Kevin's Watch

Well, in all the Chronicles, it is the place where people arrive in the Land first, so sure. I think renaming it Kevin's Dirt would really suck.

How about.........Kevin's Failures?

Hey! Don't call Revan a failure! Everyone knows he is merely ...an annoyance!

=)


Wasn't that a very powerful beginning (the fall of the watch)? I was way hooked even before that occurred, but I thought that that was excellent.

Seriously, yeah, it was a terrific beginning.

I was hooked in the Prologue. I've said elsewhere that I think it was some of his best writing - from the perspective of pure writing - that I've ever seen. Crystal clear barely touches on how clear and particular he was in his descriptions. As a writer myself, those kind of things tend to turn me on.

I must agree. The seething chaotic hatred that defined Roger was something to behold. I suspect that the prologue or beginning of Fatal Revenant may be a glimpse of what Roger is up to....If I were writing it...that's what I'd do.

I think he,Rogewr btw, may be the Fatal Revenant that the title refers to. He is after all the last (revenant) link between Joan and TC AND the last of the Covenant bloodline.

I particularly liked his descriptions of Jeremiah's constructs. I've taught writing before, and some of those passages are exactly what I would pull out to have my class read to show them how to make your reader "see". I've never seen anything more clearly before, in any of his works. I've "felt" things more, like The Land, The Sunbane, and even in TPTP, gaining access to Foul's throne room was beautifully detailed and richly "seen", but never with such perfect clarity.

burgs66 wrote:I particularly liked his descriptions of Jeremiah's constructs. I've taught writing before, and some of those passages are exactly what I would pull out to have my class read to show them how to make your reader "see". I've never seen anything more clearly before, in any of his works. I've "felt" things more, like The Land, The Sunbane, and even in TPTP, gaining access to Foul's throne room was beautifully detailed and richly "seen", but never with such perfect clarity.

I agree, and that's what one of the things I enjoyed about the former chronicles. I notice a marked change in the writing style once Linden is in the Land, where the prose seems to describe action rather than environment, which is a big shift from the previous books, and more like the Gap series in my opinion.

I wonder if this is intentional, or was there just too much going on for SRD to stick to his older style, or is it just a change in style that would come after 22 years?

I was reminded of the GAP sometimes as well. Thought it was just a subjective anaomly on my behalf...

It must be a choice made by the writer, who I would submit, has become a better writer over the years.

I have to say, flying in the face of popular opinion in an almost Zeph style ...the Prologue was easily my least favourite part of the book. Up until Linden's desperate, storm-whipped drive to Haven Farm, I found it verging on tedious. Don't kick me too hard...

Well, as long as someone else said it first! I actually thought the book began pretty slowly...it reminded me a little too much of cartoon show in which every episode features "Oh no! What's <insert villain name here> doing this time?! Craziness is happening again, and I know I'm the only one who can stop him!"

It almost seemed formulaic the third time around. Thankfully, it swiftly became better, and I'm conscious of the fact that I've always considered the first book in any Donaldson series to be the weakest book in that series. If, like the other series SRD has written, each successive book gets significantly better...I can't imagine how the last one will be

Well, yeah, it seemed formulaic because it is. SRD has written himself into a box, if you will; his characters always have to translate to the Land in pretty much the same way, in that they have to be virtually at death's door. This is our sixth trip to the Land (counting TC's double summons in whichever book of the 1st Chrons had the little snakebit girl in it), so it's bound to seem sort of the same.

I thought the Prologue was kind of long, too (FIVE chapters???), but then I thought about the fact that this will probably be the only time we spend in the Real World until the end of Book 10, and considering all that will go on in the meantime, it's not really that big a chunk of the whole work.

I expected my opinion to be a lonely one, but I'm stickin' to it.

I'm with you on the prologue - by the end of it, my heart was racing! I thought to myself "If the prologue can do this to me, I'm in for a damn good time with the rest of the book!"

aliantha wrote:his characters always have to translate to the Land in pretty much the same way, in that they have to be virtually at death's door.

Do they? SRD seems to have made that the case recently, but in LFB and TIW Covenant basically just fainted. Ok, TIW involved hitting his head on the coffee table as he fell, but that was hardly very dangerous and besides, it was the summoning that made him fall. I don't know why SRD has pushed this "near death" method of summoning in Runes, unless it's to make sure all the important characters are dead by the end of the last book.

I think you're absolutely right, CovenantJr. This is the very end. He isn't leaving any loose ends running around in the "real world".

Do they? SRD seems to have made that the case recently, but in LFB and TIW Covenant basically just fainted. Ok, TIW involved hitting his head on the coffee table as he fell, but that was hardly very dangerous and besides, it was the summoning that made him fall. I don't know why SRD has pushed this "near death" method of summoning in Runes, unless it's to make sure all the important characters are dead by the end of the last book.

Actually, in TIW didn't Covenant trip over the telephone cord while talking to Joan on the phone?

(To the youngsters on the Watch - telephones used to have cords that attached to the phone base, and another cord that attached the phone to the jack in the wall - but I digress.)

As to the "near death" requirements of Summoning - this is not a recent development at all. The initial summononings of Covenant to the Land were performed by the holder of the Staff of Law - Drool Rockworm in LFB and Elena in TIW. However, the Staff was not used for either of Covenant's summonings in TPTP. The only way that first Mhoram and then Triock and Foamfollower were able to summon Covenant was due to his grave condition, as explained in TWL, chapter 19:

The loss of the Staff explained why Covenant's summoning had been so elaborate. In the past, such summons had always been an act of Law, performed by the holder of the staff. Only when he had been close to death from starvation and rattlesnake venom, and the Law of Death had been broken, had summoning been possible without the Staff.

Continuing in the same paragraph, the explanation is given for the ultra-elaborate summoning of Covenant in TWL:

A specific location had been required, specific pain, triangle of blood, freedom of choice and death.

Kevin's rubble pile

Anyway, no reason why the name of this place needs to change. There are still places about the web named after Callahan's, the bar in the series of that name by Spider Robinson . . . and Callahan's was destroyed by nukes in one of those books!

Alas for the Watch!!!

But, we were forewarned by SRD himself. Did he not say in an interview...

"Things do not look so good for Kevin's Watch."

I fear things do not look so good for the Land either.