Gradual Interview
(answers from April 2010, as of Jan 11 2026, 11:29:16 PM)
www.StephenRDonaldson.com
© 2004 by Stephen R.Donaldson

Bob Lee

Dear Stephen,

First, thank you so much for the GI. It is simply amazing that you take the time and effort to take questions from your readers. I find the questions and answers here truly thought provoking. They also keep me sane while I await the next installment of the Last Chronicles. 

When I read "White Gold Wielder" at the time it first came out, I was convinced from a comment Linden made at the end that Thomas Covenant was still alive somewhere. When I reread the series about 10 years and even 20 years later, I felt that I had imagined it and that, no, Thomas Covenant was gone for good. Maybe I was just in a bad place in my life then.

I've seen you mention in the GI that you had plans for the Last Chronicles when you wrote the Second Chronicles, and so you could set up events for the time in the future when you would write them. So my question is, was I right the first time? Were you giving us a hint that there was a Last Chronicles coming at some point?

Sincerely,
Bob

Well, I didn't actually want to *hint* at "The Last Chronicles" because a) I wanted "The Second Chronicles" to feel complete as they were, and b) I wasn't prepared to promise anyone that I would ever write "The Last Chronicles".  But the most obvious hint (I prefer to think of it as preparation) for the story I'm working on now is Hollian's resurrection (breaking the Law of Life).  Perhaps less obvious is the expanded role for the Elohim.

In any case, I thought I made it pretty obvious in WGW that Covenant's spirit remained alive as part of the Arch of Time.  In that sense, you were right the first time.

(04/10/2010)

dave goodman

You responded to a question of mine a while back so thanks very much for that. Did you intentionally use two very obscure words(oregeny,frangible)in the very first paragraphs of the new novel...as an inside jest for your fans? Just kidding....I love the new  first chapter. Will the book be avaiable right away for a Kindle? I'm finding that the books I really want to read right away aren't available for the Kindle immediately. In your case would it hurt you or help to have the (heavily discounted) book available for Kindle now alongside the hardback?

"Intentionally"?  Well, it was intentional in the sense that it's appropriate to the style (the rhetoric or tone) I've chosen for the "Covenant" books.  But I didn't intend it as an "inside jest."  I don't think that way--especially when I'm writing a chapter as important as that one.

I don't know how Putnams will handle the e-rights for AATE.  I can't speculate about when the book will be released, or in what form.  In addition, I don't know enough about the e-market to estimate the effect of e-books on the sales of physical books.  (Obviously my "cut" for a hardback is much higher than for an e-book.)  And let me repeat that I have no control over such things.

(04/10/2010)

Paul Morris

Just finished the Gap series and fourteen years on,  it was simply a fantastic and satisfying read- even better than the first time.

I wonder what you learned from writing the Gap that you have used in the latest Covenent series? In some ways the Gap is an easier read, there is also a different flow and feel to the sequencing of events and the writing appears lighter somehow.

I seem to need to have to look for much more subtle clues and hints to even begin to guess what will happen next in the latest Covenent novels: this makes for sure an even more rewarding read in the long run. Anyway, truly amazing writing and thank you all your energies and efforts we really appreciate your talents!

Certainly the GAP books have "a different flow and feel," and the writing *is* "lighter," than the "Covenant" books.  It's not just a different story, it's a different *kind* of story; and I work hard at adjusting my methods to suit my story.

Considering "The Last Chronicles," perhaps the single most important thing that the GAP books enabled/required me to learn was a deeper engagement with a wider variety of characters.  I like to think (or perhaps simply hope) that this deeper engagement "shows" throughout "The Last Chronicles."

