly. As you may know, I can't stand the Final Chrons. Still, the first two are among the most extraordinary things I've ever read. They changed my life.

Malazan is among the most extraordinary things I've ever read. In entirely different ways, though. I'm 48 now, not 18. I don't need to learn the same lessons I learned then. I already have a good understanding of myself. Malazan does other things for me.

And yeah, the world of Malazan (I think it's referred to as WU, for whatever reason) is far and away the place I'd live if I could choose. Seven Cities for me, thanks. Wouldn't complain about Genabackis, though.

The more you read (and more widely; doesn't really work if you're basically reading the same book over and over with different names on the cover), the more you get familiar with how it all works and the more you learn to notice where it doesn't. So in a sense, yes.


Fist, they call it Wu because Erikson unwisely shared that he and Esselmont called it Wu at one point as a joke (but no longer do). I don't know what the reference was meant to be myself.

Ah. Thanks.

But now I want to know what they meant...

For me it comes down to 'trust' and 'good writing'. (And I define good writing broadly to include the writing itself and the ideas contained within it.)
If an author gets these two things right for me, they can stay in one person's head in one tent on one tiny patch of land on one world, or they can jump all over the place.

I was thinking about this the other day actually. I'm Malazaning at the moment, (I checked with Strunk and White and yes it is a verb), and I experienced that moment of disappointment you get when you're in the middle of a really good point in the narrative of a character to whom you've become attached and all of a sudden you're somewhere else. A couple of pages into this 'somewhere else', during which nothing 'happened', I realised I trusted Erikson, that I was happy for him to set up new scenery, architecture and characters because he had put the writing biccies in the bank and earnt my trust. I can be an impatient reader, either skimming descriptions or putting books down altogether, so I know a writer's got it right (for me) when I actually read all the words!

I find that I can't read other authors because I love Covenant so much. I'm trying to read The Kingkiller Chronicles by Rothfuss, and it's really slow going. In fact, I'd rather take a beating than read another page. It was the same way with The Real Story and GRRM's A Game of Thrones. Halfway through each book, I hated it and put it down, and have never picked it back up.

I think I remember SRD talking about this in the GI once. He had said that Newer Fantasy books are so broad now so they can compete with each other.

I like both way I guess.
Its impressive when an author like Donaldson can write such a broad story with only one or two POV characters.

He didn't NEED to write two or three chapters from Kasreyn's POV in order for us to understand how he worked. He didn't need for us to witness Foamfollower's entire trip from Seareach up to when he meets Covenant. Hell, he didn't even need to go into much detail regarding the Slaughter of the Giants in TIW: just a tale from a Bloodguar that takes one chapter was more than enough for us to know what happened.

But then again, reading something like Malazaan; when it DOES finally come together always feels good and you get that, "NOW I get it!" kind of feeling.

I think that if an author like Erikson or Martin had written the Chronicles; the first chapter would have been about Baradakas, forming the staff. Then perhaps a brief telling of the Ur-Vile who killed the Waynyhym in the Waymeet. Back to the real world, we would first meet Suzie Thurston, getting ready to perform at some seedy bar.
There would have to be a chapter or two about Drool finding the staff, and Foul showing up and manipulating him.
A brief glimpse into Triock's love of Lena would be necessary, as would a full blown tale of the birth of the triplets, and the beginning of Foamfollwers trip.
THEN maybe, we would meet Covenant!!

But then again, if Donaldson had have written Malazaan, then perhaps the entire events of Gardens on the Moon would have been just a summery from someone in Deadhouse Gates. And the Chain of Dogs would have something we just briefly heard about!

Or they could be completely different types of story and you mgiht credit authors with some ability to adapt their style so it suits the needs of the story.

That was basically my point.

The Chronicles could not have worked if the story jumped around.

I think a lot of that has to do with the good guys and bad guys are so black and white.

But you said that if those other authors had told the story they'd have done it in a totally inappropriate style, which I think is unfair to those authors (who are entirely capable of tellnig stories in different styles to the big multi-character epic).

Well, I did kind of mean it as a joke.

I thought I was being quite clever, saying that Erikson would have began LFB with Barakas.

Their stories (I'm just guessing about Jordan here, I've not read any Wheel of Time books, but I know there is a lot of them) have SO many characters, so many interchanging plots going on at once, and they take place over so many books, it can be difficult to know what the actual story is until you are a couple of books in(and maybe not even then!!) But they are written well enough, that we want to get to know every character, and every detail of every little town that the story goes through.

In Jordan's case, the plots only really become complex around book 4 or so. Prior to that, while there are multiple plot threads going on, it seems pretty centered around one plot event (the journey in book 1, an invasion in book 2, the stone of tear in book 3). But still has shifting POVs.

Never. I can even say that I believe Erikson's Memories of Ice to be the best fantasy I've ever read, including TCTC, and still Erikson's got no chance of being as important to me as Donaldson and Covenant.

Erikson and other authors have changed my perceptions in their various ways, and certainly given me an appreciation of what can be achieved through the written word. Covenant changed my life.

I prefer Donaldson's style. Frankly, the million-character POV fantasy epic is a bit of a fad, in my opinion. Wait 10 years, then see if it's still around.

Erikson's chicanery came back to bite him anyway, with that disappointing final book.

SRD handles the multiple POV thing better in the Gap books. Keep each chapter short, and keep the narrative tight and focused. Opposite of Erikson and (to a lesser extent) Martin.

My second-favorite fantasy author, Kay, also handles this in a more linear and less bloated way, again just my opinion.

Erikson's style didn't come back to bite him, because the final book was not disappointing. It's all subjective.

Fist and Faith wrote:Erikson's style didn't come back to bite him, because the final book was not disappointing. It's all subjective.

Of course it's all subjective! Take it easy, Fist!

But... But... But...

Fist and Faith wrote:Erikson's style didn't come back to bite him, because the final book was not disappointing. It's all subjective.

Oh, I disagree. Erikson was too clever by half, and his attempt to twist the narrative into a new shape 2/3 of the way through the tale was awkward and off-putting.

Not saying much of the 10 book epic wasn't fantastic - of course it was. But the overall arc was sabotaged at least some extent by the author's...hubris (not sure how else to put it) in thinking he could outsmart his readership and create some sort of "twist" in the last part of the story.

I'm not going to be more specific because of spoilers...I'm sure you know to what I'm referring. If you liked the way things went plot-wise, and weren't disappointed, well, that's great. To me it was disappointing to some extent.

Not as disappointing as the end of King's Dark Tower series...that ended with an enormous thud...but disappointing nonetheless.

What twist?