[Knight of Bowen]

i may have allready asked this but does anyone know when the next covenant book is coming out? i think i have allready asked this.. but my memorys a tad shot.. due to various substances and whatnot.. but hey who dosnt want to party?

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Knight of Bowen;358996 said:

i may have allready asked this but does anyone know when the next covenant book is coming out? i think i have allready asked this.. but my memorys a tad shot.. due to various substances and whatnot.. but hey who dosnt want to party?

2010, then the last book in 2013.

[Knight of Bowen]

woooohooooo finally got the last gap novel. and a game of thrones. if any1 cares.. lol

[Dancer+]

I've got one and a half more of the Gap story series books to read, it's fantastic so far. Donaldson style and characterisation in most places is second-to-none in fantasy (in my opinion).

[Knight of Bowen]

Dancer, on Nov 11 2008, 12:40 AM, said:

I've got one and a half more of the Gap story series books to read, it's fantastic so far. Donaldson style and characterisation in most places is second-to-none in fantasy (in my opinion).

Yeah true. i love how believable it seems. how evil is evil and does evil very...... evilly? and good? well you get idea. i want to read more stuff like that. but is also cool. any suggestions? i just want him to hurry up and finish the covenants allready. 2010 is sooooo far away ill have to start again to remember everything..

This post has been edited by Cougar: 12 November 2008 - 01:34 PM

[Knight of Bowen]

i have finally completed the gap novels.. and i have to say that i really enjoyed them. its got me wanting to read more sci fi.
does anyone have anything sci fi thats simlilar in its greatness to the gap? it would be much appreciated.. also up to the 3rd b song of ice n fire book and im finding that really enjoyable also, thanks for the recommendation guys.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I recently finished a gap reread. Great stuff. I don't read much scifi so I don't know of anything similar. I'd like to read it if it exists though.

[Use Of Weapons]

I don't know that there's anything similar to the Gap, but you could try Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, _The Reality Dysfunction_, _The Neutronium Alchemist_, and _The Naked God_, which are excellent, visceral space opera. His later SF is also very good, particularly the duology _Pandora's Star_ and _Judas Unchained_.

[Salt-Man Z]

The only books I've read that give me the same gutpunch as the GAP books are Stover's Caine books.

[Mentalist]

hmm
I want to read Gap, since i've heard so much about it, but it involves ordering the books and i keep forgetting to do that and it gets pushed back more nad more.

I read the first chronicles, becasue they were conveniently on a shelf at Chapters round the time the first "Last chronicles" book came out.

I managed to make my way through the books, but they failed to captivate me. I don't know what it was that didn't let me get into it, but I failed to be stunned, like some people here seem to have been.

[amphibian]

Mentalist, on Feb 16 2009, 07:41 PM, said:

hmm
I want to read Gap, since i've heard so much about it, but it involves ordering the books and i keep forgetting to do that and it gets pushed back more nad more.

I read the first chronicles, becasue they were conveniently on a shelf at Chapters round the time the first "Last chronicles" book came out.

I managed to make my way through the books, but they failed to captivate me. I don't know what it was that didn't let me get into it, but I failed to be stunned, like some people here seem to have been.

They have these things called libraries, you know. You can reduce the costs of reading the books and maybe meet somebody cool in the SF section.

[Salt-Man Z]

Mentalist, on Feb 16 2009, 06:41 PM, said:

I managed to make my way through [The Thomas Covenant] books, but they failed to captivate me. I don't know what it was that didn't let me get into it, but I failed to be stunned, like some people here seem to have been.

As far as Donaldson's work goes:

Gap Cycle > Mordant's Need > Covenant

The Gap Cycle is orders of magnitude more intense than the Covenant books. The plot is more convoluted, the action hits faster and harder; the only thing it really has in common with the Chronicles is the indepth characterizations and the mental and physical anguish the characters go through.

[Use Of Weapons]

Hmm. My order would be:

Covenant 1st Chronicles > Gap > Covenant 2nd chronicles > Mordant's Need

for overall quality. Though Gap is certainly more intense, that's perhaps more a feature of the plot and setting, and for me at least those are not the ultimate measure of quality (though they play a part). Mordant's Need comes last, because something has to, and it's the most lightweight. Still good fun though.

[Salt-Man Z]

Heh. Just goes to show how tastes vary. I much preferred the 2nd Chronicles to the 1st.

[Mentalist]

amphibian, on Feb 16 2009, 09:17 PM, said:

Mentalist, on Feb 16 2009, 07:41 PM, said:

hmm
I want to read Gap, since i've heard so much about it, but it involves ordering the books and i keep forgetting to do that and it gets pushed back more nad more.

