When were The Last Chrons first conceived.....

[peter]

..... and was it in the form that they were finally delivered in.

I read an entry in a 'fantasy' genre compendium cum encyclopedia about SRD and the original chrons only shortly [a year maybe] after I had read the First Chrons [and I read them shorltly after their UK publication]. I was tremendously exited to read in the entry that Donaldson had indicated the possibility that a second series and even a third might be forthcoming. I have a vague recollection that in a short quote from the man himself, he indicated that the idea for both series had come to him pretty much together when he was pressed to think about the possible form of a second series by LDR {I may be 'conjuring' memories here but I don't think so}. Sure enough a year or two later the second series appeared - but with no indication at the end that there might be scope for this third series to materealise. Given the pasage of so many years, I had forgotten the reference to a third series and was struck [briefly] dumb when coming on it by chance in my local book store.

The question I want to ask is do you guys think the series we got, all those years later was indeed the one that SRD had concieved almost simultaneously with the second trilogy and do you see any [whats the word] foreshadowing[?] of the third series in either the first ot the second. Is there any evidence that say, the insequant were waiting in the wings, or that the Elohim would be drawn out of Elemesnedine, that the haruchai would shed tears or that the Creator would step out of the game. I mean no criticism of the last four books at all by the following, but if the story I recall is true, then I don't think the Last Chrons that SRD published 25 odd years later were the same Third Chrons that he concieved all those years ago at the same time as the second Chrons. The differences are too great re the books style and I see no foregrounding of the latter stories in the former at all.

[wayfriend]

Donaldson has told us that he left hooks in the Second Chronicles that would make the Third Chronicles possible.

Knowing the essential story of “The Last Chronicles” before I ever started working on “The Second Chronicles,” I took great pains to plant the necessary seeds throughout those earlier books.

(11/09/2004)

One "seed" that he mentioned specifically was the thing emerging from the Cavewights' bone pile at the end of WGW.

That's one of the ideas I planted in "The Second Chronicles" to prepare the way for "The Last Chronicles." But my thinking back then wasn't as explicit as you suggest. I was simply leaving a hint for myself, and for my readers, that there remained SOMEthing rotten in Denmark, er, I mean the roots of Mount Thunder. The details I figured out later.

(03/22/2011)

He hinted at some other "seeds", with no details.

I'm willing to say this much: the breaking of the Law of Life, and the resurrection of Hollian, were absolutely critical to both "The Second Chronicles" and "The Last Chronicles". And the fact that Linden's Staff is not informed by the lore of the Old Lords is no accident.

(09/10/2008)

As Donaldson waited over twenty years to write the Last Chronicles, its not stretching things to think the story changed in his head over that time.

After all, my imagination and I didn't spend 20 years in stasis.

(12/20/2007)

I don't recall any specific lists of things he had changed (but it would be a great GI question).

Some things I do recall:

So no, way back in the early 80s I didn't foresee the role that parenthood would play in "The Last Chronicles". (I wasn't a parent myself in those days.) As soon as I started writing on TROTE, however, I realized that something was missing from my conception of the story. Something vital. Something without which I wouldn't be able to go where I intended to go. And after some weeks of mental floundering, my subconscious finally gave me Jeremiah. Who was implied by Roger, and who in turn implied Anele.

As direct consequence, this story has become for me--as it has for you--more "intimate" than the previous "Chronicles".

(12/20/2007)

That's a whole lot of changes. Jeremiah himself was a change. And Anele. You might even conclude the intended level of intimacy changed since conception.

I also have this:

Second, Kastenessen. If I had been able to foresee (way back in the early '80s) this bit of confusion, I might have omitted the word "name" from "reaving him of name and choice and time". I've always intended that he would retain himself: he was "bound" in the sense of "being tied down" (magically, of course), not in the sense of "being transformed into something else." (Don't forget that his Appointment was in part a punishment. What good is punishment if he isn't somehow aware of being punished?)

(03/07/2007)

I think that makes Kastenessen a "seed", too.

There're probably more quotes you can find, but they are hard to find.

My inclination is to believe that Donaldson's ideas about the Last Chronicles thirty years ago were more like intentions and vague notions rather than plot specifics. Covenant and Foul would unify. The World would be destroyed and be recreated. The Haruchai would be redeemed. The Ranyhyn would be back. Etc.etc.

After all, he didn't write it yet.

[Ananda]

Funny, I was just thinking earlier while the christian thread was on my mind, that I feel like the three chronicles should be taken as separate works set in the same universe with the same characters (especially the third).

I think the difference in each series is as simple as he was a different person when he wrote each of them.

The first he wrote as a young man who was unpublished and then just getting into the writing business.
The second as a successful author in a sort of newly expanding genre.
The third as an older man with the bulk of a lifetime behind him.

[wayfriend]

The third as an older man with the bulk of a lifetime behind him.

He had also, in the interim, written Mordant's need, the Gap series, and the Man Who series, not to mention short stories. Particularly the Gap and Man Who books challenged him to change the way he writes. (I particularly found a lot of the Last Chronicles writing to be reminiscent of the Gap books.)

[peter]

That was impressively researched Wayfriend and if fact provides a lot more info re the question than I had supposed to exist. I'm glad the thing about the 2nd and 3rd Chrons ideas being born close together was in some degree correct and yes, it makes sense that as a 'bare-bones' idea all those years ago there was still much scope for alteration of style etc in the actual writting when it was eventually done - reflective of course of changes in SRD himself as [as for us all] the effect of time and the passage of years did their work on him.

There has been talk, supported by SRD's comments in the GI itself I believe, that part of his intention with the Last Chrons was to elevate the status of the fantasy genre toward a point where it could be regarded as 'serious literature' as opposed to a sort of 'kid's version' of the same, which is possibly the best that Tolkein ever achieved. {Peter ducks his head in anticipation of the torrent of abuse this comment could engender } Given that there is little in the 2nd Chrons to suggest that such was high on his list of goals at this stage of his Chrons career, I would sugest that this high goal at least was a later development in his thinking regarding fantasy.

[wayfriend]

peter, I am pretty sure Donaldson's desire to see fantasy succeed as real literature, and his ambitions to achieve this, date back to the first Chronicles. He wrote all about this in his essay "Epic Fantasy in the Modern World: A Few Observations".

[peter]

Just seen this Wayfriend [alas on my way to work] and skimmed it briefly. Yes it certainly seems to indicate that SRD's literary ambitions for fantasy were there from the word go, although I'm not sure I entierly agree with his 'definition' of what constitutes fantasy [and I positively bristled at his dismissal of Robert E Howard whose Conan books I think make great reading]. I'll need to come back to this to give it a proper reading, but getting back to the point, I still think it would be fair to say that The Last Chrons wear their putative literary credentials much more on their sleeve than the first two [who, while being undeniably serious in tone were still much more narrative based {not, perhaps, that this renders them any the less 'literary'}].