The Gradual Interview

For discussion about Stephen R. Donaldson's other works, Reed Stephens, group meetings, elohimfests, SRD sightings, and more.

Moderator: Seareach

User avatar
Seareach
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 5860
Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:25 am

Post by Seareach »

Ok...I've split this thread.

Anyone who wants to to discuss the above GI quote (ie: who is or isn't the rightful wielder of white gold) and include AATE spoilers, please do it in the AATE forum. For those who were discussing it in this thread, your discussion is now located in the AATE forum, topic title of Rightful white gold wielder(s).

Any questions, comments, abuse... ;) ...please pm me.

...and I hope most of that made sense. Sorry. I'm on my second glass of wine! :D
Image
User avatar
Orlion
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 6637
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 12:30 am
Location: Getting there...

Post by Orlion »

Light weight! ;)
'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
User avatar
Seareach
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 5860
Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:25 am

Post by Seareach »

my tolerance is down. I was trying to give up... ;) :D
Image
User avatar
Creator
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 4865
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 3:51 am
Location: Oak Ridge, NC

Post by Creator »

An Interesting GI - what might it suggest?!
Ian Boulton wrote:Hi Steve,

.. How come the people of the land have a command of vocabulary that's almost as good as yours? Cord Bhapa just used the word "guerdon" and I bet he doesn't have a copy of The Oxford English Dictionary. Or even one of your American Webster ones!...

SRD wrote: MOD EDIT: Possibly contains BIG TLD spoiler...I don't know but let's not take any chances
Spoiler
I'll restrict myself to a short answer. Once you accept the notion that all of these characters find their genesis in Covenant's mind , the explanation is clear. Naturally they know all the words he knows.
(01/12/2011)
Now here, by the end of the Second Chronicles, I thought the Land was patently 'real' and external from Covenant ... What might this suggest for the Last Dark?!
He/She who dies with the most toys wins! Wait a minute ... I can't die!!!
User avatar
Seareach
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 5860
Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:25 am

Post by Seareach »

A mod note from Seareach

Hi everyone. I can't make any educated comments regarding the GI answer Creator has quoted above. It took me aback when I read it but that isn't due to anything I do or don't know about TLD. That said, I've decided discussion of this should occur in the AATE forum and so all the posts after Creators have been moved there and put in a locked thread titled "discussion from SRD GEN regarding possible spoiler on GI". You can continue your discussions in the thread by THEOMACH called Possible spoiler of "The Last Dark" in the GI?[/] it's here kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20439

I'm probably being over cautious but that's what I've decided to do. :)

Any probs, questions etc just shoot me a pm. :)
Cheers.
Image
User avatar
thewormoftheworld'send
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 2156
Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2007 1:40 am
Location: Idaho
Contact:

Post by thewormoftheworld'send »

matrixman wrote:Unfortunately for his financial well-being, SRD waited too long to write the Last Chronicles. Yes, he will be paid for writing it, but he's not going to be swimming in money. This is not a judgment against SRD, just an observation that time has not been kind to his popularity as an author. It's not his fault that the fickle reading public that once embraced him has in large measure deserted him. Sure, SRD is nominally still a "bestselling" author, but when junk like Eragon outsells the Last Chrons books by some undoubtedly obscene amount (and promptly gets made into a movie no less), "bestselling" becomes an empty word. You know you've missed the boat when you can't even rely on the Chronicles to capture the public imagination anymore. So I feel bad for SRD. I wish he would be richly rewarded for the Last Chronicles, but that's not gonna happen, unless he somehow achieves Robert Jordan-like popularity between now and the release of AATE. Or even Chris Paolini-like popularity. And that's an awful thing to say. The funny thing is, I would likely never have learned how poorly the Last Chronicles were selling (compared to the previous books) if SRD himself hadn't revealed the numbers on the GI. So I have to applaud his willingness to share such ego-bruising information, but I almost wish I could go back to my comfortable delusion that SRD was a rich and powerful dude in the industry who wrote at his leisure.
If it's any consolation to you, nobody's books are selling as well as they once did. Book popularity in general has dropped over the decades.
Tales of a Warrior-Prophet has gone Live on Amazon KDP Vella! I'm very excited to offer the first three chapters for free. Please comment, review and rate, and of course Follow to receive more episodes. Two hundred free tokens may be available for purchases. https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B09YQQYMKH

