Kevin's Watch

"Realmtreader"s wonderful post includes some replies that indicate some degree of discomfiture regarding the upcoming 3rd (or final?) Chronicles.

I must admit personally to some considerable apprehension regarding this new series.

First, we must remember that, despite the apparent faith of some of you, we are not awaiting scripture from the hand of a prophet! Good old SRD is as human as the rest of us, and as valuable as his insights may be , they are from just one person. He can write whatever he wants - he could even browse this site and just write what he knows we don't want to read!

It seems to me like may have changed a lot over the years. although those who meet him personally describe him as a generous person. As I mentioned in a previous post, his pictures look darker and darker on his book covers from The Chronicles through the several books of the Gap series - he goes from a smiling cheerful fellow to someone who is only vaguely visible and veiled in smoke. He has also written, I believe in the last collection of short stories, about the difficulties he has had with life, and his need at all costs to "maintain honor". Whatever horrors you might find in The Chronicles are much worse in The Gap where you have women disemboweling themselves for entertainment, men stubbing their cigarettes out on their zombie enemy's tongue, etc. I also thought SRD's childhood Christian imagery, if not theology, was very visible in the Chronicles and much less so in his later works.

So, my fear is that the Land will be destroyed or its values diminished to reflect the inner angst of its creator! I don't care if Linden is the main character, or if old Roger shows up (your discussions of him remind me of how much people despised Wesley Crusher on Star Trek TNG!); I don't care if Foul rises again. But, I do care if the values of courage, friendship, and integrity are for nought and evil prevails.

"That beauty might perish utterly"

So, fellow Watchers, are you afraid?



srtrout

Very.

Not a single bit.

I have absolute faith that he will "be true" to his work. Now, there may be some previously unknown things about the Land that take events in unexpected directions. But I am absolutely sure that he won't do anything against his nature and the nature of the world he's created. And I am even more absolutely sure that he won't read the posts on this board in order to tick us all off by doing something that we'd consider horrible. Let me rephrase that - if he does something horrible, it's not because he read through this site and knew it would tick us off. There have always been rumors that the final story may end in the destruction of the Earth (what interview is that from? I never read it for myself), but I'm sure if that is the case that it will be destroyed in a good way. Heh heh.

Dark writings do not a dark person make. I have lots of friends who are published, and you'd be surprised what comes out of the pen of the most harmless person.


(speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil: have no fun)

I am not at all nervous nor apprehensive of these new books. Although I never read the Gap series because I do not like SCIFI, I have read all of his other books. Granted, he can write whatever he wants. They are his characters and his Land. I think what everyone is nervous about is not liking what SRD comes up with. Maybe expectations are running a little high. I think he will surprise us all. We are so concerned with Linden, Roger, and the Land that we have forgotten that there is a whole world yet to be explored in the books. What about Braithrealm (sp?) and Elmensedene? The land of the Giants? SRD has a whole world to write about. He may even use entirely different characters. Maybe unrelated to TC or LA. Certainly they are not the only two messed up people in our world!

I am looking forward to the books. I trust SRD implicitly and I think we will all be very pleased in the end.

Caamora, I wholeheartedly agree with you!

I think Stephen is very wise, and apparently, so are all of you. I am very gladdened to read what you have to say.
He once stated that he writes stories because he falls in love with them. Also, he said that if he can forget a story, it needn't be written - and that he could not forget the possibility of the third chronicles.
I feel . . . believe . . . that he knows what he is doing. That is, he gave birth to the Land, or at least the vision of it, and he is as attuned to it as any Sun-Sage or Lord. It has its own spirit, and with that spirit he is intimate.
And as one you mentioned, the main idea of the story is to communicate the meaning of "being true."
Also, the more I contemplate the nature of the proposed apprehensions, the basis of them, the more I begin to see the vast possibilities. Any apprehension is at once outweighed by the far more enticing visions. It is as though I can taste them.
And yet I hear you. Demanding, like Sunder, "Be not false to me in this."
And he did not prove false.

No, I'm not afraid. The Land will turn out fine in the end...it has thus far...and plus, even if something bad happens to it, it'll still undoubtedly be a great series, by SRD if I might add.

I'm afraid. Right now, as far as we all know, the Land is sitting there all healed up. The new Staff of Law is doing its work. Everyone in the Land has found a new road to Earthpower that doesn't use blood, or at least, they made it illegal to use anyone else's blood.

The Third Chronicles is going to be different. I don't imagine that it is going to end happily; in fact I can't IMAGINE a happy end.

You can't kill Lord Foul, it's that simple. Is SRD going to make another series that ends with Foul defeated but not dead? I think not. Foul will have to be loosed on the universe; it's the only narrative that would be interesting. The Land will have to be destroyed. Again - everything else has already been done.

I'm not worried about the 3rd series at all. I am eagerly awaiting for them to come out though. Its been a long period of time between books, and I've read the first two Chronicles many times.

