I'm still undecided if this Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series is one I'll continue reading up until the end. For every interesting thing Donaldson does, there was something that made me wince.
And yet, I can't say it bored me.
A lot more actually happens in this book that occured in Runes of the Earth. A lot more action, a bit more of an explanation of just who the new powers and people involved in the conflict for the Land are.
I really wish the cover illustrator had chosen a look for the Forestal on the cover that was less "Gandalf the White".
I'll check out the next book in the series, but I don't feel like I have to finish it, as I did with the original two.
And yes, I'm aware that more than a few posters here hold a dim view of the original books. So sue me. Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
I picked it up the day it came out, came home, and started re-reading Runes.
It's interesting, because when I first read Runes (when it came out), I was sort of like "meh". But it must have just been the mood I was in, because I thought it utterly rocked. And Revenant was phenomenal as well. Maybe even better. It's killing me that I have to wait another 3 years for the next one, and another 3 years after that until the story is finished.
When I finished The One Tree, back in college, I felt this terrible pang of fear/anxiety. I mean, this was 1982, right? Still during the Cold War. And I was suddenly sure that the idiots in charge were going to blow up the world before White Gold Wielder came out. I was somewhat less afraid that Donaldson wouldn't live to finish it, and a bit less afraid that I might not be around for it. But the nuclear armageddon scenario was my big fear.
And now... I'm not quite as uptight, but it's not fun.
And I wish they'd gotten Darrell K. Sweet to do the covers. His covers of the first two Chronicles are sheer poetry in images.
[ November 05, 2007, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: Lisa ]
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
So, Donaldson has said revealing why the the Creator of the Land/Homeless Man in a Robe didn't turn up would be too big a spoiler.
What do you think the explanation is?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
When/where did he say that?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
I think the explanation is that he got killed at the end of the Second Chronicles, and being that he was busy being the Timewarden after that, he couldn't make it back.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Interesting. So you hold that Creator is just another aspect of Thomas Covenant himself?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
<nod> So is Foul. Think about it... what did Covenant say when he confronted Foul at the end of White Gold Wielder? He told him that they were one. If Foul is part of Covenant, how can the Creator not be?
I've actually thought since the first Chronicles that Covenant's ring is the Arch of Time. I may be wrong, but does Covenant's onset of leprosy match Kevin's Ritual of Desecration?
You know, the first Chronicles are one of a very small number of books that literally changed my life in a major way. I can't even imagine what kind of person I would have turned out to be had I not read it when I was 16. I think only 3 other books ever had that kind of effect on me, and all of those were later on in life.
One thing I've wondered for a while, btw, and I hope that Donaldson will answer it before he finishes, is by what name Kevin was known during his tenure as High Lord. Certainly not Landwaster. Landpreserver?
Way back when, before The Wounded Land came out, I wrote him two letters. He sent me letters back in both cases, and not form letters. I think I only have one of them now. In one letter, I asked him where he got his names from. I mean, "Elohim", "Sheol", "Jehannum", "Herem"? I didn't recognize moksha, turiya and samadhi, but I sure did recognize the others. His reply was that they weren't intended to be symbolic. That he just pulled them out of his mind. I tend to doubt that he was being straight about that, since Sheol is Hebrew for grave, Jehannum is an Arabicization of the Hebrew Gehennom, which has a connotation of ~"Hell", and Herem means excommunication.
In the other letter, I asked him if he might someday write stories that took place during the time of the Old Lords. He said absolutely not (obviously he hadn't thought of caesures yet). He said that he thinks linearly, and that he couldn't do it.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Oh, the "Foul is the part of Covenant who hates lepers" thing is plastered all over both the original Chronicles...one can't miss it.
Yet, Thomas never seemed quite so attached to the idea that Creator was another part of him...in his "It's all in our heads" explanation of the Land to Linden, he specifically mentions the Man in the Robe as a separate person who's somehow able to "tune in" to the same dream world.
Not saying that that means Creator -won't- turn out to be yet another part of Covenant...just that there's far less in-series implication.
Posted by Jay (Member # 5786) on :
I'm reading Fatal Revenant right now and am really struggling. I feel like every other name I need to look up and have no clue who is what and why so and so does this or that. I guess I need to go back and read the first and second chronicles. It's been like 20 years…
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)