Read my Whachichun Tatanka (White Buffalo) Blog: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/8175040473578337186
FB: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteBuffalo.W ... unTatanka/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/white_buffalo
User avatar
danlo
Lord
Posts: 20837
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2002 8:29 pm
Location: Albuquerque NM
Contact:

Post by danlo »

Yeah, it's like music sales in general-aside from how much the communication market has disseminated, the timing of when TCTC were published was a major influence on their popularity. Not only was there a huge gap of readers feasting on the last remnants of initial (at least US) wave of The Lord of the Rings and hungry for more-there wasn't a huge amount of quality literary competition. In the recent Nov. 2006 structured interview (that Romeo just put up on SRD's website) Donaldson acknowledges how tough it's been financially since the first six books-but (IMO) he, albeit extremely tacitly, fires a broadside at such authors as Jordan and Brooks.
Well I certainly hope not. And I'm giving it my best shot. But the only reliable measure of that sense is time. Everything else is subjective, but time winnows out the chaff. And the good stuff rises to the top. There's a reason why we read Dickens and we don't read John Galsworthy, although Galsworthy was way more popular in his day because he was writing junk. But it gets weeded out. The contemporaries couldn't tell the difference.

You know...my views are subjective, your views are subjective, there's the spirit of the times, which causes some things to click and others not.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, Erich Segal's novel Love Story was this mega-monster best-seller--and it was crap. It was absolute crap. But it hit a nerve; it hit something about the zeitgeist. It went to the moon. And the author lived off it on every level--financially, emotionally, career-wise, reputation-wise--he lived off it for 20 years. He spent 20 years on the lecture circuit telling, "How I wrote Love Story." And now no one knows who he was. No one's heard of that book. It's gone. That stuff just happens, and then it goes away.

From the perspective of the life we're leading, we can't evaluate those factors. Only time evaluates those factors. Of course, I hope that time will show that I've done good work. I want to believe that. But I won't live to know the answer. It's going to take 50 or 100 years.
User avatar
thewormoftheworld'send
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 2156
Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2007 1:40 am
Location: Idaho
Contact:

Post by thewormoftheworld'send »

danlo wrote:Yeah, it's like music sales in general-aside from how much the communication market has disseminated, the timing of when TCTC were published was a major influence on their popularity. Not only was there a huge gap of readers feasting on the last remnants of initial (at least US) wave of The Lord of the Rings and hungry for more-there wasn't a huge amount of quality literary competition. In the recent Nov. 2006 structured interview (that Romeo just put up on SRD's website) Donaldson acknowledges how tough it's been financially since the first six books-but (IMO) he, albeit extremely tacitly, fires a broadside at such authors as Jordan and Brooks.
Well I certainly hope not. And I'm giving it my best shot. But the only reliable measure of that sense is time. Everything else is subjective, but time winnows out the chaff. And the good stuff rises to the top. There's a reason why we read Dickens and we don't read John Galsworthy, although Galsworthy was way more popular in his day because he was writing junk. But it gets weeded out. The contemporaries couldn't tell the difference.

You know...my views are subjective, your views are subjective, there's the spirit of the times, which causes some things to click and others not.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, Erich Segal's novel Love Story was this mega-monster best-seller--and it was crap. It was absolute crap. But it hit a nerve; it hit something about the zeitgeist. It went to the moon. And the author lived off it on every level--financially, emotionally, career-wise, reputation-wise--he lived off it for 20 years. He spent 20 years on the lecture circuit telling, "How I wrote Love Story." And now no one knows who he was. No one's heard of that book. It's gone. That stuff just happens, and then it goes away.

