Kevin's Watch

I came to Covenant at the beginning, in the seventies, when I was just a youngster, and have read the Chronicles a hundred times - like everyone else, but could never get on with the Gap series. I think the first book put me off so I left the first three Gap paperbacks lurking in a dark corner for the last twenty years. Anyway, I found them recently, and looking for a diversion from the long wait for Last Dark I thought I would give them another go. Being in my dotage now, I have lots of time and I couldn't put them down. I managed to find copies of the final two books and have just finished The Gap into Ruin - This Day All Gods Die. I think it might be the best book I have ever read. Love it, love it, maybe even more than Covenant. Never though I would say that.

Sorry to rabbit on but I am still a bit in shock.

Blossom

Well, welcome to the big show, Blossom.
you will find a fair number here who agree completely with your assessment.
I still prefer [slightly] TC, but Gap is also awesome, and the last two books are pure killers without doubt.

yep. /nod nod

i hadn't even actually heard of the gap cycle until i joined the watch, blossom, if you can believe that! amazing since i am an avid sci fi fan. the gap fans here totally convinced me to read the books.

i outspokenly think the gap cycle is donaldson's finest writing.

i am, at some point, also going to read the detective books too. i'd read the first one when it came out and thought it was ok but wasn't knocked out. (i'm also a big detective fiction fan) but that was, as you said, when i was a youngster (23) and now that i'm also in my dotage and having read a TON more detective fiction than i had at that point, i think i want to read them.

anyways, just concurring with your wow!

lucimay wrote: i am, at some point, also going to read the detective books too.

I accidentally read the last one a few years back, wasn't paying attention that it was part of a series. I thought it was above average but not stellar. I know there's a compilation out that has all 4 in it, but I am absolutely not going to start yet another series where the last book won't be out for years and years...last I heard he intends a 5th/final book, but doesn't have any idea for it yet.

The Gap is amazing, but I found it tough reading. The violence kind of got to me. And the aliens are the creepiest ever.

The detective books aren't a series, in the way the GAP is, or the first Chronicles. They are all self-contained novels. It's just that the same two characters are the protagonists in each one. Sort of like any other book in the detective genre. Like Jack Reacher. or Agatha Christie. Etc.

Having read them, I will say that they are good. The problem with them is that their main value isn't as detective novels, which gives them a genre problem. But as good stories, they serve very well.

wayfriend wrote:The detective books aren't a series, in the way the GAP is, or the first Chronicles. They are all self-contained novels. It's just that the same two characters are the protagonists in each one. Sort of like any other book in the detective genre. Like Jack Reacher. or Agatha Christie. Etc.

Having read them, I will say that they are good. The problem with them is that their main value isn't as detective novels, which gives them a genre problem. But as good stories, they serve very well.

Yep. I haven't read The Man Who Fought Alone yet.... that's my emergency Donaldson for when withdrawal gets real bad. As Wayfriend said, though, it is more of a series like the Tony Hillerman Navajo policemen novels. Sure, you can get a 'bigger story' out of the entire series, but you can also be easily satisfied with just starting anywhere.

And they get better at around halfway through the second book. The Man Who Tried to Get Away was simply awesome, in my opining.

Welcome to the Watch Blossom. Like LuciMay, I think the Gap is SRD's best.

Look around, join in. Always good to get new people participating.

--A

Agreed! To me, the Gap is SRD's all time high (thus far). It gave me a total paradigm shift in more ways than one. And, oddly enough, that's probably why I have never reread it. Gonna try to dare myself to do it, possibly after my first full Malazan reread - have gotten up to Kruppe at his finest in TtH now.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for welcoming me and for listening to my senile ravings

Trouble is, after The Gap, what can I read now? I can't find anything that measures up.

wayfriend wrote:The detective books aren't a series, in the way the GAP is, or the first Chronicles.

True, but it's a peccadillo of mine. Even when I read the Christie ones [I had to when I first met my wife, a fan who owned all of them in paperback...it's a lot of books] I hated reading them out of order, it just bugs me. I don't like prequels either.

And blossom, don't worry about senile ravings...we're not prejudiced or bigoted, we accept ravings of all kinds. Hell, some of my best friends are ravers.

I too, could not get through the first Gap book the first time I tried. That was probably 10 years ago and I admit that I didn't see the virtue in it then. Last year I read it again with new insight into how Donaldson writes, and I am so glad I did! Wow! The story is so much richer then I thought possible. By the time I was introduced to Min Donner, Hashi Lebwol, and Warden Dios I was totally turned around, on the edge of my seat.

What is amazing to me is how the characters change right before your eyes, in a way that is so organic that you can hardly believe they are the same people you started with. Yet it makes perfect sense!

It also amazes me how Donaldson was able to weave all the characters and all the plot points to form such a spectacular ending. How unlikely was that!

Welcome singingstone!

Chalk me up as another Gap enthusiast. Recently re-read them and found them just as excellent.

Also:

Vraith wrote:Hell, some of my best friends are ravers.

The Ravers are my friends, well, something like friends, all three. Do you know more? I'm interested.

I've only read The Gap novels once, and I'd like to read them again, but I'm in the middle of The One Tree and it will take a wile before I get all the way through AATE.

Mordant's Need is also on my list of re-reads, as well as A Requiem For Homo Sapiens.

I have a lot of work to do!

By the way, thanks for the welcome, Cambo. It's great to e a part of Kevin's Watch!

I'm actually re-reading the GAP right now, and I'm struck by two things about The Real Story:

1) How utterly brutal Angus is to Morn,
2) How utterly overcome Angus is by his own weakness.

Spoiler

The second is rather premoniscient of Nick and Morn, as well.

Rigel wrote:

Spoiler

The second is rather premoniscient of Nick and Morn, as well.

Spoiler

I think that's probably one of the reasons that I never liked Morn very much. She's a disaster. She ruins everyone she meets, and she never even notices.

CovenantJr wrote:

Spoiler

I think that's probably one of the reasons that I never liked Morn very much. She's a disaster. She ruins everyone she meets, and she never even notices.

That actually made me laugh. While I don't agree, I can see how you would feel that way, and it struck me as being so distinct from my impression that I couldn't help myself

CJ! There you are.

Yeah, Morn sorta grated on me quite a lot too. Maybe SRD overdid her "fragility" just a touch.

--A