Just Starting My 4th Re-Read!!!
Moderators: dlbpharmd, High Lord Tolkien
Just Starting My 4th Re-Read!!!
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!
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!
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- <i>Elohim</i>
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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.
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.
I know what an analogy is! It's like a thought...with another thought's hat on...?
The thing most people don't remember in regards to the Haruchai, is that you NEVER EVER play poker with them!
The thing most people don't remember in regards to the Haruchai, is that you NEVER EVER play poker with them!
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.
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.
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- <i>Elohim</i>
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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?
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 know what an analogy is! It's like a thought...with another thought's hat on...?
The thing most people don't remember in regards to the Haruchai, is that you NEVER EVER play poker with them!
The thing most people don't remember in regards to the Haruchai, is that you NEVER EVER play poker with them!
- Mega Fauna Blitzkrieg
- <i>Elohim</i>
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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.
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.
I know what an analogy is! It's like a thought...with another thought's hat on...?
The thing most people don't remember in regards to the Haruchai, is that you NEVER EVER play poker with them!
The thing most people don't remember in regards to the Haruchai, is that you NEVER EVER play poker with them!
- Zarathustra
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Re: Just Starting My 4th Re-Read!!!
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!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!
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.
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- Orlion
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Re: Just Starting My 4th Re-Read!!!
Ford Maddox Ford used this sort of technique throughout his Parade's End. (Incidently, Donaldson does read Parade's End once every four years)Zarathustra wrote: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!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!
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.
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.
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
- Hashi Lebwohl
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I am now rereading AATE and I didn't know where else to put these questions; please forgive if they have been answered elsewhere before.
1) is that one of Lord Foul's thrones down in the Lost Deep? As the crew is following the Harrow they pass an object which matches the description of Foul's throne from the Creche. Is that where he sat while he was corrupting the Viles?
2) if the only way into the Lost Deep was via the Viles' portal and you could open that door only by unraveling the tightly-wound threads of Vile-lore, then how did Roger and croyel/Jeremiah get in there? Were they simply better than the Harrow or they didn't care about possibly risking themselves by teleporting in? Did they know which thread to pull and how to put the wards back in place every time they left and came back?
3) Why don't they simply kill Esmer with the krill, or at least threaten to? His aid is not worth the subsequent betrayal, in my opinion. It probably wouldn't be that easy, given his heritage, though.
1) is that one of Lord Foul's thrones down in the Lost Deep? As the crew is following the Harrow they pass an object which matches the description of Foul's throne from the Creche. Is that where he sat while he was corrupting the Viles?
2) if the only way into the Lost Deep was via the Viles' portal and you could open that door only by unraveling the tightly-wound threads of Vile-lore, then how did Roger and croyel/Jeremiah get in there? Were they simply better than the Harrow or they didn't care about possibly risking themselves by teleporting in? Did they know which thread to pull and how to put the wards back in place every time they left and came back?
3) Why don't they simply kill Esmer with the krill, or at least threaten to? His aid is not worth the subsequent betrayal, in my opinion. It probably wouldn't be that easy, given his heritage, though.
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- <i>Elohim</i>
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@ 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
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
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