From the perspective of the life we're leading, we can't evaluate those factors. Only time evaluates those factors. Of course, I hope that time will show that I've done good work. I want to believe that. But I won't live to know the answer. It's going to take 50 or 100 years.
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/books/20segal.html
In early 1971, after “Love Story” was submitted for consideration for a National Book Award, the fiction jury threatened to resign in a body unless the novel was removed from contention. It was.

But if critics found his novel insufficiently weighty, Mr. Segal appeared to take it in stride. “It takes the average person an hour and a half to read the book,” he told The New York Times in December 1970. “The movie lasts longer.”
Tales of a Warrior-Prophet has gone Live on Amazon KDP Vella! I'm very excited to offer the first three chapters for free. Please comment, review and rate, and of course Follow to receive more episodes. Two hundred free tokens may be available for purchases. https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B09YQQYMKH

Read my Whachichun Tatanka (White Buffalo) Blog: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/8175040473578337186
FB: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteBuffalo.W ... unTatanka/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/white_buffalo
User avatar
aliantha
blueberries on steroids
Posts: 17865
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe

Post by aliantha »

Jeffrey Goode: Covenant: "Soon would be good. Now would be better." Whoa, did the Timewarden just channel a paraphrased Nick Succorso? :)

Who knows? Covenant *was* part of the Arch of Time, after all. Maybe that gave him access to different realities as well as different times.

(03/10/2011)

:lol:
Image
Image

EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

https://www.hearth-myth.com/
User avatar
danlo
Lord
Posts: 20837
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2002 8:29 pm
Location: Albuquerque NM
Contact:

Post by danlo »

:P That's great! :o :lol:
User avatar
aliantha
blueberries on steroids
Posts: 17865
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe

Post by aliantha »

I dunno why, but this one spoke to me. 8)
Fred Patterson: First, a word of thanks. Whether it be your work, your passion, or just a driving compulsion to write, you have given countless hours of enjoyment to people you have never met.

My Question: You gave up pursuing a Ph.D. to write - that seems like a pretty gutsy move. What was going through your mind when you made that decision? What were you risking? And what convinced you to take the gamble?

(This, of course, will be the short version. I have absolutely no desire to write my autobiography.)

I conceived the ambition to be a writer of stories (very) early in college; so naturally I became an English major, wanting to study storytelling from the very best, rather than from some "teacher" whose sympathies might or might not be in tune with mine. And having no other prospects after college, I naturally went to grad school in English, on the theory that I might eventually be able to get a job teaching if I couldn't make my way as a writer. But among many other things, grad school taught me that at a certain point the skills of being an analytical reader diverge from those of being a creative writer. In fact, at a certain (admittedly rather advanced) point those skills become antithetical to each other. I could feel myself drifting farther and farther away from my heart's desire. So when an opportunity finally presented itself, I dropped out of school in order to devote myself to writing.

I suppose that was "gutsy." It was certainly a major crisis in my life--and a major turning point. As far as I knew, I was risking pretty much everything. And the price turned out to be pretty &$%^@! high. But I'm fairly certain that any other choice would have killed me (emotionally or spiritually, if not physically).

I've never forgotten this line from a "Three Dog Night" song: "Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." Words to live by.

(04/06/2011)
Image
Image

EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

https://www.hearth-myth.com/
User avatar
Savor Dam
Will Be Herd!
Posts: 6140
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 7:02 am
Location: Pacific NorthWet
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Savor Dam »

Ali, if you had not grabbed that line for your sig, I was ready to change mine. Definitely a spot-on quote...
Love prevails.
~ Tracie Mckinney-Hammon

Change is not a process for the impatient.
~ Barbara Reinhold

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.
~ George Bernard Shaw
User avatar
aliantha
blueberries on steroids
Posts: 17865
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe

Post by aliantha »

Savor Dam wrote:Ali, if you had not grabbed that line for your sig, I was ready to change mine. Definitely a spot-on quote...
Go for it! I won't be offended if you use it in your sig line as well, and I'm confident SRD won't care either. :)
Image
Image

EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

https://www.hearth-myth.com/
User avatar
dlbpharmd
Lord
Posts: 14460
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:27 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Post by dlbpharmd »

