Kevin's Watch

I'm so excited to be back in The Land! In Andelain!

Where the first 100 pages nothing much happens, except deep conversations and arguments between all the characters in the vale happen. But where you don't want a page or a scene ever to end!

After reading and re-reading parts of the 5 Game of Thrones novels by GRRM since mid-January: In Westeros and Essos, 100 pages could mean 2 or 3 coups, 2 or 3 whores being bedded, 1 or 2 wargs feasting on carrion, 1 or 2 favorite characters being beheaded, and 3 dragons stealing the show from the main character.

SRD rocks!

Funny you should mention that. I just finished all 5 GRRM books and am on a full re-read of all 9 SRD books, getting ready for TLD this fall.

There is definitely a difference in writing style LOL

I didn't finish Song of ice and fire series, but from what I read it was on the path to becoming another wheel of time, and from what i've heard about the last 2 books, nothing at all happens, like ever?

Are you guys making a joke, or is 100 pages actually enough that things happen in the later books? I heard Tyrion wanders around looking for whores, and Daenerys just sort of sits in her conquered city for 2 books, doing nothing. Which is true?! ;_;

I do love though how SRD can spend 100 pages with the characters just sort of talking, and it's all compelling and important, then he spends like 40 pages to move them all the way from Revelstone to the end of the world. Unless something happens on the way.

But gosh I am so sick of chapter after chapter after chapter of the characters being 'on the road'. Not discussing anything important, nothing important happening to them, not even being pursued by villains! I am not sure if I can stomach finishing the wheel of time series, even though I know it has ended now.

What is strange is that after 100 pages in Andelain, you then have 100 and more pages in the Lost Deep where you just CAN'T put the book down!

First the high, lofty, and mesmerizing work of the Viles have to be essayed, and then, and then, and then...

I feel for them all because of the nonstop attacks they have to survive just to get through Esmer, the croyel, Roger, cavewights, skest, Kastenessen, and the Harrow's idiocy.

Then there's SWSNBN.

But then when he needs to, a lot of pointless things we don't really need to focus on can happen in a short time.

Like the 2-3? Chapters it takes to go from Revelstone to the Plains of Ra, including a large tragedy and a fairly large battle? That's half a book or a full book in some cases! Like we need to read about every single day of the main character camping on the road while walking to <whatever town>...

I have deja vu, did I already say this?

I finally got through the encounter with the Bane. It's at about p. 240.

How exhausting to read all that! I'm almost like the company now near the Spoiled Plains. Just laying down and vegging.

I know right? You think maybe some of the authors I write off as...less skilled, extend their books for exactly that reason? Too much to handle all at once otherwise?

On an unrelated note, I am so glad I did not have internet access while reading Fatal Revenant, there is no way I could have avoided looking up all the spoilers, I was so into it and unbelievably eager. I mean Covenant, Non-autistic Jeremiah, and the Theomach.

I got 2 out of 3 correct, but I was guessing the Theomach was like, Kevin somehow. Going back to help his grand grand pappy. Because I had no better candidates, and Kevin is frequently described as having a bandage on his head, and the Theomach is a mummy man.

It's a thin circumstance to base anything on I know, but I kinda didn't remember too much of the second trilogy, and forgot that Ak-Haru was...a thing. =p Although I probably would not have guessed him even if I had remembered, since I thought he was an ordinary Haruchai that Berek posted there.

Billy G. wrote:
Where the first 100 pages nothing much happens, except deep conversations and arguments between all the characters in the vale happen. But where you don't want a page or a scene ever to end!

I agree completely. As I said a few years ago in my review thread: It was an extraordinarily long time for characters to sit around in one spot and debate. I've never seen anything like it. No writer has ever attempted it, to my knowledge. The first 5 chapters are basically one long 103 page scene!

But I think that's exactly why it was an astounding piece of writing. No other writer could have pulled that off. I was continuously amazed that Donaldson had this much to say. The fact that so much occurred to him at all was just shocking.

However, by the second time he does this for twice as long, it's too much for one book.

Zarathustra wrote:

Billy G. wrote:
Where the first 100 pages nothing much happens, except deep conversations and arguments between all the characters in the vale happen. But where you don't want a page or a scene ever to end!

I agree completely. As I said a few years ago in my review thread: It was an extraordinarily long time for characters to sit around in one spot and debate. I've never seen anything like it. No writer has ever attempted it, to my knowledge. The first 5 chapters are basically one long 103 page scene!

But I think that's exactly why it was an astounding piece of writing. No other writer could have pulled that off. I was continuously amazed that Donaldson had this much to say. The fact that so much occurred to him at all was just shocking.

However, by the second time he does this for twice as long, it's too much for one book.

Ford Maddox Ford used this sort of technique throughout his Parade's End. (Incidently, Donaldson does read Parade's End once every four years)

Ultimately, this scene more then almost any other in the fantasy genre displays a sort of literary technique that, in this case, was handled wonderfully. It's referencing to read fantasy that uses bonafide literary techniques as opposed to meta-literary crap like "turning tropes on their sides" and acknowledging the existence of brown people.

@ Hashi's first question

I always thought that it was almost a proto-type for fouls throne in the crèche. I seem to remember that in the first series SRD stresses that fouls home in the creche could not have been made by any living thing.. it was too perfect. after reading the part where they passed the throne in the lost deep I assumed that he had recruited the viles to build his own place.

but idk.. just some speculation xD