Kevin's Watch

OK. I know it's not exactly 600 days but sometime before the end of 2004 we might get Volume 1 of The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

To help us get through the wait, the idea is to keep this thread alive and updated on a daily basis with anything that comes to mind (or sensible stuff).

I'm going to play tag.

danlo - You're it

I know that it was said that maybe the books would be finished by next autumn, but how about production time and such. Have you calculated that in as well?

D'ya think they'll ALL take that long? I mean, SK takes like a year to write five or six books...maybe SRd was just rusty and after that first they'll come easier?

I read the interview in the Donaldson Interview thread yesterday. He said he wrote the first trilogy in 4 years. He had them all written before LFB was published. But LFB was rejected 47 times...
Getting a publisher shouldn't be a problem this time at least.....maybe something like a book a year?

SRD mentioned that he still had to go through the process of publisher hunting, and seeing as he'll (probably) have to do that only once for the entire Last Chronicles we can assume that the subsequent four volumes won't take quite as long.

However, I seem to recall Mouseglove mentioning that Donaldson read an abstract from page 710 of the first book, and that somewhere else he said that he was about halfway through writing the first book. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that sound like a BIG book?

Yes! He's going to need a better editor!

That would be a biiiiiiiiiiggggg book! And people are swearing when they see me reading the Great Book of Amber! And that's ten books all rolled into one!

Hopefully SRD won't have any trouble finding a publisher. However, I understand that soon ALL books will be electronic. It is the wave of the future. I hope not for our sake! I, for one, dislike e-books! I hope SRD does not choose to go this route.

I understand that soon ALL books will be electronic. It is the wave of the future.

OH HEAVEN FORFEND!!!

What an absoloutly horrid thought!!! Humankind will have fallen beyond redemption if it ever forgets the sanctity of books. I cannot believe we're there yet.

If the Third Chronicles is 4 books, and the first one comes out at the end of 2004, when will all 4 come out?

A book per year: end of 2007
A book per 1.5 years: middle of 2009
A book per 2 years: end of 2010

Scary thought that we might have to wait until 2010 to get the completed Third Chronicles.

dukkha wrote:If the Third Chronicles is 4 books, and the first one comes out at the end of 2004, when will all 4 come out?

A book per year: end of 2007
A book per 1.5 years: middle of 2009
A book per 2 years: end of 2010

Scary thought that we might have to wait until 2010 to get the completed Third Chronicles.

Hey, think of it this way - until fairly recently we had no idea for sure there would even BE a Third Chronicles, so we're way ahead of the game, really.

Besides, it could be worse - I'm still waiting for the next book in David Gerrold's Chtorr series. It was supposed to be out in 1994. It's now 2003, and although his website says he's working on it now, the site itself hasn't been updated since last summer. So it'll probably never come out.

I agree, birdandbear. That'd be terrible!

This is going to be one HELLUVA epic if book 1 is over 710 pgs...

I don't think that books will ever be entirely replaced by e-books (well, not in my lifetime, anyway). There aren't enough people out there with handheld computers, and portability is still of paramount importance. Even if someone does have a PDA, is this something you want to take to the beach with you? It's still too convenient to have a $4 paperback that you don't need to worry about leaving on a table in a coffee shop when you go to the restroom, don't have to worry about running out of battery power, etc. We still have a long way to go before e-books become a popular media. I'd love to see SRD's books in e-book format, so I could carry them with me in that format (and do text searches, etc.), since I do have a PDA that contains my brains and so needs to go with me wherever I go. But I'm the kind of person who would definately buy the books as well.

How could you possibly get an e-book autographed?!?!

But at the same time, I think it's good to get the books out there in as many different media as possible. Saying that you will never do an ebook for a publication is like saying you will never do paperback - only hardcover (or vice versa). Having books available in as many different forms as possible will ultimately benefit everyone involved.

E-books! E-books are sacrilege! Who wants to read a book on a little screen? You can't curl up with it. You don't have the feeling of pages in your hands. You don't have that yummy book smell. If e-books ever replace real books, we'll have to start hoarding books like that guy in Fahrenheit 451! And that will be a sad day indeed.

*looks around sheepishly* Heh. Sorry about that.

~Foamy~

Heh heh. I don't feel so bad saying that I'd buy ebooks, because I'm so hooked on the real things. I've subscribed to the Easton Press books, in order to build a nice looking, leather bound library. And I can't help but to buy hardcover editions if they're available. But there are times when having a book on my PDA would be convenient. And the ability to do a full text search of a book to find a particular passage would be wonderful.

I agree wholeheartedly, Romeo and FF. I cannot stand e-books. Even my college, University of Phoenix, is using e-texts instead of textbooks. I hate it!!!!! It is evil that e-books are even in the making. If it does happen, which I have heard it will, I hope I never have to see it!

I should probab'ly clarify my last post. I don't actually have a problem with e-books. Romeo said:

I think it's good to get the books out there in as many different media as possible

and I absoloutely agree. The internet is a way to get people to read who perhaps might not have the opportunity otherwise. And the more literate it's members, the healthier the society. I believe that reading for pleasure, no matter what you read (yes, even those horrid romance novels: at least it's something) is the single most beneficial thing anyone can do for themselves in the vein of spiritual growth.

I was reacting (overreacting, admittedly ) to the idea of printed books being permanantly replaced by e-books. Books are sacred to me, no matter what their content. They represent the evoloution of human thought and freedom, the light of human conscienceness. Book burnings are one of the greatest travesties the world has ever known, when you discount the infliction of human suffering. A church in Arlington (neighboring city) actually had a book burning party last year. They brought their potato salad, their sense of moral superiority, and Harry Potter (and other satanic, subversive) books to throw on the bonfire!!!! Sometimes living in the Bible Belt is not just a bummer, it's revolting.

But aside from what they represent to me, books are just nice. As Foamy said about e-books:

You can't curl up with it. You don't have the feeling of pages in your hands. You don't have that yummy book smell.

They smell good, they have a pleasant weight in the hand, the pages make a neat sound when you flip through them... You take any room, anywhere in the world, even the most squallid pee smelling hovel, and stick a bookshelf full of books in there, and it feels better. Just ineffably, comfortably better.

I don't believe it will ever happen that way. There are enough bibliophiles out there who treasure their books to keep the market for the printed word highly profitable. But should it ever come to pass that there are no more bookstores; no more dusty, dim, corridors of stacks to meander and discover your way through during the course of an afternoon, then it will be a sad day for the soul of the world. A world with no more pages left to turn is a world with no pages left to write. IMHO.

I sure hope you guys are right! I have just heard that all books will be....anyway, enough of that!

You're right, Foamy! I love the smell of a new book! The feel of the pages, everything. It is nice to know that books not only spark our imagination, they also tickle our senses!

caamora wrote:You're right, Foamy! I love the smell of a new book! The feel of the pages, everything. It is nice to know that books not only spark our imagination, they also tickle our senses!

What she said!

Yeah. Somehow trashing the memory doesn't quite have the same impact as burning books......