Gradual Interview
(answers from March 2010, as of Apr 30 2026, 2:45:14 AM)
www.StephenRDonaldson.com
© 2004 by Stephen R.Donaldson

Jim

Ok, I have to ask this. I was on www.amazon.co.uk site and noticed that Fatal Revenant got really bad reviews, imo (37 reviewers and the overall rating is a 3). Not very intelligent bad reviews either, it seemed to me. They said "I loved the first two series but hate this one. Donaldson's use of language is unbearable. And Linden is SOOOO annoying." And I was like, "You said you loved the first two series and hate this one because of the obscure vocabulary and Linden's insecurities? Did you even read the first two series?"

Then I checked www.amazon.com because I wanted to compare British vs American reviews, and the American reviews are very positive (4+ stars from 90 reviewers). And I wondered, why the discrepancy? Why do British readers seem to dislike the book so much, while American readers are the opposite? 

Any idea why the rather considerable difference of perspectives?

I really can't explain it.  After all, "The Last Chronicles" in the UK is selling better than it is in the US, not just per capita but in total numbers.  So I have to assume that the reader-base that writes Amazon reviews in the UK thinks that I'm over-rated (presumably because I'm successful there), while the comparable reader-base in the US thinks I'm not rated highly enough (presumably because my current sales are only a small fraction of my earlier success).  Or--?  Your guess is as good as mine.

(03/12/2010)

Steve Haynes

Hello again Mr. Donaldson! I love reading this GI and appreciate the time you took to answer the previous two questions I submitted. I have another for you, if you care to indulge me, that has to do with the 'Dragonriders of Pern' series by Anne McCaffrey. I just finished reading her classic 'Dragonsong' and find myself wondering at the similarities with your works. Specifically regarding the Ranyhyn and traveling through 'falls'. For example, the dragons of Pern and the Ranyhyn 'impress' with their riders and only have one rider for life and have a sort of mental/emotional connection with their riders whom they ‘choose’. Both also have ways of working around the normal laws of time and distance. I was also struck that going ‘between’ was similar to traveling through a fall in that both events passed through a place of sever coldness.

Is there anything to these similarities other than pure coincidence?

My thought as I read her story was whether you or Anne had gleaned any inspiration from the other’s works. Not much more than a passing curious thought, but the similarities were so apparent I decided to ask. 

I am a huge fan of your writings and ad my voice of praise to your works. Thanks again for sharing your words with us!

Steve H.

It pretty much has to be pure coincidence (and I say this with the added authority of knowing Anne McCaffrey).  I had never heard of her when I began my work on "Covenant".  She had never heard of me when she began her work on "Dragonriders".  And I'm reasonably confident that she hasn't read my work.  I haven't read hers.  (Time constraints:  so much time, so little to do.  <sigh>)  So maybe certain kinds of ideas are just "in the air" these days.

(03/12/2010)

Carl Campbell

Dear Mr Donaldson,

As a lifelong student of literature and of course your work, I was wondering if you used anything of the imagery in W.B Yeats's 'The Second Coming' as an inspiration for 'Nom' and the portentuous nature of his existence trapped within the gyres (more Yeats?).I am putting together a proposal for Phd study, and would be grateful for your thoughts. I realise that time (yours) and space (mine) is limited. I sense also that you have been influenced by other important poets. 
Best regards, Carl.

Under the circumstances, it would be absurd for me to pretend that I was not influenced by Yeats.  Of course, I had the usual English major exposure to such a major poet.  But in addition, at a vulnerable period in my life Yeats served as one of my excuses for not following my writing dream:  “How can I pretend that I will ever write anything worth reading when YEATS has already written THIS?”  (As it happens, the *this* in question was not “The Second Coming”.  It was--and forgive me if I misremember, or even misspell (my immediate circumstances don’t allow me to check anything)--“Chuchulain’s Fight with the Sea”.)  “…heard his own name cried/and fought with the invulnerable tide” resonates for me yet.

But as usual I have to insist that there was no *conscious* influence.  I wasn’t thinking about Yeats’ work (although I confess it’s impossible for me to recall the word “gyre” without recalling Yeats at the same time) when I wrote my own.  I wasn’t (re)reading Yeats and thinking, “Ah, HA, I can use that!”  Instead my study of Yeats had sunk deep into my pscyhe, where it resided while my conscious mind labored mightly to forget all about it.  Such is the alchemy of imagination:  the sea-change about which Shakespeare wrote.