Sure, I'm apprehensive. It's bad enough waiting for sequels to movies and books, wondering if you will enjoy them as much, and (usually) raising your expectations to an unreachable level. In this case, there are a number of complicating factors:

a) We loved the first books immensely.
b) We've been waiting for a long time for SRD to return to his best work.
c) Our beloved main character is no longer the main character.

The biggest issue is c). As somebody else has said, it's going to be very difficult to have Linden as the main focus. Her relationship with Covenant was what made her compelling to me in the 2nd Chronicles, and her one interesting personality trait is no longer in play. More on this in a bit.

Furthermore, because of the way time works in the Land vs. our world, we can be fairly certain that there will be no other returning characters. That was hard enough in the 2nd Chrons., when at least we had a couple of visits to Andelain to glimpse some of our favorites from the 1st Chrons. And it seems like those characters (Mhoram, Elena, Foamfollower) were much more fully realized than the likes of Sunder, Hollian, and Pitchwife. Even if there is a way for Sunder to appear in the next book, will anyone care?

Plus, part of the reason it was so good to see the characters from the 1st Chronicles is that it had such an emotional impact on Covenant. It's hard to imagine Linden having a similar reaction.

So we're left with Linden, who may have to carry the 3rd Chronicles on her own. The conflict she had (victimhood vs. power) vanished when she took up the staff and ring at the end of WGW. The need to save or protect her child may be her new "hook," but there has to be more than that.

It's all just speculation at this point. None of us would ever have imagined the Sunbane before WL was published, so there's no telling what twist SRD may have in mind. From a character perspective, though, it does look like Linden is all we have... and I hope that's enough.

One final postscript: the detective novels scare me to death.

Great post from JPwest. We'll just have to get used to new characters. I disagree about Pitchwife, however: he's no Foamfollower (who could be??) but he's a great character. Sunder, on the other hand......

Perhaps the Third Chronicles will return to some of the beasties from the Second: more Sandgorgons or more Elohim.

I agree, JPwest. I don't think Linden can carry the third chronicles, either. She is a sub-character at best.

Have faith in Donaldson, guys! Come on, if he wrote the phone book it would be a good read!!

duchess of malfi wrote:Have faith in Donaldson, guys! Come on, if he wrote the phone book it would be a good read!!

Duchess, three words for you: "The Man Who..."

Oh, come on now! The mystery books weren't all that bad. He was trying hard to write in a different voice - expand his art to a different genre. I really liked them, especially the strong internal journies that the characters went through. And Brew is just an amusing character. What was that one line of his that I liked ... "I missed her so much that my back teeth hurt." heh heh heh.

I have yet to be able to locate "The Man Who..." books.

I haven't found em either.
[tone=melodrama] Yes, I'm afraid. It would be so...heartsickening...for SRD not to remain true to his former tone...But remember, the point of TCTC has always been, IMHO, not to make you feel good or bad, but to make you FEEL. Virulently or upliftingly, these books hit you where you can FEEL it. Yes, we feel love for the Land. Yes, we feel the ill of Despite. We are most likely going to feel the pang of the destruction of the Earth and the resulting confrontation b/t LF and the Creator. We'll feel it, but will we survive it, with our enjoyment and prospective returning to of these books intact? [/melodrama]
Stop laughing at me! I meant every dang word! Anyway, yes, I'm afraid. But I'm still gonna read 'em.

fightingmyinstincts wrote:But I'm still gonna read 'em.

I am, too.

The UK site for amazon.com has the three-book complilation of "The Reed Stephens Novels" (unfortunately, the US site does not carry it):

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/07528 ... 22-3401252

They also offer the fourth book, "The Man Who Fought Alone" as a package deal. Otherwise, you can get the first three books in the US here:

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handl ... 53-6358245

And the fourth one here:

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/ ... ce&s=books

In case people didn't read the info in some of the other threads, the first three mysteries were published under the pen name "Reed Stephens". The fourth book was put out under Donaldson's real name, and at the same time he had the original three books published in the single-book-combo that was also under his own name.

If anyone's interested in a little word search game, I made one as a demo of my programming business a few years ago (and received permission from SRD to use his material). It's only for Windows (sorry, the program I used to build it doesn't support Mac), and you can download it from here (1.3M):

www.eccker.org/mysterysearch.exe

I admit it's a little trepidating when my favorite Donaldson series is the first one in his career (or two if you count the trilogies separately) and now after all these years and other books he's going to continue it. Luckily I found Reave the Just and Other Tales to be almost thoroughly excellent and so am able to keep up my optimism. I'm not worried about the dark stuff cropping up. I like the dark stuff as long as it's not the sole ingredient.

I think it's a very good thing Donaldson seems to have some integrity unlike some other authors. (Eddings, Jordan...) He wouldn't be writing the new series if they didn't have a reason for existence and he couldn't raise the stakes from the earlier trilogies. My biggest fear for the new series is an excess of downtime caused by an excess of description.