I read the first chronicles, becasue they were conveniently on a shelf at Chapters round the time the first "Last chronicles" book came out.

I managed to make my way through the books, but they failed to captivate me. I don't know what it was that didn't let me get into it, but I failed to be stunned, like some people here seem to have been.

They have these things called libraries, you know. You can reduce the costs of reading the books and maybe meet somebody cool in the SF section.

yeah, the fact that I spend most of my time months away from real civilization in a Uni town that has crappy small-town libraries prevents the use of that particular option,

[Use Of Weapons]

Salt-Man Z, on Feb 17 2009, 04:08 PM, said:

Heh. Just goes to show how tastes vary. I much preferred the 2nd Chronicles to the 1st.

Linden annoyed me. And I hated the Sunbane. And there was too much travelling, and not enough Raver action. Plus, the whole of _The One Tree_ was hugely disappointing.

[stone monkey]

The Gap sequence has the honour of containing one of the very few fictional characters that I truly detest.

Spoiler

That's Nick Succorso btw, I was heartily glad when he died...

And that's a compliment to Donaldson's writing skill, in that this character is well written enough for me to hate pretty much everything about him... "Dark" doesn't even begin to cover how unpleasant the books get, the first book is something of a fluffy pink bunny compared to the later ones. My reaction to reading the Gap sequence is somewhat like my reaction to watching The Dark Knight; both are interesting, well written and well worth one's time and/or money, but they really are no fun at all.

As far as the Covenant books are concerned; I too am deeply sickened by the "What shorthand do I [the writer] use to make the reader understand that this is a bad guy? I know, I'll have him try and rape someone..." tactics used in a lot of fiction, but have to (somewhat unwillingly) agree that the rape in the first Covenant book is really not about that and is probably one of the very few justifiable uses of the trope. And somewhat weirded out by it to TBH - for a lot of authors I get that uneasy feeling that they might be airing out a particularly nasty section of their emotional/psychological/psychosexual baggage. Which actually turns out to be the case in one rather hideous example - All together now, "Oh, John Ringo, no!"

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 20 February 2009 - 12:00 AM

[Salt-Man Z]

jitsukerr, on Feb 18 2009, 05:28 AM, said:

Salt-Man Z, on Feb 17 2009, 04:08 PM, said:

Heh. Just goes to show how tastes vary. I much preferred the 2nd Chronicles to the 1st.

Linden annoyed me. And I hated the Sunbane. And there was too much travelling, and not enough Raver action. Plus, the whole of _The One Tree_ was hugely disappointing.

While I did find Linden irritating, I thought her no more obnoxious than Covenant himself. All around, I just found the 2nd Chronicles to be so much more creative than the first. I mean, the Sunbane -- does it get more out-of-the-box creative than that? Add in all the different lands visited while searching for the One Tree, and the First Chronicles look rather pedestrian by comparison. (My opinion only, of course.)

Back to the Gap books: like RLY, I would love to find another sci-fi series that compares to it. As I said, Stover's Caine books have the same kind of "feel" to me, but they're as much fantasy as they are sci-fi. I'll likely be crucified for saying this, but the next closest thing I've read to the Gap books (IMO) was Hobb's Liveship trilogy -- I seemed to find a lot of parallels between the two series.

[uk_unbeliever]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Jul 3 2008, 08:18 AM, said:

I've heard so many people who stopped reading at that point. Makes me sad, they're missing out on some good stuff.

Its vital to how his character progresses (or progresses by not progressing much for a looooong time if you see what I mean). But then a stubborn or subtly changing character is great.

Thomas Covenant's battles with himself make the whole first chronicles a work of descriptive psychology as much as fantasy. Whether you like or dislike the character (in terms of 'yeh he's a nice guy', or 'ooh he's nasty') or like the fact that you really get to know exactly what he's going through (more likely), you can't really dislike the fact that you really do get to feel what it's like to be him. I've not read much that compares in terms of really getting under the skin of a character.

Personally I do like TC- everybody can be annoying though, right?


I agree with other posters in that the GAP is probably a better all round series. I've always preferred fantasy to sci-fi, but as with the Thomas Covenant books, it's a story about people- their motivations, their feelings- before it's a story about events. Yes it tells a cracking story of space politics, alien threat and cool technology, but through it all the solid characters are very real. I felt that there's also a wider group of great characters- none truley good, or truely evil. I loved Warden Dios.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

ON the off chancee that any of you donaldson fans haven't seen his gradual interview, where he has answered thousands of reader questions (and wil answer yours too), here's the linky.

http://www.stephenrd...heauthor/gi.php