(03/14/2010)

John

You may have already come across this, but it's interesting enough that I wanted to share it in this forum. My wife and I recently read _In the Sanctuary of Outcasts_, a memoir by Neil White about his year as an inmate at the federal prison in Carville, LA. The population of leprosy patients had declined enough that there was room to house federal prisoners in the facility. But there were still several patients there; White interviewed some of them and got to be friends with a few of them. His descriptions of the way people with leprosy were treated in the early twentieth century shed light on your descriptions of Covenant and people's reaction to him. As I read his book, I kept thinking about Covenant spending time there. Other readers of TCTC might also find White's book interesting.  

Thanks for pointing this out.  The whole subject is both fascinating and disturbing.  And the idea of a leprosarium being used as a prison is symbolically perfect.

(03/14/2010)

Ian Boulton

Hi Steve,

It's been a while and so it's time for another of my rare, yet jocular and irreverent, contributions to your GI!

In a recent answer you used the phrase "(for the lack of a better term)".  This, from the man who introduced us to the word "chiaroscuro" and numerous others that resulted in me having to keep a dictionary close by whenever I picked up one of your books.

Frankly Mr D, I simply don't believe that you couldn't come up with a better term for whatever it was you were thinking.  I refuse to accept the possibility that you were unable to find PRECISELY the right words!  It just doesn't compute.

So there you have it: I've said my piece.

Have a fantastic 2010,

Cheers,

Ian Boulton

You’re too kind.  Literally.  I say “for lack of a better term” in the GI because at that precise moment I *can’t* think of a better term--and the GI is not going to go through the multi-year revision process which produces one of my novels, a process which (among many other things) involves constantly striving to come up with better terms.

There is, however--although I probably shouldn’t admit this--occasionally a less obvious reason for saying “for lack of a better term”.  On those occasions, I can easily think of a better term, but I decline to use it because I’m trying to be polite.  <grin>

(03/14/2010)

Joel Gisch       Milwaukee, WI

Hiya Stephen,  I've been a huge fan forever and own most of your books...some as doubles. I was looking at my two copies of The Runes of the Earth and noticed the wording differs greatly from one to the other right from the beginning paragraph of "What Has Gone Before".  One is soft cover published by Ace Books/ New York, the other is hard cover and published by Orion Books/ London.  I would like to know if both are written by you, because the wording is very different.    sample of second line... ACE "Thomas Covenant is inexplicably stricken with leprosy. After the last Two fingers of his right hand are amputated,medications arrest the progress of Covenants affliction,"   ORION "Thomas Covenant is stricken with leprosy. In a leprosarium, where the last two fingers of his right hand are amputated, he is taught that leprosy is incurable," 
Which of these is how you want it to read and how can they be so different?  Its almost like they are different drafts.  Is one a bootleg?
Thanks for the excellent captivating writing that i read over and over and love more and more every time.
Joel

It’s true:  there are some (comparatively minor?) textual differences between the version of “What Has Gone Before” published in the US in “The Runes of the Earth” and the version published in the UK.  (However, if you look at “Fatal Revenant,” you won’t--or shouldn’t--find any differences, apart from the usual variations in spelling and punctuation.)  On a few details, such as the ones you’ve noticed, my US and UK editors disagreed with each other rather firmly.  Considering the nature of their disagreements, I saw no reason not to satisfy both of them separately.  After all, we’re talking about a $&%*#$% plot synopsis, not the actual story.

(03/14/2010)

Alex Finney

Thanks for all your answer Stephen, it really is a treat to read all the interaction.  Having just finished WGW again, I picked up ROTE and quickly read What Has Gone Before, to set me up for The Last Chronicles.  I noticed that you didn't mention the party's vist to Brathairealm.  I felt that some very significant things transpired there and wondered why you decided not to mention it?  Thanks again... Alex

For me, writing things like WHGB is arduous, not to mention tortuous.  I struggle painfully to find a point of balance between putting too much in and leaving too much out.  (For comparison, consider the sections dealing with the first trilogy.  There I wrote what might be called a “thematic synopsis,” paying relatively little attention to the actual plot.)  In this case, I decided that a reader picking up “Runes” simply had no “need to know” about the events in Bhrathairealm in order to read “Runes” without feeling lost.  Come “Fatal Revenant,” of course, I could--perhaps should--have reconsidered that decision.  But coming up with a synopsis for “Runes” was already so difficult that I didn’t have the energy--or the heart--to reevaulate the previous sections of WHGB.

