Fatal Revenant Read, Chapter 6-FINALLY!
Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2005 5:59 pm
(SEE: Page 3 for entire recap)
Sorry to make you wait but SRD's reading last night was somewhat complex--I'm tending the kids right now and then going back to the Con to see Stephen participate on two different panels. In order to do as much justice as I can to the reading I'll need a lot of time to piece it together, so I'd really prefer about 3 hours on Sunday when I can sit down at the WP and give it my full attention. I'll recount a little about it now, as well as questions SRD fielded and statements he made last night.
Ok, wait till Sunday to get the rest. I wasn't too thrilled by my recount of the middle chapter of Runes during SRD's read last year, so I really want to take some time to do this properly. It's a terribly confusing excerpt. Donaldson even said something like, "I purposely picked this so that nothing is given away, you won't know where anything is and you'll, really, have no idea of what's going on." You have to realize how hard it is to record and memorize this many pages without a tape recorder or short hand ability.
Which leads me into a joke I made that I didn't realize I had. The room was a little hard to hear in so I got up while SRD was talking in general and he said, "See, I'm that boring, he's leaving already." I said, "No (as I moved to the front row) I'm just getting a different seat so I can record you better." (It's not like he hasn't seen me do this at two of these Cons already) "You're writting this down? Shouldn't that be considered copyright infringement?" He said <grinning>, I said, "I'm recording it for Kevin's Watch and it comes out very vague anyway so don't worry." Then he proudly announced that Kevin's Watch is the official discussion board for the SRD site, then he said to me, "You must have really good shorthand." and I replied "No I just write till my hand falls off." That got a very good round of laughter and I couldn't figure it out. The "leper-connection" finally stuck me about 10 minutes into the read and I had to control myself from falling out of my seat.
SRD's comments about writing Fatal Revenant were most interesting. He infered that he has been working harder than he ever has in his life for the last eight months straight and revealed that Revenant is already 2/3rds done! But he also said that his publishers may not be as inclined to produce the book that quickly, as opposed to the pressure they put on him to finish Runes. "I feel that some long passages in Fatal Revenant are some of the best writing I've ever done in my life. I couldn't say that about Runes. I think Runes is a good book, but I couldn't say it surpassed my other books. In these parts of Fatal Revenant I feel they do."
Afterwords Watch members, Believer, bpassey, Soulquest, and I talked with SRD for about a half hour. About the Ranyhyn, Sandgorgons, "Time" and Fantasy Bedtime Hour. He got a real kick out working with Julie and Heatherly and said that he loved the episode with Kevin and the Ritual of Desecration where it's preformed 10 times over (ala Groundhog Day) in various stages of debauchery. I asked him what he thought about the upcoming Narnia movie (since he has pointed out, in the past, the impact of those books on him when he was young). He believed that Disney would do a good job with it and that they may also release a side DVD, or feature, featuring interviews with 30 well known writers. They have already come out to his house and filmed him and, he believes, they took down Terry Brooks' views on the books around the same time.
When he stared to introduce the read he said "Bad language warning, bad language warning!" He indicated he was a little surprised about the reaction to rougher language in Runes via the Gradual Interview. Then he got the ball rolling and got us all laughing by saying, "There was always bad language in the Chronicles...it's just that Sheriff Lytton hadn't opened his mouth yet.."
Sorry to make you wait but SRD's reading last night was somewhat complex--I'm tending the kids right now and then going back to the Con to see Stephen participate on two different panels. In order to do as much justice as I can to the reading I'll need a lot of time to piece it together, so I'd really prefer about 3 hours on Sunday when I can sit down at the WP and give it my full attention. I'll recount a little about it now, as well as questions SRD fielded and statements he made last night.
Spoiler
What I can tell you, right now, about the read is that it was 16 pages from chapter 6 of Fatal Revenant. The chapter is called "Interference" It begins with Linden surviving some very intense transition. Whether it's due to something Esmer did or a caesure or both is unclear. She is somewhere in a ice-valley holding the Staff of Law and freezing to death. She is suffering a "white-out" type of blindness. There are four characters present during these pages: Linden, Thomas Covenant (who appears, at a time, to be existing in two dimensions simultaneously), a very strange new character called the Theomoch (who seems to have a real bone to pick with the Elohim), and Jeremiah (who appears, out of absolute nowhere at the very end). Covenant has a very odd and twisted attitude that may be caused, in part, by the Theomoch. There is some eerie and strange type of "shadow-relationship" between Covenant and the Theomoch. The Theomoch seems to have the ability to be behind, in front and beside itself at the same time.
Which leads me into a joke I made that I didn't realize I had. The room was a little hard to hear in so I got up while SRD was talking in general and he said, "See, I'm that boring, he's leaving already." I said, "No (as I moved to the front row) I'm just getting a different seat so I can record you better." (It's not like he hasn't seen me do this at two of these Cons already) "You're writting this down? Shouldn't that be considered copyright infringement?" He said <grinning>, I said, "I'm recording it for Kevin's Watch and it comes out very vague anyway so don't worry." Then he proudly announced that Kevin's Watch is the official discussion board for the SRD site, then he said to me, "You must have really good shorthand." and I replied "No I just write till my hand falls off." That got a very good round of laughter and I couldn't figure it out. The "leper-connection" finally stuck me about 10 minutes into the read and I had to control myself from falling out of my seat.
SRD's comments about writing Fatal Revenant were most interesting. He infered that he has been working harder than he ever has in his life for the last eight months straight and revealed that Revenant is already 2/3rds done! But he also said that his publishers may not be as inclined to produce the book that quickly, as opposed to the pressure they put on him to finish Runes. "I feel that some long passages in Fatal Revenant are some of the best writing I've ever done in my life. I couldn't say that about Runes. I think Runes is a good book, but I couldn't say it surpassed my other books. In these parts of Fatal Revenant I feel they do."
Afterwords Watch members, Believer, bpassey, Soulquest, and I talked with SRD for about a half hour. About the Ranyhyn, Sandgorgons, "Time" and Fantasy Bedtime Hour. He got a real kick out working with Julie and Heatherly and said that he loved the episode with Kevin and the Ritual of Desecration where it's preformed 10 times over (ala Groundhog Day) in various stages of debauchery. I asked him what he thought about the upcoming Narnia movie (since he has pointed out, in the past, the impact of those books on him when he was young). He believed that Disney would do a good job with it and that they may also release a side DVD, or feature, featuring interviews with 30 well known writers. They have already come out to his house and filmed him and, he believes, they took down Terry Brooks' views on the books around the same time.
When he stared to introduce the read he said "Bad language warning, bad language warning!" He indicated he was a little surprised about the reaction to rougher language in Runes via the Gradual Interview. Then he got the ball rolling and got us all laughing by saying, "There was always bad language in the Chronicles...it's just that Sheriff Lytton hadn't opened his mouth yet.."
Sounds like you guys are having a great time at the convention. 
I would also love to see Donaldson talk about Narnia, one of my other favorite series. 
