Gradual Interview
(answers from June 2007, as of Apr 30 2026, 2:48:33 AM)
www.StephenRDonaldson.com
© 2004 by Stephen R.Donaldson

Marc Dalesandro

Hello Mr. Donaldson,

Just wondering: do the croyel seek out people like Kasreyn, or do people like Kasreyn seek out the croyel?

Can't wait for FR!

Marc Dalesandro

The croyel are creatures of opportunity:  they'll take whatever form of dark hunger (hunger for slaughter, hunger for power, hunger for longevity. etc.) they can get.  They do sometimes find their own victims (e.g. the arghuleh).  But it is possible to seek them out, as Kasreyn probably did (although the croyel may have found him before he found it).

(06/08/2007)

Bill Chandler

Mr. Donaldson:  (I'm still too much in awe to break away from the formalities; please forgive me...)  I am currently re-reading "Mirror Of Her Dreams", having recently re-read the "Gap" sequence, and having *FINALLY* found the Axbrewder stories.  I was only able to read the first two, though; the library (alone) has the 4th book, but I couldn't find "Man Who Tried to Get Away" anywhere.  (Damn them...)  So on to Mordant until I can get the other two Axbrewders in order...and Mordant's Need is just as good this time around.

Anyway, I was honored to receive a personal reply in reference to time travel in "Runes"--thank you.

Onward, though:  I've been an avid reader, mainly in sf/fantasy, all my life.  Mysteries have never been my cup of tea, with the exception of Kinky Friedman, and now your work.  The first two Axbrewder stories were just impossible to put down--the style of writing is so immediate with the use of the first-person narrative (which I also enjoyed in some of the stories in "Daughter of Regals).  I find Friedman's work keeps me laughing along with the storytelling, and I noted  a bit of humor in the "Man Who..." stories, as well.  This whole ramblefest will come to the point...the humor in those stories is certainly appropriate for the genre, but do you ever have ideas running toward more generally humorous work?  Some comments in the GI certainly hint (to me, at least) that this would make some more great reading.  (And I hope I'm not rehashing here...I haven't seen anything on this subject in the GI, but I certainly could have missed something...)

Thanks again for ALL your works...looking forward to FR!

Bill (they call me verbose) Chandler

I write the stories (and characters) that come to me.  "Brew" is a character with an active sense of humor (albeit a rather sour and ironic one), so he can be funny sometimes.  (There's a passage in "The Man Who Fought Alone" that still makes *me* laugh.)  But I can't "do" humor deliberately when I'm working:  the humor (like the pillow fight in "Mordant's Need") has to emerge from my story sort of on its own.

In other kinds of writing (e.g. comments about fellow writers for convention program books), I'm sometimes struck by bolts of humor.  When that happens, what I write can be pretty funny.  But I can't *summon* those bolts:  they just happen.  It's strange.  Like Brew, I have a fairly active sense of humor.  Yet it rarely comes into play when I'm storytelling.  And I can't *make* it come into play.

(06/08/2007)

Charles W. Adams

You gleefully refered to a series of five books as a Pentateuch.  How about expanding the final chronicles to five books so that we all can use "Pentateuch"?  ;-)

On a slightly more serious matter:  Why do you answer some of the criticisms (of you or your writings) offered through the GI?

(Just so you know:  I don't change the structure of my stories once they've taken shape in my mind.  I couldn't force "The Last Chronicles" to be five books even if I wanted to--which I don't.)

As I've observed on other occasions, unsolicited criticism exists to serve the ego of the critic:  it does not benefit the recipient.  The same can be said of responding to unsolicited criticism:  the response serves the ego of the responder.  As a general rule, I know better than to play ego games where my work is concerned (and I hope I know better than to play ego games where my *life* is concerned).  But <sigh> I do HAVE an ego.  And sometimes my ego just gets tired of taking punches without punching back.  This isn't usually a rational thing to do (although it can be under the right circumstances), but there are times when it just feels necessary.

(06/08/2007)

j

Is there any way that you can post the poems/songs from all of the chronicles here somewhere on your site?

I don't have the books, nor do I have easy access to them in order to find all of the poems/songs from the chronicles.

You didn't provide an e-mail address, so I can't respond directly.  However, I'll ask my webmaster what he thinks of your idea.  Personally, I don't have time to tackle the task:  since the first six books don't exist in any authorized or accurate e-format, I couldn't post them without retyping them all--which for me would be a big job.  But my webmaster may have an alternative to suggest.  Or:  have you mentioned your desires on kevinswatch.com?  I suspect that one or more of the Watch members may have their own e-versions of the "Chronicles," in which case they might be able to make the poems/songs available with comparative ease.