I'm shocked that SRD has ever listened to a Three Dog Night song. ;)
Image
User avatar
aliantha
blueberries on steroids
Posts: 17865
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe

Post by aliantha »

dlbpharmd wrote:I'm shocked that SRD has ever listened to a Three Dog Night song. ;)
Me too. His mama told him that ain't the way to have fun. ;)
Image
Image

EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

https://www.hearth-myth.com/
User avatar
dlbpharmd
Lord
Posts: 14460
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:27 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Post by dlbpharmd »

Steve M: This question relates to The Second Chronicles of TC. Linden develops a percipience described as a kind of amplified version of the "health sense" that Covenant himself experiences in the first Chronicles. In "The One Tree" Linden takes this a step farther by actually possessing Covenant by entering into his mind to free him from the silence imposed on him by the Elohim. There does not appear to be any support in the preceding narrative which would indicate that Linden had this ability. It just seemed to come out of left field. Moreover, there is nothing in the narrative that would suggest that the Giants or others would believe that she would have this ability. From a narrative perspective, how do you make the jump from percipience (a very passive ability) to being able to enter into someone mind and literally possess them? (Definitely a much more active and as you describe in the text an almost violent ability).

Hmm. I don't really understand the problem. In my mind, health-sense is not "passive" (at least not in the way that using tools like, say, x-ray is passive). It's at least as active as any other form of direct perception. As I imagine it, "seeing inside" is loosely analogous to "being inside": why else does the perception of "wrongness" produce such visceral reactions in those who perceive (even Covenant)? And the step from "being inside" to "influencing what's inside" does not seem to me to be a large one. ("Perception creates reality.") In addition, the text does affirm that Linden's health-sense is more powerful than that of the people around her. And people like the Giants have no reason to doubt her, if for no other reason than because they can't know the extent of her abilities. (After all, it's obvious that she comes from an entirely different reality.)

(04/27/2011)
Image
User avatar
dlbpharmd
Lord
Posts: 14460
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:27 am
Been thanked: 2 times

Post by dlbpharmd »

Stephen Collings: Hi Stephen!

Tolkien also needed a ring!

He needed a trinket of intrinsic value that could easily be lost and which would be entirely hidden when pocketed! It also needed to be able to be put on by accident when fiddling around in one's pockets, and to be able to be put on and taken off without anyone else seeing anything happening (with a hand in a pocket!) He needed a ring!

And as a ring, Bilbo was also able to keep it secret from the dwarves throughout the "The Hobbit".

Please pardon me for pointing all this out, but, when I thought about it, it struck me as quite interesting how the physical nature of Tolkien's ring *is* entirely integral to the plot of "The Hobbit".

I'm not convinced. Tolkien's ring may be integral (or at least convenient) to the plot, but it is not integral to the themes. As far as I can tell, Tolkien's ring is only *meaningful* because it's a circle--and even there I may be clutching at straws.

(04/27/2011)
Image
User avatar
Romeo
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 1194
Joined: Fri Dec 27, 2002 1:22 pm
Location: Ashland, PA, USA
Contact:

Post by Romeo »

FROM SRD:
After May 21, 2011, the Gradual Interview will no longer accept new questions or messages. I will continue to work my way through the questions which have already been accepted, but I can't do more. I'm too far behind on too many things, and the strain is affecting my concentration. Discontinuing the Gradual Interview is one of several things that I'm doing to simplify my life.
And then the ravens pecked out his eyes.
User avatar
rdhopeca
The Master
Posts: 2798
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 5:13 pm
Location: San Luis Obispo, CA
Has thanked: 20 times
Been thanked: 12 times
Contact:

Post by rdhopeca »

Sad. Perhaps he will pick it back up after TLD.
Rob

"Progress is made. Be warned."
User avatar
Orlion
The Gap Into Spam
Posts: 6637
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 12:30 am
Location: Getting there...

Post by Orlion »

Glad I was able to participate while I could.
'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
Post Reply

Return to “General SRD Discussion and Other Works”