(04/10/2010)

Joey

Was reading an article on an artificial intelligence program that creates original classical music; came across this paragraph and thought of you and a few GI responses. The samples tracks are wonderful. Thought you'd enjoy.
-J

------
As Cope sees it, Bach merely had an extraordinary ability to manipulate notes in a way that made people who heard his music have intense emotional reactions. He describes his sometimes flabbergasting conversations with Hofstadter: “I’d pull down a score and say, ‘Look at this. What’s on this page?’ And he’d say, ‘That’s Beethoven, that’s music of great spirit and great soul.’ And I’d say, ‘Wow, isn’t that incredible! To me, it’s a bunch of black dots and black lines on white paper! Where’s the soul in there?’”
------

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/

Interesting.  "...it’s a bunch of black dots and black lines on white paper! Where’s the soul in there?"  Exactly the same thing can be said about writing stories.  After all, the reader only sees arbitrary black squiggles on white paper.  And yet somehow a spark can leap from the mind of the writer to the mind of reader.  That's not just magical:  it's downright numinous.

But it seems even more so to me when we're talking about music.  Writing stories is more direct:  writer to reader.  Since few of us can read musical scores, an intervening interpreter is required; so the spark has to leap first to the mind of the performer, and from there to the mind of the listener.  So I wonder:  How do they *do* that?  (A question which seems to occur to me more and more often as I get older.)

(04/10/2010)

Robert K Murnick

Just finished the GAP series.  Fine, Fine work.  A few questions for you Sir, if you please….

1)	I understand why TRS put me off when I first tried it years ago….it’s seems like an academic exercise when compared with the rest of the series.  In the Daughter of Regals introduction, you say “In a novel, the writer simply stands back and throws words at his subject until some of them stick.”  Perhaps not enough of them stuck for me then.  I think I read that you wrote TRS before conceiving of the rest of the series, and then realized that the story needed to be made bigger.  Did this realization provoke much in the way of TRS rewrite?  If so, would you care to share (in broad terms) what they were?
2)	I liked the organic way that the format of the saga changes.  In TRS we have numbered chapters.  In FK we still have numbered chapters, but also you add Ancillary Documentation and (best of all!) chapters simply titled “Angus”.  I remembered looking forward to those most of all.  From there you went to chapters based on POV and finally dispensed entirely with Ancillary Documentation in TDAGD.  It reads like you were experimenting with format and didn’t mind sharing this with the reader.  Was there pushback from editors and publishers for this (for want of a better term) play?
3)	In CAO, I remember wanting to see a POV chapter from an Amnioni, and you didn’t disappoint when you provided the Marc Vestabule chapter in TDAGD.  He, of course, was once human.  Did you ever consider writing a pure Amnioni character?
4)	The one Ancillary Documentation we didn’t get was for “Super-Light Proton Cannon”.  Am I right to suspect that you considered writing this at one time?  (After all, we have one for “Matter Cannon”.)  The name itself begs a technological lineage, after all if we have “Super-Light Proton Cannon”, it follows that there has also been “Light Proton Cannon”.  If “Light” denotes an amount of mass (as opposed to the bright energy we get from the sun), then there may also have been “Heavy Proton Cannon” and even “Run-of-The-Mill Proton Cannon”.  If you remember, is it possible you could outline SLPC in a few sentences?
5)	Speaking of SLPC, how come only the bad guys had it?
6)	I appreciated the “Scouring of the Shire” denouement of TDAGD when you send Gandalf and Frodo- excuse me; I mean Warden and Angus after Saruman- I mean Holt Fasner.  After mad Gollum- I mean Ciro destroys the One Ring- I mean the Amnioni behemoth (and himself), it was nice to see the loose end tied up.  (Forgive me, please – I’m just messing with you).  Seriously, did this contrast occur to you?
7)	In your divine opinion (I’m not being sarcastic – you are the God of the GAP universe), did Angus receive Justice?  Rapist, murderer, merchant of human beings, but also the (ultimately) heroic savior of the human species.  I suppose if a real person fit a similar bill, the authorities would still want him under lock and key (if not six feet underground), “heroic savior” aspect be damned.  But that would be practicality - not necessarily Justice.

