halfway through..... disappointed.

[lowepg]

Probably no book could live up to my expectations after reading (as a boy and continually for 20+ years!) and rereading the 1st and 2nd chronicles.

First, let me say Im only halfway through (feverishly been reading since yesterday!).... but, this is hard to say- I dont love it. Im sure others here had the same fantastic moment in the bookstore stumbling across a NEW Chronicle of TC! I blinked a few times before I believed it.

I immediately bought it and then - in a mad rush of excitement- began a new re-read of the 1st and 2nd chronicles....excitement accelerating for a NEW STORY the further I progressed with my trusty classics....

So, here I am- coming up for air after hours of reading. Im letdown. Callig it a "Chronicle of TC" seems false advertising.... a few dreams and a short possession is all we see/hear of TC. Yes- I know he died!

But I think the hole in my heart thusfar is for the fantastic characters of the previous stories. I have not met a character yet that holds a candle to Lena, Alena, Mhorham, *any* of the Giants or nearly any of the old lords.
Ive always been lukewarm for Linden- and that was when she was supporting cast.... I'm sorry- she is no UrLord- regardless of her whitegold ring....

Please someone tell me I will regain hope as I dive into the 2nd half of this book.


I do remember as a young lad, reading Lord Fouls Bane and putting it down after 40 or 50 pages....this was no fantasy story! I was a LOTR fanatic, a big han of DragonRiders on Pern and was just finishing Dune for the first time.... this Thomas Covenant was something differnet! The story started Slow!!!


lol- it was months later I picked it up and read further.... I remember the exact moment to this day! So, I'm hoping for the same sort of "a-ha" that reconnects me with the Land I loved....

[lucimay]

ok relayer...i'l be the first to admit i was also a bit disappointed about halfway thru...but it DOES get more interesting later. and also, i think ROTE is a bit of a "warm up" if you will, for what's to come. i have faith in Donaldson.

[dlbpharmd]

First, lowepg - welcome to Kevin's Watch!

I agree with Lucimay - ROTE is just the beginning of a great new story.

[lucimay]

thanks for gettin my back on this one, pharmD!!
now that i've read The Gap, i soooo have faith in Donaldson's ability to tell a REALLY good freakin story. AND now that i've read the Gap, i believe i should go back and read ROTE a third time. i think i might have missed somethings my first two readings.


EDIT: and YES, oh ye deluded Linden Lovers...i will give her yet ANOTHER shot at convincing me...if only for the sake of some of the best female characters in Sci-Fi, Morn, Mikka, Sorus, Lane, and Min Donner.

[matrixman]

From the Gradual Interview, SRD's response to another reader who found Runes lacking:

If you didn’t enjoy “The Runes of the Earth,” I advise you to stop reading “The Last Chronicles.” Life is too short to spend it on books you don’t like.

We can complain all we want, but SRD isn't going to apologize for writing his story his way. Heh, I like it when his answers are curt.

[lowepg]

ok relayer...i'l be the first to admit i was also a bit disappointed about halfway thru...but it DOES get more interesting later. and also, i think ROTE is a bit of a "warm up" if you will, for what's to come. i have faith in Donaldson.

I hope so. Obviously I'll be finishing the book on the next day. But, frankly, I would have hoped for it to "get more interesting" by page 250

However, if the rest of the Chronicles is more of the same- I suggest "The Chronicles of TC" is false advertising. Perhaps "Chronicles of Linden Avery: The Single Mom"

[The Somberlain]

I think that Mr. Donaldson has answered questions about Linden's prominence in ROTE by directly pointing out that it is indeed the "Last Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant"

[lowepg]

I think that Mr. Donaldson has answered questions about Linden's prominence in ROTE by directly pointing out that it is indeed the "Last Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant"

Yes- that is my hope!

I reread my previous post and want to apologize for its tone. One might read it and think me a troll- coming here my first day- whining and complaining.

I usually lurk on a message board for a while to learn the lay of the land before posting. However- I have not here since I had not finished the book and didnt want any spoilers.

So, in honesty, I may be a bit neurotic.... getting defensive of TC to Mr Donaldson of all people! I discovered TCTC in 1980 (age 12), and once I got past the first 50 pages or so- burned through all the books available at that time inside a week. Then- painfully waited for the 2nd chronicles to be published. They were the first hardcover books I ever bought with my own money!

And, Im sure like many here, I've reread these books many times over the last 25 years. I will spare you all how facinating the experience is reading them as a preteen, then teenager, then college student, then graduate, then husband, then father.

So now I find myself defending my "fandom" , sigh- need more sleep! At any rate, I aplogize for my clumsy entrance to this site, and will endeavor to be a better citizen. I cant wait to explore more here- I expect to find a lot of people I have similar passion with!