(03/14/2010)

Wedas

Hello Mr. Donaldson,

I was just reading chapter 1 of AATE.  I happened to notice that on page 6 you use "harken", but I thought the more common spelling was "hearken" and wasn't sure whether this was a conscious choice or not.

I also noticed that on page 8 (9 of the document) there is a typo - "Holed them all", when it should be "hold".

On page 9 (10 of the document), after "I just didn't want--" the quotation marks that close that quotation are pointed the wrong direction.  Probably the software didn't recognize it because of the dash.
The same phenomenon appears again on p.11 after "if there's anything left--" (12 of the document).

I hope I'm not the 9 millionth person to observe this - I saw nothing about it in the GI.  That first chapter has complete unsuited me to do any useful work at all for the remainder of the day.  The only thing I could do to any purpose would be to begin rereading the Chronicles. Will 5:00 never come?  Thank you for posting it, and for writing the books.  

I intended to get to this some time ago, but events conspired against me.  Pay no attention to typos like inverted quotation marks:  those should be corrected as a matter of course during copy-editing and proofreading.  And ignore the spelling of “harken”:  that’s how the word is spelled in the previous books.  But hold/holed is a point I really want to address.  It is most definitely NOT a typo.

So for all of the GI readers who have pointed out this “problem", here is the text, with the portions which do not pertain to Covenant’s “stream of consciousness” deleted:

     “Everything I remember is broken.  And I’m losing more all the time.  There isn’t enough of me to hold it.”
....
     --hold it, Covenant thought.  Holed them all.  For a moment, the sight of Giantships tugged at him, pulling him down.  He saw the wooden vessels of the Unhomed sunk by turiya Kinslaughterer while the Giants waited for death in their homes.  The suction as the ships foundered tried to drag Covenant with them.  None of them were left at sea:  they had returned to The Grieve to be fitted with Gildenlode keels and rudders so that they might be able to find their way Home; end their long bereavement--

What I’m striving for here is to convey the sequence of associations which leads Covenant from one thought and memory to the next.  After all, his grip on linear sequence and event is pretty fragile.  In his fragmented state, the simple fact that hold sounds just like holed leads his mind astray:  you might say that it causes him to stumble from the present into the past.

Of course, the fact that the reader *can* misread this passage indicates that the writer has failed to make his intentions adequately clear.  But for the life of me I can’t think of a better way to handle this particular piece of narration.

(03/14/2010)

MRK

Speaking of reading outside fantasy, I've been reading Stephen King's "Misery" lately and I can imagine that as disturbing & unsettling it is to begin with, it must be even more so for writers of fiction. Many statements made in the novel regarding writing technique and publishing resonate very closely with statements you have made in the gradual interview. I was wondering, have you read "Misery" and if so, what was its effect on you?

PS. I don't know if you've heard of Russell Kirkpatrick; I think he's one of the most promising "up-and-coming" epic fantasy writers out there, along with David Keck. I noticed that on Kirkpatrick's website he mentions both you and Steven Erikson as favorite writers of his. I just wanted to say that as long as there are writers like you and them in the field, there is hope.

counting down to October!

Yes, I have read "Misery," and I found it about as disturbing as you might expect.  Of course, it wasn't hard to recognize aspects of myself in the protagonist.  But in addition, I've had a few experiences with, well, let's call them unbalanced readers:  enough to make what King was writing about seem very real.  Which explains--at least in part--my nearly obsessive desire to protect my privacy.

I'm unfamiliar with Kirkpatrick's work; but I think highly of David Keck.

(03/15/2010)

Tyler Ferguson

One of the few author’s I have to have the dictionary nearby when I read your books. I’ve published one book and am working on my second. Finally chose to self publish because of the timing and genre (Christian Fiction / adventure. Too racy for Christian publishers and too Christian for secular publishers) my book, Apocrypha, fit in. I’ve loved your books for years, having re-read them three or four times, much like re-reading Tolkien and CS Lewis for various other reasons. 

As I write my second book, and look at Tolkien’s and Lewis’ writing I find that there is really not much in fantasy that is just made up. Except for your wraith’s of Andelain. Any idea on where the spark ( no pun intended) came from for the wraith’s?

Yes Tolkien has his Orcs which are hobgoblins and Lewis has his talking trees. My new book is based on some Greek Mythological concepts which has such a wealth of information I find I have to work on a bachelor’s degree in Greek Mythology to sort it all out. 

That said, I’m am truly impressed by your writing but perhaps most of all your delving into the aspects of pain, guilt, innocence and its ramifications on choice and our souls. Love conquers all. 