<whew>  A lot of questions.  I usually ask people to limit themselves to 2 or 3 at a time.  But you've been waiting quite a while, so briefly....

1)I rewrote "The Real Story" to make it fit with the upcoming GAP books a *very* long time ago.  I no longer remember details.  But as I recall:  at that stage, the text had already been rewritten so often (albeit for entirely different reasons) that I only had to make sure nothing contradicted what I wanted to do later.

2)I stopped writing "Ancillary Documentation" for TDAGD because I no longer needed that form of exposition, not because anyone exerted any kind of pressure on me.  My editor at the time liked the way my narrative approach evolved.  And she particularly liked the "Ancillary Documentation."  Like me, however, she saw that it was no longer needed in the last book.

3)The short answer is, No.  Or, more succinctly, No, No, a thousand times No!  Anything of that kind would have been--in effect--an attempt to "humanize" the Amnion (by making them accessible to a human mind), which would have significantly undermined the kind of menace I wanted to convey.

4)Well, we also didn't get Ancillary Documentation for zone implants.  But never mind.  The "light" in Super-Light Proton Cannon refers to the theoretically impermeable barrier of the speed of light.  Mass (in this case, protons) accelerated to the speed of light (which we all know is impossible).  And 

5) only the bad guys have SLPC because their technology, like their way of thinking, is profoundly different than ours.  In fact, I think the text points out that the Amnion are technologically superior in virtually every respect.  What they *can't* do is mass-produce anything.  Each cannon, like each ship, and each symbiotic crytal, has to be individually grown.  If they could produce an entire fleet armed with SLPC, they would have swept humankind away before my story ever got started.

6) You've got to be kidding.  That parallel never occurred to me.  <sigh>  But they do say there's no such thing as a new story....

7) What do I know about justice?  No matter how you define it, there are always contrary arguments.  When I can say is that I find the outcome of Angus' story especially satisfying.  Almost in spite of himself, he has become a very different person (the same personality is being driven by profoundly altered motivations) with new and powerful resources.  Isn't that what the quest for integrity--or "self-actualization"--is all about?

(04/21/2010)

Stephen A.

Stephen,

For the introduction of Unworthy of the Angel, you wrote that "Fantasy is the only valid tool for theological inquiry."

I loved Unworthy of the Angel: It's my fave Stephen R. Donaldson short story and my fave non-Chronicles story. Actually, sometimes I like it better than the Chronicles because its more succinct and direct.

What was it the angel said, "Help is the circumference of need."?

I know you're not trying to write a polemic or a systematic theology. 

But would it be fair to say that, in the writing, there is no "need" for which there is no help? 

And would it be fair to say that in your stories (esp. the Chronicles) redemption comes from three things that abide: faith, hope and love? Or these three put into action?

Thank you.

I'm uncomfortable with your question.  It seems reductive somehow.  But perhaps this is an effect of my extremely didactic (not to say judgmental, or even dehumanizing) upbringing.  So my discomfort may be entirely personal (therefore irrelevant to your question).  "Now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three.  But the greatest of these is love."  If only *one* person I grew up with had actually lived by what he/she preached....

Nevertheless I can't deny it:  it is indeed fair to say that in most of my stories, "there is no 'need' for which there is no help."  Putting it another way, I don't write about people who aren't given a chance.  Why, even Sheriff Lytton, as cardboard a stereotype as ever there was (as he appears in the first six "Covenant" books) is given a chance.  A chance to be more--or less--than he has previously shown himself to be.

And it's also fair to say (despite my discomfort) that redemption (especially in "The Chronicles") usually arises from "hope" and "love" put into action.  (I say "usually" because it's hard to find either hope or love in Sheriff Lytton, but he rises above himself nonetheless.)  But "faith"?  Faith in *what*, exactly?  Certainly not in "God"--at least as that word is usually defined.  And certainly not in any systematic, codified, or "correct" interpretation of the meaning of life.  No, I prefer to use the word "trust" (knowing that it can be equated with "faith").  "Trust" doesn't have the religious overtones of "faith":  it frees me to focus more concretely on what is actually being trusted, and on what trust requires of the person doing the trusting.