[Creator]

Welcome lowepg!

You will find that Watch brothers and sisters are also very open in their praise and criticism of SRD's work! And very welcoming of new family members.

[Believer]

SRD made a comment at Bubonicon that during the writing of Fatal Revenant, he felt that his writing was really ON, whereas he didn't get the same sense from Runes of the Earth. So he might concur with some of the criticisms.

[lucimay]

SRD made a comment at Bubonicon that during the writing of Fatal Revenant, he felt that his writing was really ON, whereas he didn't get the same sense from Runes of the Earth. So he might concur with some of the criticisms.

things like this make me like Donaldson a lot.

[lowepg]

SRD made a comment at Bubonicon that during the writing of Fatal Revenant, he felt that his writing was really ON, whereas he didn't get the same sense from Runes of the Earth. So he might concur with some of the criticisms.

things like this make me like Donaldson a lot.

Me too.... even moreso if i could run out to the bookstore tomorrow and buy Fatal Revenant! But now Im just stuck with the bittersweet aftertaste of Runes for a good long time.

Damn- I hope be beats JK's next installment at least....

[lucimay]

read The Gap or Erikson or Bakker.

[lowepg]

ok relayer...i'l be the first to admit i was also a bit disappointed about halfway thru...but it DOES get more interesting later. and also, i think ROTE is a bit of a "warm up" if you will, for what's to come. i have faith in Donaldson.

Just finished it. All I can say is there was a spike at the very end of the EKG for me... It had been flatline for a good while- but life fluttered back in the last few pages..... perhaps even the last few words.

Hard to 2nd guess the "master", but I feel that moment could have been moved up to the middle of the book. The end of Part 1 instead on the end of the book.

This will get a 2nd, slower, reread- but beyond that- I cant say. The way Im feeling- it wont get *alot* better on the 2nd read. A good bit- yes. But- I can see myself calmly waiting after reading this thing again.- Which is starkly contrasted by the number of times I've read the prior books....Some of those parts almost feel memorized.

Sigh.

Still wishing Linden was a stay-at-home-(on-earth) Mom.....

[Guest]

As I read ROTE for the first time, I got the sense that the slow pace was deliberate...and not necessarily inconsistent. After all it has been 20+ years since the last Chronicles. As has been his wont in these books, SRD tends to use references to past events frequently in order to structure the mental deliberations of the characters, add tension to the moment, and emphasize the imminent revelations of a given scene.

Can SRD assume that everyone that would pick up these books is a diehard TCTC fan? Hmm, well probably, but I think ROTE, especially in the first half, may have been designed to re-introduce many of the popular elements of the previous stories, as well as reminders of some key revelations, as the means to re-establish the tableau the reader needs for this final Chronicle, whether a huge fan or not. Certainly he did something similar in The Gap Series with The Real Story.

Hard to 2nd guess the "master", but I feel that moment could have been moved up to the middle of the book. The end of Part 1 instead on the end of the book.

This comment implies perhaps that the stories need not be so long. Not that I am advocating he should have done so, but SRD could have shortened the previous Chronicles in order to get us to the many climactic moments more quickly, and this would have been a disservice to the readers. To me, part of the power of these stories is the way he builds suspense to certain events, and the depths to which he takes us in the process.

Spoiler

I, for one, had no doubt that TC would make a significant appearance by the end of the book.

I enjoyed the more relaxed pace...it has been many years since I last re-read the series, and it was nice to re-immerse myself without being harried and on the edge of my seat the whole time. (I guess that I have mellowed in my old age!)

I am confident that there will be plenty of frantic desperation from here on out!!

Peace,

[Nerdanel]

I think the key to enjoying Runes is to try to look beyond the surface. On the surface we see Linden travelling around the place, making new friends, and finding the Staff of Law. The appearance of the Demondim near the very end is the only bigger kind of setback she suffers after the Prologue, but the consequences of that don't have the time to manifest fully, as the Demondim retreat to allow Linden a good night's sleep. Then, in the last sentence Linden gains both Covenant and an apparently-healed Jeremiah completely free for effort, as it may appear.

However I had a strong feeling while reading that Linden's good situation is illusory and that she is skating on thin ice. An attentive reading reveals several troubling points. There is a vision about Linden accomplishing only destruction. Lord Foul is content. The question is which hidden problem gets to her first. I might start a new thread listing the problems that are potentially liable to jumping at Linden in the following books. There is a feeling of DOOM on the air, and that sense of doom is what makes Runes special. A lesser author wouldn't have been able to handle it.

[Variol Farseer]

I read Runes for the second time a few weeks ago. Every chapter or so, I would wince when I saw Linden do something that I can just tell will have disastrous repercussions later on. She is deliberately endangering the Arch of Time, and doesn't care as long as she thinks it will help her get Jeremiah back.