Well.  Hmm.  I doubt that there's ANYthing in my work that is--to use your term--"just made up".  Surely I've seen living flames like Wraiths somewhere?  Perhaps in an animated film?  Or am I thinking of Tinkerbell?  Or Prometheus?  In any case, "there is nothing new under the sun."  The only thing that's ever unique is what artists *do* with their ideas.  The ideas themselves can pretty much always be traced back to something or other (although "sea-changes" may make the original sources difficult to recognize).

(03/15/2010)

John Connelly

Hi Stephen,

[some material deleted to save space]

Enough background, here comes the zinger.

It took me almost 3 minutes to find them on the internet, scanned and easily downloadable.  As I'm sure your blood pressure is going up the more you read, please rest assured that I have not personally downloaded them for the same reason that I wouldn't go into the local bookstore and stick a book in my pocket (I hold the same view on downloading music).

So now the question:  Can you comment with your opinion on this?  From my perspective, I already own the books and therefore the intellectual property of the stories and would like to not repurchase it in order to have it translated to another medium.  In short, I'm curious about your view on whether I own the book (paper and ink) or the story.

I know this isn't the kind of question you normally get from your readers, but as the Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc. become more popular I would like to know the author's opinion rather than the publishing industry's.  

Finally, please understand that your approval/disapproval will not change my view on illegal downloading.  In a perfect world I would love to have the option of turning my old books to a recycling center in exchange for an electronic copy.  Once my Nook arrives I truly believe that I will not buy paper books (willingly) again.

Here's how I look at it.  The person who makes copyrighted material available for free is stealing, plain and simple.  Stealing from the publisher.  Stealing from me.  And stealing does harm to the victim.  There's no grey area here:  it's a crime.

But is it also a crime to take advantage--knowingly or unknowingly--of the fact that a crime has been committed?  On that point, it seems to me, there is room for debate.  Sure, accepting a free (i.e. stolen) download supports, encourages, even validates the crime.  But does it increase the *harm* of the crime?  On the one hand, the person who stole the material is giving it away:  he/she doesn't profit from the crime.  (Which makes me wonder why the person does it in the first place.  Libertarianism?  Malice?  A desire for anarchy?  The confused belief that all information should be free?  [I say "confused" because the logical implication is that all publishers should go out of business and all artists should starve--which would destroy the very concept being espoused.])  On the other hand, a certain number of the people who can get material for free will not then purchase the same material legitimately--and that *does* increase the harm to both the publisher and the artist.

Then what is the situation if you've already purchased the material and now want a copy that you can easily carry on your ebook?  Does that change the moral dilemma?  I think so.  (Just my personal opinion.)  In this case, it seems to me, the harm of the original crime has *not* been increased.  That detail may be worth considering.

(03/15/2010)

Nick

Hi Stephen,

A really short question: Can you number your 3 most favorite fantasy books (excluding Tolkien if he's on your list :).

I need something to read until October this year :)

Erikson, "Memories of Ice" (sorry, you'll have to read the two previous books to understand it)
McKillip, "The Book of Atrix Wolfe"
Powers, "Last Call"

(Of course, by tomorrow I'll probably have a different list.  My preferences change almost hourly.  <rueful smile>)

(03/16/2010)

Anonymous

Hey and hope you're doing fine.

I just thought of someting: Galt of the Humbled wouldn't have any inspiration from John Galt of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, would he?

Great writing.

Nice try, but no.  I've never read any of Ayn Rand.

(03/16/2010)

jerry mcfarland

Just read chapter 1 of AATE. WOW! See if you can talk them into early Summer rather than late Fall. Any hope for chapter 2?

oh... is the trailer rendering possibly the cover? Looks good.

I really like the image in the trailer.  But no, it was a personal gift from a fine artist (please check out his website).  Putnams/Ace will be using John Jude Palencar as usual.  And the Orion/Gollancz art isn't what you could easily call "representational".

(03/16/2010)

KerryHoward

Hi Stephen.  I have just finished reading the Gap series for the fourth time. I just wondered - whatever happened to Cleatus Fane?  Last we heard he was dragged from the GCES assembly, raving.  Was he executed, banished or did he go mad and end up in an asylum?  Just curious?! 

Hmm.  Since your question asks for information that lies outside the text, I have to say--with perfect honesty--that your guess is as good as mine.  But since the GCES, like the UMCP, is going through something of an ethical rebirth, I imagine that what happens to him will be appropriate under the rule of law.

