Kevin's Watch

My thoughts on TLD, and the Last Chronicles as a whole, are kind of disjointed, so please bear with me.

I think, on the most basic level, the Last Chronicles seem to be telling a completely different story (and kind of story) than the First and Second Chronicles; and in some ways, I feel as though what SRD does in the Last Chronicles undermines the earlier books.

In both the First and Second Chronicles, the Land and the dangers that TC and later LA face are externalizations of their own psychological issues. And the question of the Land's reality obviously plays into that. But by the end of WGW, it feels as though the question of reality has both been answered, and also rendered moot.

Right from the "What Has Gone Before" of Runes, though, the question is reopened. At least for me, that starts the whole LC's off on the wrong foot. It makes the Land far less "important" than what's going on in LA's head.

In the first six books, the psychological struggles of TC and LA are inextricably bound up with the events in the Land. In the LC's, it feels as though the Land is "just" an arena for LC's struggles; merely a place for things to occur, rather than a fundamentally vital place - a character in it's own right.

Even as the importance of the "real world" fades (especially after the battle with Roger and the croyel at the midpoint of FR), the Land doesn't feel important. We never meet any "ordinary" people, as we did throughout the first six books (OK, there's the one scene at the Woodhelven that's wiped out in FR, but that's one scene out of four books). And it's completely glossed over at the end of TLD, with Linden's offhand comment that "thousands, maybe millions of people" died thanks to her actions. Nobody seemed to care overly much about that, least of all SRD, throughout AATE and TLD. Compare that to all the "regular people" we meet in both the First and Second Chronicles.

It feels, to me, like a cheapening of everything SRD did in the first six books, devaluing all the work he did in creating the Land and the larger world it inhabits. You can see that in his various comments in the GI about worldbuilding and the way he "only creates what he needs." I do suspect knowing that colors how I view the LC's.

The (to me) gratuitous use of teleportation, and the appearance of deus ex machina Insequents precisely where and when they're needed; not to mention other characters and races (the Feroce, for example) who show up just when they're needed with just the appropriate power to solve the problem at hand. Compare that to the First and Second Chronicles, when, yes, there were powerful beings around, but they generally had to struggle to use their powers; they didn't show up for once scene, save TC's or LA's bacon, and scamper off not to be seen again.

Another issue is the problem of Roger. Others have commented on this; the short shrift and lack of "dignity" (one of SRD's big concerns for all his characters) that he gets. In a series where one of the most basic themes is parenthood, and how far one will go to protect one's children, the fact that TC's relationship with Roger is explored not at all; and his regrets at not being a father to him are barely touched on, is a huge failing.

Jeremiah, of course, is a problem as well, at least for me. One thing that bothered me reading TLD is the lack of narrative balance (or "screen time", if you prefer). Jeremiah arguably has been dealt a worse fate, and has deeper psychological wounds, than either TC or LA did when we met them, and when we first truly meet the freed Jeremiah, he has literally been freed from his years of torment for about five minutes.

When we first meet TC, he's a 30 year old man, and he's had several months to begin to cope with his leprosy. And it takes him three full books to reach a place of understanding.

When we meet LA, her horrors are 15 years in the past, and she's managed to cope with them (in a psychologically damaging way, but still) successfully enough to become a doctor. And it takes her three books to even begin to really heal from her wounds, and another 3.5 books to get to a place of real peace.

But Jeremiah is expected, both by the author, and all the other characters, to deal with far worse horrors, with no adult experience at all to help himself, immediately (and in book terms, while TC got 3 books and LA got 6.5, Jeremiah gets not quite 1/3 of one book to deal with all his issues).

I've got more to say, but I haven't sorted it all out yet, so I'll start with this...

Too many threads and characters and "baddies", where are the normal folk in the land, it feels like they traipsed back and forth over it and met no normal people, only a multitude of characters that were not needed or just distracted, by the end we'd had the nice elohim, the crazy elohim, the ravers, she who must not be named (she who would have been better off not being in the book), roger, ravers, foul, skurj, sandgorgons, lurkers, feroce, blah blah blah. Just a mess. Fun to read in parts but overall, just felt forced, almost repetitive (hey its a big gay trip across the land to mount thunder AGAIN), Linden still annoying, Jeremiah incredibly whiney Harry Potter, overly schmaltzy with the love crap. (honestly why do all stories have to involve single people, can't happily married folk ever go on adventures and stuff) nah. after a night to think on it, LC was rubbish.

starkllr wrote:..And it's completely glossed over at the end of TLD, with Linden's offhand comment that "thousands, maybe millions of people" died thanks to her actions. Nobody seemed to care overly much about that, least of all SRD, throughout AATE and TLD. Compare that to all the "regular people" we meet in both the First and Second Chronicles.

It feels, to me, like a cheapening of everything SRD did in the first six books, devaluing all the work he did in creating the Land and the larger world it inhabits. You can see that in his various comments in the GI about worldbuilding and the way he "only creates what he needs." I do suspect knowing that colors how I view the LC's.

