Kevin's Watch

*This is not Runes of the Earth* (well i hope not)

The other day when i went searching for "The Runes of the Earth" at a used book store the owner of the store said that there was actully a 7th book from the first to series. He had no clue about the Runes so i'm not toally sure if he was talking about that book because he didn't remeber the name, but he said that SRD had to minimize his books for some reason and he published a 7th book afterwords. He claimed that there was only a handful printed and it was very rare.

Has anybody else heard about this?? (sorry if there might be a topic about this already )

It's called Gilden-Fire and it was trimmed from the Illearth War. I haven't read it, sorry.

But yes, it does exist.

On the subject of Gilden-Fire...

I didn't read it the first time I read the books. I didn't even know it existed. So when, a few months back, I started re-reading the Chronicles, I wanted to read Gilden-Fire at the appropriate moment while reading The Illearth War. But I couldn't find any suggestions as to where it slots in.

So if anyone else is thinking of reading it in sequence, my suggestion is: Read Gilden-Fire just before "Runnik's Tale". Or even better, read it when you reach the sentence "The mission had made its way eastward through Grimmerdhore..." in "Runnik's Tale".

There is a slight inconsistency between Gilden-Fire and The Illearth War in that the passage just quoted seems to suggest (by omission) that the events of Gilden-Fire didn't take place.

BTW, Gilden-Fire is also available as a short story in Daughter of Regals and other Tales, which is not hard to find.

Berenford wrote:There is a slight inconsistency between Gilden-Fire and The Illearth War in that the passage just quoted seems to suggest (by omission) that the events of Gilden-Fire didn't take place.

They didn't. It was cut out

CJr is correct in saying that the events in Gilden-fire are outside the continuity of TIW. However, I do believe that Gilden-fire is a must read for any fan of TCoTC, if for no other reason than the elaboration of the history of the Haruchai.

The point of view character is Korik, and it gives us a precious look inside the minds of the Bloodguard.

I also really like the character of Lord Hyrim, and the story fleshes him out as well.

Copies are usually readily available on Amazon and on ebay.

Unfortunately, it's not in every edition of Daughter of Regals. (Its not in mine, and boy, was I upset. )

Must find a copy for myself, think I read it out of the library, and only once (gasp, shock, horror) at that.

--Avatar

My dad (rather bizarrely, since he doesn't have any of the other covenant books) has a copy of gilden-fire. I read it and it was interesting, if a little short.

I have Gilden Fire. Wasn't aware it's supposed to be rare

Don't know how rare it actually is, but it's certainly not one you see around often.

--A

Much more common is DoR

Daughter of Regals is the only Donaldson book I've never seen

Nathan wrote:I read it and it was interesting, if a little short.

It's short because it is actually a chapter from TIW. I've always wanted to see a reprint of TIW with Gilden-Fire included. But, I understand why it was, it takes away from the "unbelief" that was so necessary in the 1st Chrons. By the 2nd Chrons such "unbelief" was irrelevent.

I read Gilden Fire after I read both Chrons (read it in DOR). I flipped though the Gilden Fire book once in a bookstore, but I didn't like the illistrations.

Gilden-Fire is definitely available in the new Del Rey trade of Daughter of Regals and Other Tales.

Damn, I bought the new mass market copies of SRD First Chronicles and couldn't help noticing on these the forward excerpt on the first page has a much better font and type than the actual text itself. I wished Del Rey would change it to that than the fancy-smancy font type in the text. Anyone agree?

If I remember correctly Gilden-Fire was reproduced by the Science Fiction Book Club as a seperate book. You can find copies of it on E-bay fairly cheap. Like others have stated it gives a more in-depth look at the Bloodguard and the Seareach mission thru the eyes of Korik.

SRD wrote somewhere (prior to the creation of his gradual interview) about Gildenfire and why it was deleted.

As alluded to above, this work is from the viewpoint of the bloodguard, and also from the Lords. Thus, the story is known only to characters from the Land. So, if presented as written, it would immediately solve the question (in the reader's mind) as to whether or not the Land is "real". or just Covenant's imagination. That dilemma goes on throughout the remainder of the first trilogy.

So, SRD felt obligated to delete this part of the story.

The events that transpired would still have occurred within the reality of the story; they just aren't related as written in Gildenfire.

It's interesting that many readers still wonder whether within the context of the story whether the Land is "real". I believe SRD wrote in the gradual interview that he intended for it to indeed be real. It will be interesting to see what comes of that in the upcoming books of the final trilogy.

srtrout wrote:
The events that transpired would still have occurred within the reality of the story; they just aren't related as written in Gildenfire.

As I said a few posts above, this isn't quite right. <i>Gilden-Fire</i> is all about Korik's mission encountering wolves and urviles in Grimmerdhore on their way east. But in <i>The Illearth War</i>, Runnik says, when talking of his return to Grimmerdhore:

SRD (with added emphasis) wrote: But when we entered Grimmerdhore, we were beset by wolves and ur-viles, <i>though we saw no sign of them when we passed eastward</i>.

This suggests that SRD not only cut out the <i>relating</i> of the events of <i>Gilden-Fire</i> from <i>The Illearth War</i>, but cut out the <i>happening</i> of the events as well.