(03/16/2010)

Bob DeFrank

A friend and I were having a disucssion about Lord Foul's Bane. One of us detected some hints of intimacy between Lord Morham and Manethrall Lithe. It's fun to speculate on the possibility that they might have kept up their acquaintence during Morham's explorations and the Ramens' scouting for signs of Foul between LFB and TIW.

Obviously impossible to substantiate, since she's never mentioned again and he never thinks about her during his POV chapers in PTP. But then, he's pretty busy at the time, and likewise by TIW he like Troy has some unrequited love for Elena and he never gives her much thought during PTP either.

Care to make any comment on Morham's love life? Or Morham as a person beyond the archtype of pure service?

Undeniably there are a lot of stories between the books.

Ah.  Another question from outside the text.  Again I have to say, your guess is as good as mine.  I'm just glad that my characters seem real enough to imply lives which go beyond the actual story.

(03/16/2010)

Tom York

Been a huge fan since the early 80's, used the "you are the white gold" analogy to friends with low esteem countless times; encouraged friends to read the Thomas Covenant series. 

How sad it was then to read on page 146 of "The Man Who Risked His Partner" the phrase "Mongoloid idiot". My 5 year old has Downs syndrome.  All my SRD books are in the garage sale now. A huge loss to me. I hope
you reconsider this enormously painful choice of words, and the thought that spawned it.

-Tom york

I don't usually respond to messages like this one in public.  But in this case, I feel constrained to ask:  have you considered the possibility that I was simply ignorant?  After all, I was much younger when I wrote that book.  I've learned a lot in the intervening decades.  In particular, I have a close friend with a Downs Syndrome son.  He's educated me in ways that I could not have imagined on my own.  Authors are human.  Sometimes they make mistakes.  And EVERYBODY is ignorant about SOMETHING.

(03/16/2010)

Rod Tokely

Why are your Covenant books so sad? Please make the last chronicles more happy. Nice things do happen too you know Steve. Maybe in this last series, good could well and truly triumph over evil. It's sad to see you create such endearing characters only to torment them for 500 pages.

Cheer up... Please!!

Tokes

What can I tell you?  Life is sad?  I suspect you already know that.  I write what I know?  You’re probably aware of that as well.  So look at it this way.  Victory/salvation/validation/integrity is only worth what you pay for it.  A half-hearted attempt to look into your own soul will yield only trivial results.  If you want to reach the core of who you are and what your life means, you have to give it your all.  You have to pay whatever it costs.  And the price is always pain.  In the complex quest which is life, pain *teaches*.  And in many cases, it’s the *only* thing that teaches.

Do you really want me to write about characters who aren’t willing to endure what faces them?

(03/17/2010)

Richard Watts

In relation to Patrick Jones' question re: Avatar, Cameron and SRD plagiarism, I have to point you to the story of Pocahontas. Cameron appears to have copied this and merely altered the names, places and skin-tone. Surely you're not suggesting that "The Chronicles......." series is an alternative version of this story? After all, Avatar is just Pocahontas with blue people, and Disney did it so well, lol!!  Copying is the sincerest form of flattery after all, so Cameron possibly either loves the Classics or has some very deep wish to be SRD? I realise this is not necessarily a question per se, but it does shed a little light on plagiarism, don't you think? There, it's now a question.

I hope I’ve made it clear that I don’t care where Cameron gets his ideas.  But it’s certainly true that “Pocahontas” is a far more obvious source than anything Donaldson.  And there are numerous examples of the general “avatar” concept in science fiction:  stories that often pre-date anything I’ve written.  However, I keep saying the same thing:  “There is nothing new under the sun.”  It doesn’t matter where an artist gets his/her ideas:  what matters is what the artist *does* with those ideas.  And in my (extremely personal) opinion, Cameron has made an extraordinarily trite use of *his* ideas.

(03/17/2010)

Stephen A.

Stephen,

First, I would like to say that it is a great privilege to ask you questions in this way; it's something I've wanted to do for almost 30 years, but we didn't have the Internet back then.

Two things in particular I find compelling about all your Thomas Covenant stories:

a)Your penchant for archaic, rare and high-end words ("glaive" springs to mind).
Is there a reason for this, or are you just trying to make us reach for the dictionary when we read Thomas Covenant stories?

b)The themes of sin and redemption.
Would you say that, in the stories, sin (madness, despair, despite)are part of the human condition; and that redemption almost always comes through faith, hope, love and action ("Be True" "You will not fail"), rather than through ritual or religion?