(04/21/2010)

Jonathan Bernstein

Mr. Donaldson

You should show this to your publishers on how they should sell and promote your awesome works

Abraham Lincoln Vampire slayer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X58RPS665V0

Cheers
Jon

I can't wait.

(04/21/2010)

Todd

Stephen, again thank you for giving me the most satisfying reading experiences of my life. 
It seems that every time I read the TC Chronicles I run the gambit of emotions and sense of wonder.
But of all of the questions your work seems to raise, one stands out above all and I've come to the fact that I must have closure.

What are Heatherly and Julie wearing under the sheets?

You have to ask?  Tsk tsk.

But for the record:  the whole show was a gag.  One of the difficulties filming (taping? digitizing?) was to preserve "that air of mystery" by not letting the sheets slip.

(04/21/2010)

MRK

The below links are both for different websites concerning the same story and with different photos. I thought you would appreciate them and the image from your work they evoke (at least to me). I wonder if anyone will attempt to drink the stuff and then shout out an ill-considered demand.

http://www.good.is/post/science-rules-antarctic-glacier-has-five-story-blood-red-waterfall-of-primodial-ooze/?GT1=48001

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090416-blood-falls.html

I did also have a question, kind of a silly one. I have heard many other writers espouse the usefulness of Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style". Is this a book you have found useful yourself?

[links posted as a matter of general interest]

Strunk & White, hmm?  Here's my (entirely personal) view.  If you can't write comfortably within the rules (guidelines?) provided by "The Elements of Style," you probably aren't qualified to break those rules, even for narrative effect.  I've consulted Strunk & White on a number of occasions--but not in the past 35+ years.

(04/21/2010)

Colin R. Grimes

Hi, Stephen!  I was just rereading "Heart of Darkness", when I fell to wondering what you, as a fan of Conrad's work, thought of the film "Apocalypse Now" as an adaptation of the story. I'd be interested in your comments.

Not my area of expertise.  I considered "Apocalypse Now" a good film rather than a great one:  very ambitious, but too diffuse in its characters and themes.  As an adaptation of "Heart of Darkness," however, the film is a train wreck.  Conrad has entirely different characters and themes (not to mention a much higher degree of concentration).  On the other hand, I'm sure that the film was never intended to be a *literal* adaptation.

Do I need to add that this is just my opinion?

(04/21/2010)

John Cluff

Has there been a date (Australia) set for the release of the next (3rd) book of the last chronicals of thomas Covernant.

I'm sorry to say that I have no idea.  My UK publisher (Orion/Gollancz) still hasn't given me *their* pub date.  Sloppy of them.  However, they usually publish within a week or ten days of the US (so as not to lose market-share).  I expect (although I have no solid information) that my Australian publisher (a subsidiary of the same company that owns Orion/Gollancz) will release Covenant 9 at roughly the same time.

(04/21/2010)

DrPaul

Hi Stephen,

I'm currently re-reading the Second Chronicles and I'm now onto The One Tree.

Throughout the First Chronicles, and in The Wounded Land, you refer to the Ravers as brothers and use masculine pronouns when referring to individual Ravers.  However, in The One Tree and White Gold Wielder you refer to individual Ravers as "it".  Now, in The Last Chronicles, you seem to have restored the Ravers' masculinity and brotherliness.  Why did you change them from male to neuter in The Second Chronicles, and what led you to reverse this decision in The Last Chronicles?

Nothing led me to reverse my decision because I wasn't aware that there was a problem.  So the answer to your query is:  unmitigated authorial screw-up.  Fortunately I'm human (he said ruefully):  mistakes are inevitable.  They may even be permissible--if I've done enough things right to earn your indulgence.

(04/21/2010)