Kevin's Watch

What is your favourite Donaldson story? And why? Is it well written? Do they have better characters?

Personally... I find it hard to decide... but Gap just gets ahead for me.

I'll go first chronicles. I enjoyed the second chrons but I felt that SRD fiddled with the established mythos of his world too much (the Wyrm, etc.).
On the other hand, my all time favorite book would be the last of the Gap, which I've read to rags.

Down with the establishment! Fiddle all ya want, SRD!

Re-reading Second Chrons right now. Love 'em, but still like the First Chrons more.

First Chrons. No other fiction I've ever read has the same impact on me that those first books had. Maybe it was because I was 15 when I read them. I just don't know for sure.

I was gonna say First Chrons, but then after re-reading the 2nd Chrons in preparation for Runes, I started seeing their charm a bit more and...oh well, it's probably a tie for me anyhow.

I liked the second better - but just by a hair! The first ones were "slow" for me when Covenant was outside the LAND. I like the "pace" of the second. I liked (and was annoyed by) the Elohim.

I do HATE the wyrm - no matter how you bend it (and I've asked a couple of the Creator questions that anoy SRD! ) I don't think it sync's with the first chronicles mythos.

But I need to re-read them ALL as part of reading Runes (the second time!)

1st Chronicles is great of course but 2nd Chronicles is my favorite. To me it is the most original of the two, and the depth of characters is unsurpassed.

Of SRD's work, I've only read the TC books. Of those, the First Chronicles are way ahead.

If we're talking just the Covenant books, I would say the Second Chronicles are my favorite (for now, pending the Last), but's a close call. There's an old thread somewhere for airing opinions on which is the greater trilogy, so I'll try to find that and post in there.

Right now, I can't fairly say which completed SRD series is my favorite, because I've barely gotten into the Gap cycle (still on Book Two). I had thought about finishing all the Gap books before Runes came out, but since I'm a slow reader and hate having to read under pressure, I soon gave up on that looney idea.

As for the "Man Who" mysteries...well, they're a mystery to me all right. I'd like to read them, but sightings of them in bookstores are even rarer than sightings of SRD's other books. SRD may be merely under-represented in the fantasy section, but in the mystery section he is persona non grata.

That leaves Mordant's Need. I'm re-reading it now as part of the MN chapter dissection, so it's freshest in my mind. MN isn't as personally meaningful to me as TCTC, but it has something TCTC doesn't: a fun, wicked sense of humour---a quality that is understandably inappropriate for a story as grim and tragic as the Chronicles. (I suspect the Gap books aren't a barrel of laughs either.) SRD is having fun with language in MN in a way that he doesn't in TCTC.

It's remarkable how much different MN is from TCTC as a reading experience. And just from reading the first book of the Gap series, I know it is something entirely different from either TCTC or MN. And I'm sure the Man Who books, just by the nature of their genre, are something else again. SRD is full of surprises. I wonder if those other "giants" of fantasy (or whatever the hell it is they write) would be as willing to change and grow as writers--and risk losing their readership--as SRD has.

Uh, what was your question again, Darth? Um, let me get back to you in a few years.

It's a tough one. I think the first chrons are best really, but that sense of "time passed" in the 2nd chrons is awesome. The ending blew me away though.

Only read book one of the Gap series, and never even seen "The Man Who..." series.

Enjoyed MN thoroughly, and as for the short stories, it must be "The Killing Stroke".

--A

First Chrons for me, too...I can't quite peg what it was...I think the whole feel of it...and Mhoram's character will always be one of my favorite characters of all time (I cried during the Second Chrons, when Covenant sees him in Andelain *sob*).

First Chrons has it by a nose. Actually two noses, one belonging to Mhoram, the other to Foamfollower. They're likable and effective characters with human flaws, and terrifically vivid. Many of SRD's characters, alas, are unlikable, ineffectual snivellers, desperately searching for redeeming virtues. (That's an oversimplification, and I like SRD's characters better than that sounds, but I think you all can tell what I mean.) There are one or two characters in The Gap and Mordant's Need that have those qualities, but they're not nearly so central to the story. (Warden Dios comes close. I can see a definite line of development, Mhoram -> King Joyse -> Dios.)

In the First Chrons, I prefer the plot, the construction of the whole thing, the ideas, the characters, the feel, the flow, the language, the way the whole thing unfolds according to Foul's plan until the very end... I prefer TC's character in the First Chrons, the events are more exciting, the atmosphere is better, Foul seems more imminent and more deadly, I prefer the ending...

I say again, the First Chrons by a mile

I like the second Chronicles much because of the love story... I find it hard to beat the Second Chronicles with the First...

The 2nd, by quite a long way. I love the 1st and will read them all again and again, but for me the 2nd are better. Its because of the Giants, ahhhh the Giants 'Sone and Sea Honninscrave bravely done' and Vain, and Nom and the Whynhim - its just a richer story for me with more passion - thinking about the Sunbane still gives me the creeps. And (I know Darth will kill me for this) I haven't read the Gap books yet

I've never got round to reading the Gap books either

For me, comparing the Second Chrons to the First is like comparing a picture of pizza to an actual pizza. It's just not even in the same league.

Prince of Amber wrote:And (I know Darth will kill me for this) I haven't read the Gap books yet

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Pulls out shotgun* How many times have I told you?! RUN!!!!

yeah... more Gaints in the second chronicles... and Thomas was a lot more decent... more happiness... we were shown a broader world...

IMO, Lord Foul's Bane and The Real Story are SRDs best books. Generalising a little more, in terms of series', it has to be between the Gap and the First Chrons.
The Gap is an amazing series, but the First Chrons is still better, because of Covenant himself (who wasn't as good in the Second Chrons, IMO).

I've just got to go with Mordant's Need on this one, in order to be perfectly honest. Understand, though, that we're talking about ultimate-favorite-of-all-time here. I came to SRD through Mordant's Need & Daughter of Regals in the first place, when I was fifteen or so, and though I read both 1st & 2nd Chrons at the time, and The Real Story, I was really pretty grossed out by them. Since I didn't come back to the Chrons or the Gap until just this past year, (though they've haunted me in various ways since that first reading), I have to go with MN.

If you want to know what my favorite is right at the moment, I 'd have to go with 2nd Chrons.

LFB was the first book by SRD I ever read. But I'm a serious junkie for anything he writes "it's all good!"