Am I asking too much?

a) Surely I’ve discussed this before?  I mean, if you’re willing to read a couple thousand pages of the Gradual Interview to find the information.  The short answer is that I use arcane language in the “Covenant” books--but not in my other works, or not to anything like the same extent--because I consider that style of rhetoric to be an apt world-building tool for the specific context I want to create.  World-building isn’t always--or even necessarily--about facts and history:  sometimes it’s just about mood or tone.  A writer who can effectively evoke the mood or tone of his/her creation has done more to make that world seem real than almost any amount of geneology, history, geography, or linguistics.  Read Patricia A. McKillip if you don’t believe me.  So.  I’m trying to evoke a particular kind of (esoteric? exotic?) world, and since--as I’ve often said--I “see” with language, abstruse language seems like an essential tool.

b) Writing in ways that evoke “themes of sin and redemption” is as natural as breathing to me.  It’s bred in my bones.  But I don’t actually think that way about my writing.  I think in terms of reductiveness and dehumanization, affirmation and integrity.  However, putting my views in your terms:  “we all have to work out our own salvation, with fear and trembling” (I’m paraphrasing someone, but I can’t remember my own source <sigh>).  It can’t be given to us; so things like ritual and religion are usually (but certainly not always) useless.  And to the extent that religion and ritual distract us from the fact that we have to work it out for ourselves, they can be an active hindrance to redemption.

(Meanwhile, if you want to bring things like faith and hope into the discussion, you’ll have to define your terms.  People often throw those words around in ways that communicate only confusion.)

(03/17/2010)

Jerry Erbe

Dear Mr. Donaldson,
You've stated on numerous occasions that you know what the end of the story is before you start writing and all your efforts are toward that end. As I am now reading the last book in the Gap sequence for the umpteenth time, the question suddenly dawned on me, "well...WHICH ending!?" What I mean by that is, at what point in the story did your mind consider to be THE end? Morn's testimony to the Counsel? The destruction of Calm Horizons? Norna Fasner's "release"? Warden's final letter to Morn? There are so many barren threads wound-up in the final chapter of the final book that it's hard for me to fathom you having ALL those "ends" simultaneously in your mind when you first started putting pen to paper. So if you would indulge a die-hard, long-time Gap fanatic and spill the beans on this one for me, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!    

Unfortunately for my ability to explain myself--not to mention for my reputation as omniscient <grin>--what I mean by “the end of the story” varies from one story to the next.  In the case of “The Chronicles,” those words mean something quite precise:  [spoiler alert!]  the final confrontation with Lord Foul at the culmination of each tale.  In the case of the GAP books, in contrast, my original vision of “the end of the story” was more vague:  too vague to be easily described, yet clear enough to let me feel sure of what I was doing.  There was this whole “Twilight of the Gods” thing:  Warden Dios would have to bring about his own destruction in order to redeem humankind.  And Morn and Angus would have to be the means by which Dios brings about his own end.  And Morn and Angus would each have to be the catalyst for the other’s transformation.  And the bipolar threats to humankind’s survival, Holt Fasner and the Amnion, would have to come together and be resolved in the crisis of Dios’ self-destruction.  I know all that doesn’t sound very concrete, or even very useful, but it was enough for me.  The specific points that you refer to as possible “endings” are all details that came to me as the story evolved in my mind:  they became absolutely necessary to The Ending, but they were not necessary to my original inspiration for the ending.

Among my short stories, “Reave the Just” presents a different kind of example.  The original inspiration for that story was the first sentence--a sentence which seemed to me to imply an entire world.  But I had no story until I figured out the ending, which in this case went something like, “Oh, *now* I get it.  Reave doesn’t actually *save* anyone.  Instead he stands between the other characters and doom until they figure out how to save each other--which is a more profound form of rescue.”  After that, all I had to do was follow the logic implied by the first sentence until the circumstances of Reave’s intervention came to pass.

Nevertheless in all cases the ending is my reason for telling the story.  Vague or not, comprehensible to anyone else or not, *that* out there is why I put myself and my readers through the process of getting there.  Which is about all I can say on the subject without getting into the imponderable complexities of “how I do what I do”.

(03/17/2010)

Tom

Hi Mr. Donaldson

Superb release of Chapter 1. Can I go forward in time to October so I don't have to wait for the rest of the book?  Any plans for a release of Chapter 2?

I checked out the trailer too.  Who is the artist for (I assume it's Linden on the span)the trailer?  Is the artwork available as a print or as original art?

Thanks for your time and take the phone off the hook-don't let anyone (just this email) disturb your "flow" on The Last Dark.