SRD's world-building is not nothing like that of say, Tolkien, and I think that this really began to show in the Last Chrons. When he had to strain his edifice it creaked very badly and deus-ex like the Insequent are a symptom of that. Personally, this doesn't affect how I feel about the 1st and 2nd Chrons because the writing and storytelling are of such quality that it never fails to engage and convince me.

With a better overview of the LCs, now that they are finished, I see them as a separate entity that uses the previous Chrons as a base but has no direct connection (in my heart) to what has gone before. I find them more conceptual than story-based and treating them as such has made for a much more enjoyable experience talking about them (if not reading them ).

Lambolt wrote:...nah. after a night to think on it, LC was rubbish.

TLD or LCs? Probably doesn't matter in either case

I think that this is a fair assessment. As see it, the LCs just didn't work out and overall are a bloated shambles. However, as someone who bought all the books and struggled through the whole series, I knew from very early that I was not going to get what I would have liked from the LCs. After that if I chose to read on it was more to find out what SRD was up to with it rather than for the story itself.

And, at this stage, that's where I'm finally getting some satisfaction

u.

yeah I'm not going to hold any grudges against SRD, his first 2 chrons and other work are brilliant, and have given me huge amounts of pleasure, so the fact that the last chrons were as you say a bloated mess is not going to ruin that. I did quite enjoy AATE even though that was a bit of a linear set of quests traipsing round the land, maybe thats why the dragged out pointless neverendingness of the same again in TLD was annoying, plus the endings just seem the same dont they`? Isnt the way TC dealt with Foul kind of the same, you expect a big showdown but it all turns out TC works out Fouls just a bit of him, or you cant beat him in a normal way, you have to accept him, blah blah.

I think most of all, apart from the horrendously forced plot movement points and deus ex machina the LC in general just had way too many plots, characters (and so many weird confusing names, I found it difficult to remember who was who, what was what. and a 3rd type of haruchai, no real interaction with ordinary folk, just a bazillion different superpowered land people all speaking in riddles and things that just ending up being frustrating especially when wrapped up with even more forced thesauras masturbation than ever before. I didnt care for the characters, not even TC in the end, or the plot, or any of it, whereas I loved them in the 1st, and felt real physical and emotional pain over what happened in the 2nd. Dunno. Kind of sad. There was probably some cool allegorical stuff going on in there, I just couldn't have cared less. TLD was really a very poorly written and honestly quite boring (on the whole) book. The series is in my mind just the 1st 2 sets (and I could probably be happy with just the 1st chrons because the 2nd chrons were a bit too much of a grind in places, and it already started a bit too much with the Elohim saying stuff in riddles with prophecies, and at some point you just get fed up with all that tweaking of your nose by the author that hes teasing you with nonsense

I enjoyed the Last Chronicles, but I do think that any author who loved the first two Chronicles could have written the third. It just didn't carry the same emotional weight as the first two, it was more your typical fantasy series. But still very good.

BTW, I'd love to know what people think who haven't "lived" with the first and second Chronicles for decades. Things we loved 20 years ago, it's hard for a new chapter to have that same effect of wonder on us. I wonder if people who started reading the Thomas covenant saga after Runes of the Earth came out are more likely to enjoy the Last Chronicles than us long-time fans?

There was a comment in the Gradual Interview, which I wish I could find the reference for, along the lines of SRD heavily structured the plots and character arcs of the first 2 chronicles in advance, but this time he just trusted his more mature writing ability to take him where it would take him, knowing roughly the shape of the ending.

I'd be grateful if anyone could link to this quote, because I was quite concerned when I read it that he had perhaps not deeply considered how the story mechanics of the Last Dark would work, up until the point when he actually wrote it.

Donaldson was once asked to sum up the Last Chronicles in one sentence (per book). He thought it was a silly thing too ask, but was a good sport about it:

The Runes of the Earth: "This is impossible."
Fatal Revenant: "You thought *that* was impossible? Just take a look at *this*!"
Against All Things Ending: "I'll never be a good enough writer to carry this off."
The Last Dark: "God send that my readers won't be *too* disappointed."
<grin>

(07/25/2007)

The last two make me want to cut him some slack. He was clearly worried about it.

Wow. Good find, Z.

Kinda makes me feel bad for SRD.

As I have already posted, there were some things I didn't like about the last chronicles...The only part I really found unforgivable was the wording where Mathildr (sorry if misspelled, too lazy to look it up) was going to find "his heart's desire"

I hated that choice of words and it didn't seem to belong in the land. Every time I saw it mentioned, I expected Dorothy from OZ to appear and click her heels together three times LOL

I wrote this back in 2007 and pretty much still sums up my take on the series. Very disappointing:

kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13312

I read your old post arenn, it echoes my sentiments.

starkllr, you also make a lot of points I agree with. The 'gratuitous use of teleportation' is possibly the most egregious of these in my opinion, but there are obviously others.

I will probably never re-read the Last Chronicles, but I will certainly re-read the 1st and 2nd in years to come.

Me?

I'm going to go back and re-read the first two to get the bad taste out of my mouth. Everything since the Prologue to RoE ended was downhill.