Good cannot be accomplished by evil means. How many times do people tell her that? Yet she refuses to pay attention. Results: the last rhysh of the Waynhim destroyed; Demondim and Illearth power at the gates of defenceless Revelstone; caesures multiplied and strengthened by Linden's rash effort to use and control them. Even Kevin's Dirt and the oppressive rule of the Masters are in a sense Linden's fault, because it was she who removed the Staff of Law from the timestream for 3000 years in the name of recovering it. And the caesures themselves may only have existed because Linden gave Joan back her wedding ring.

Yet what good did any of this do her? In the end none of it helped Linden find Jeremiah (or Covenant). If the apparitions at the end of Runes are real, they found her, and might have done without any of her efforts. If not, she has awakened an evil more appalling than the Sunbane.

A feeling of DOOM, in all sooth!

[wayfriend]

I disagree with you here, VF.

"Anything worth saving won't be destroyed by choices like that."

The rhysh chose their own fate; Linden did not coerce it. Esmer is responsible for the presence of the Demondim, not Linden. Linden used an existing ceasure, she didn't create one, and both the ur-viles and the Ranyhyn prompted her to make this choice. And Linden is no more responsible for the ceasures in giving Joan her own ring back than, for example, Apple is responsible for subway muggings and music piracy because they sell people Ipods.

"I was wrong," he said to the empty dark. Perhaps no one heard him over the muffled sound of the runners in the snow. He did not want anyone to hear him. He was not speaking to be heard. He only wanted to fight off sleep, stay away from dreams. "I should've listened to Mhoram."

The memory was like a dream: it had the strange immanence of dreaming. But he clung to it because it was more tolerable than Hamako's death.

When High Lord Mhoram had tried to summon him to the Land for the last battle against Lord Foul, he, Covenant, had resisted the call. In his own world, a small girl had just been bitten by a timber-rattler—a lost child who needed his help. He had refused Mhoram and the Land in order to aid that girl.

And Mhoram had replied, Unbeliever, I release you. You turn from us to save life in your own world. We will not be undone by such motives. And if darkness should fall upon us, still the beauty of the Land endures—for you will not forget. Go in Peace.

"I should've understood," Covenant went on, addressing no one but the cold stars. "I should've given Seadreamer some kind of caamora. Should've found some way to save Hamako. Forget the risk. Mhoram took a terrible risk when he let me go. But anything worth saving won't be destroyed by choices like that."

[dlbpharmd]

Wow, great points by both of you.

[Nerdanel]

The rhysh chose their own fate; Linden did not coerce it.

I think it could be said Linden rendered the intended self-sacrifice of the Waynhim meaningless. Anyway, I think Linden could have found the Staff without time-travelling. She would only have needed to travel to Anele's old cave, locate the most beautiful valley nearby, and comb through that. By that time the Waynhim would all be dead and the guarding illusion conveniently frayed or gone. The trouble is, when Linden was forced to choose between two uncertain options, she chose the one that could lead to a potential end of the world rather than the one that could lead to a simple failure because the first option was the easy way out even if it was using evil means to achieve good ends.

Esmer is responsible for the presence of the Demondim, not Linden. Linden used an existing ceasure, she didn't create one, and both the ur-viles and the Ranyhyn prompted her to make this choice.

I think the one prompting the choice was Esmer. The ur-viles didn't look sold on the idea (with no common language it can be hard to tell). I think Esmer needed to convince them in the mysterious untranslated conversation, and the ur-viles accepted only on the condition of fortifying Linden.

As for the Ranyhyn, I think they actually tried to convince Linden not to time-travel, but a lack of a proper understanding of language can be a problem. The Ranyhyn think in pictures and cannot put their thoughts into words that Linden would understand. I think the message of the Ranyhyn was to rely on the people of the Land rather than risky and extreme magical solutions.

Also note that right when Linden had decided to travel to the past, the Ranyhyn developed a pressing need to have a horserite RIGHT NOW. The second time the Ranyhyn allowed Linden to proceed, but after all, Hyn HAD chosen to serve Linden, which would mean obeying even her stupid decisions. In the meantime, it is noteworthy that there was a horrible unnatural storm on the return trip from the horserite, which was very convenient for mimimizing any capability for reflection Linden might have had, and then Esmer summoned the caesure as quickly as possible so that Linden wouldn't have any time to change her mind.

I think Esmer is working against Linden while pretending to help her 50% of the time.

And Linden is no more responsible for the ceasures in giving Joan her own ring back than, for example, Apple is responsible for subway muggings and music piracy because they sell people Ipods.

Linden did create one caesure personally.