Tom 

So far, I have neither plans nor permission (from my publishers) to release chapter 2.  But that may change, as it did with "Fatal Revenant".  Or not:  this is a different situation.

The trailer artist is William Springer.  If you let the trailer run all the way to the end, his credits appear.  But there is also a link on the, um, the "links" page of this site.  There you'll find some really gorgeous images from "The Chronicles" created for Springer's personal pleasure.  But I have no idea whether any of them are for sale.  There may be copyright issues to consider.  Or not:  this is something of a grey area, at least as far as I understand it.

(03/18/2010)

Graham

Hi Stephen,

I am only 20 and having recently discovered the first two chronicles gathering dust in my attic i decided to give them a try. After many many hours i am still no where near catching up but simply can wait to read your new books. Anyway this tale is by far the greatest i have ever read and i simply love your style of writing. I am by no means a book lover but i personally do not want this turned into a movie, it would just destroy my vision of everything i have read. Just a quick question, what is the best tale you have read and did you draw any inspiration from it?

Keep up the sensational work!

Graham - Edinburgh, Scotland

I've read many "best" tales from which I've drawn various kinds of inspiration.  (Different tales are "best" for different reasons.)  "Narnia" and LOTR are obvious influences.  But I would be remiss if I didn't mention Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"--a seminal work in my writing life--and McKillip's "Riddle-Master" trilogy.  McKillip is probably responsible for most of the improvement in my writing between the first "Covenant" trilogy and the second.

(03/18/2010)

MRK

Well, we all know by know what short shrift the "elite literary world" gives to fantasy and other genres; I see more and more evidence of it as time goes on. However, I've noticed that another established genre, historical fiction, almost always gets much better treatment. This is ironic to me since I feel that fantasy and historical fiction use many similar narrative techniques and have quite a bit in common. Both rely heavily on epic storylines, battles, journeys, and "larger than life" characters. Also, writers in both genres have to be talented enough to evoke a world that no longer exists and/or never existed and make that world seem real to the reader. One of the conceits of LOTR, after all, is that it depicts a bygone age of our own world. Why the double-standard, I wonder? Further proof of a blurring of the lines is Gene Wolfe's "Soldier" books, which depict an authentic classical Greece but always get lumped in with fantasy because of the magic and the gods present in the stories. I've noticed that Sean Russell has recently turned to writing historical fiction and I wonder if it's really all that different, technique-wise, from what he did before. I also know you admire many historical fiction authors, such as Patrick O'Brian and Sir Walter Scott. I wonder, first, if you could ever write "historical" fiction, or would you be too tied into having to base it around established fact? (you have said you need to be able to "make it all up") also, if you were to write historical fiction (and I would definitely read it if you did), if you would be drawn to any particular era, as many writers in that genre seem to be?

My reading tastes are wide:  my writing abilities are not.  Historical fiction would be entirely out of the question for me.  I need pretty much complete control over setting and event.  (The most "realistic" scenes I've ever written, the karate tournament in "The Man Who Fought Alone," just about did me in.)  The need to stick to verifiable facts paralyzes my imagination.  So I've never given a second's thought to "any particular era" as a setting for a novel.  What would be the point?

(03/30/2010)

Tom

Hi,

I just came across a question in the GI (May 2007) asking if you knew any "novelization or dramatization of the Rhinegold story."  You said you hadn't heard of anything except for Wagner's source, the Elder Eddas.  Well, I know P. Craig Russell (he's the renowned comic book artist who worked on Gaiman's Sandman and Coraline) has done a graphic novel adaption of the story.  Here are the two volumes, if anyone is interested.  

http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/12-050/The-Ring-of-the-Nibelung-Complete-Ltd-Edition-HC

http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/11-724/The-Ring-of-the-Nibelung-Vol-2-Siegfried-Gotterdammerung-The-Twilight-of-the-Gods

I'm posting this as a matter of general interest.  I haven't (yet) had time to look at it myself, so I can't vouch for it.  But I'm gratified by this reminder that the old stories never die.  They live on because we still need them.

(03/30/2010)

Matt Roberts

Hi Stephen

I'll begin by saying thankyou and sharing my gratitude for the many, many hours of pleasure your work has given me over the years.

In your reply to James Bleifus regarding Audible and audiobooks of your works you mentioned Scott Brick's work on your books.

Part of what I wanted to say here is that anyone on the fence about purchasing outside of well known channels should feel confident.  I've purchased the first chronicles and FR from him and I'm very happy.

To those who think that your work won't translate well from written to spoken, let me say that personally I find that it does.

[I've posted this first part for people who are interested in audio books.  --Steve]

I've heard you say in a couple of places that you felt let down by the person/people giving you technical/science advice for the GAP sequence because of scientific inconsistencies that advice lead to.  As a life long avid science fiction reader and someone who tries to remain abreast of current science thinking, I think you were being too hard on yourself when those criticisms came (I'm not even 100% sure what they were, I have some guesses but enh...)  Were you infact trying to write absolute hard science fiction (science fiction definitions are woolly at best I find, so in this I mean where the story deviates from current science only as much as is absolutely necessary for the story to work) or did you just want a consistent framework that wouldn't annoy too many people while you told your story.  I find the gap sequence along way from science fantasy (where science is ackowledged only where convenient) and no where near space opera (great yarn but science, what science?).  Its a classic to me and worth a regular re-read (although I'll never be able to figure out if Nick Succorso's end was just the character ran out of meaning to you or was another view on where obsession and hatred can lead us).

It's probably clear in the GAP books that I was not trying to write *hard* science fiction:  i.e. science fiction in which the science is at least as much a protagonist in the story as the characters.  But I did want badly to write *plausible* science fiction, and I worked hard on that.  (I consciously strove to avoid "science fantasy."  However, it never crossed my mind that what I wrote might be called "space opera.")  The breakdown to which I've referred occurs primarily in "Forbidden Knowledge," and it revolves around the sheer scale of the forces which extreme acceleration/deceleration exerts on living organisms.  If only I hadn't specified the speed at which the vessels are traveling, I could have avoided this problem.  But--as I have subsequently learned--attaining that speed in the time-frame I described would have required multiples of g which exceeded my knowledge and/or my (extremely limited) computational skills.  (Not to mention truly staggering amounts of fuel.)

Well, I knew I was swimming in dangerous waters, so I asked an honest-to-goodness "rocket scientist" to read "The Real Story" and "Forbidden Knowledge."  He did--and assured me that I had not committed any "howlers."  Later, of course--too late--some of my more physics-oriented readers informed me (vehemently) that I had screwed up.  After that, I managed to avoid repeating the problem.  But I've never had a chance to clean the debris left by my ignorance out of "Forbidden Knowledge."

Perhaps I shouldn't reveal such things.  <sigh>  But I've never made a secret of the fact that I screw up occasionally.  Much as I wish otherwise.

As for ol' Nick, I consider his death to be the logical and necessary consequence of the choices he made in life.  It also happens to be beautifully symmetrical, which pleases me.

(03/31/2010)

Brian

Hi Stephen,

I recently came across the large paperback of "Fatal Revenant" in the bookstore, and I couldn't help but look to see if the mistake re: the runes on the Staff of Law (which I pointed out here in the GI) in the final scene had been corrected. I was relieved to see that it was.

This made me to wonder: how often has this sort of "author-pounds-head-against-wall" mistake slipped past you, your personal readers, and your editors to make it into the first edition printing of your works?  Do your publishers do a good job in correcting them in subsequent editions? I've been trying to find hardcover editions of previous TC books, and was curious if such errors are to be found in them.

Speaking of editing woes, sorry to hear about the problems you're having with text errors in e-books.  Seems our technology has surpassed us mere humans by becoming quite proficient at producing mistakes in ever-increasing quantities.

I can't speak for other writers; but I've been very fortunate in this regard throughout my career.  I always proofread my books again after they're published in hardcover; I always find SOMEthing that cries out to be corrected (yes, it's true, every book makes me pound my head against the wall over one issue or another); and my publishers have never baulked at making the changes I request--the next time they go to press.

The obvious exception is Bantam/Spectra's e-versions of the GAP books.  There I'm dealing with a publisher who is totally unresponsive.

(I should probably mention here that I only proofread the US editions.  I've only learned recently that my early UK editions--pre-Orion/Gollancz, for the most part--are in desperate need of attention.  But since I'm no longer on speaking terms with the publisher involved, HarperCollins....)

But going back to press is crucial here.  When a book is released in a new format (typically a paperback of some kind), that involves going back to press.  When a given print-run sells out, that also involves going back to press.  That's when changes *can* be made.  The alternative is to destroy an entire print-run in order to produce a corrected text; and no publisher is going to do that for me.  Too much money and paper would go to waste.

One trivial example.  Look at the blurbs in an early printing of DEL REY/Ballantine's "Lord Foul's Bane."  One blurb calls the story "the 'War And Peace' of fantasy, literature."  (!)  In later printings, the comma has been removed.

(03/31/2010)