(06/08/2007)

RLY

A while ago you suggested the Malazan Book o thee Fallen series by Steven Erikson.  Thanks for that, iy is amazing, and my "top shelf" of fantasy now includes Erkson and you side by side.  Were you aware that the seventh Erikson book is out, and do you plan on reading it?  I've heard some authors (maybe you?) prefer not to read while involved with a project of their own,, for fear of subliminal contamination.  Is this a concern for you? I'm looking forward to your new book, and feeling spoiled to get new ones from my two favorite authors in one year.

I've already read Erikson's 7th, "Reaper's Gale."  Way way back when I was working on the first "Covenant" trilogy, I refused to read any other fantasy, but not because I feared "subliminal contamination."  Rather I feared that the book would be good (in which case I would feel intimidated) or bad (in which case I would feel depressed because that book got published while mine was being rejected).  So naturally--if slowly--my fears evaporated once I joined the ranks of the published.  Now I don't have any qualms about reading any particular genre while I'm working (or even while I'm not working).  I'm probably too set in my ways to be "contaminated," subliminally or otherwise.  Reading bad fantasy just irritates me, but reading good fantasy energizes me.

(06/08/2007)

A Nony Mouse

First, let me thank you for recommending Patricia A. McKillip. I just finished reading "Song for the Basilisk" and I loved it; I've just begun "The Book of Atrix Wolfe" as I write this. I probably never would have read her work if you had not mentioned her name. I now rank her right up there with you and Steven Erikson. 

My questions concern the time period in which the Gap Sequence takes place. You are, as many SF writers seem to be, deliberately vague within the narrative about the future-era setting of the story. I suppose it is hard to get it in without sounding corny and/or trite. ("The year was 2525, and yes, mankind was still alive," etc.) Is this   why you were non-specific about the year (Standard Earth Year that is) or is there another reason?   I had thought that the story takes place about 150 years from *now*, so about 160 years from when you wrote the books. Is this about right or did you have another time period in mind? 

Speaking of recommendations, my own recommendation for you, if you ever have the time, inclination, or desire, is "The Wolf's Hour" by Robert McCammon, an all-time favorite of mine. Excellent example of how there are no good/bad ideas, only good/bad writers. The idea seems ridiculous at first glance, but the writer turns it into gold.

I'm glad you like McKillip and Erikson.  Clearly you have good taste.  <grin>  ("Good taste" being defined as "taste that agrees with mine.")

Yes, I was deliberately vague about *when* in the future the GAP story might take place.  "Sounding corny and/or trite" is a problem, of course.  But my real concern involved a subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) issue of plausibility.  As soon as I name a time (e.g. "150 years from *now*"), I've transmuted a speculation into a prediction.  Well, I think I can get away with *speculating* that humankind may one day discover a means to travel faster than light; but if I come right out and *predict* that this will happen, a whole lot of people will dismiss me as a raving loon (perhaps with good reason).  Sometimes I call this the "1984" problem.  Despite the on-going relevance of its themes, "1984" has become an anachronism simply because Orwell specified a year.  I didn't want that to happen to the GAP books.

Some writers solve such problems by casting their stories so far into the future that s/he can plausibly reinvent all of the sciences (Herbert's "Dune" leaps to mind).  I chose not to do that because I wanted to evolve my "reality" directly out of humankind's present political, economic, and ecological straits.  In other words, having to reinvent EVerything didn't suit my storytelling purposes.  Nevertheless I needed *some* temporal distance to make my story credible.

Thanks for mentioning "The Wolf's Hour".  I'll add it to my last (which means--sadly--that I'll probably get to it sometime in the next decade).

(06/09/2007)

Peter Moore

Hi Stephen

firstly I am a massive fan and have been a fan of your boks and style of writing ever since LFB and I am also glad to see you are completing the Covenant series.

I have to say that my favourite character - for all his flaws - has to be Angus, and it interested me to read that Angus most represented you at the time.  Do you often place yourself in the characters you write about - to give the sense of realism - or is it just a gift you have to make the characters that little bit more special.

I am reading Runes now and cannot wait for Fatal revenant to be released.  

Keep up the good work and thank you once again for providing me with such pleasure.

Peter

I've discussed this in the GI.  Angus in particular, and "The Real Story" in general, represent a dramatic departure from my more normal approach to storytelling.  With those exceptions (and the martial arts tournament in "The Man Who Fought Alone"), I don't draw characters--or settings, or situations--from life.  At least on a conscious level, nothing that I write is based on personal experience.  The sensation that "I'm making it all up" is essential to my creative process.  From my perspective, my best characters are the ones who are the most entirely imaginary.

(06/10/2007)

Paul S.

More observations than any question.  I just finished the last "The Man Who..." book.  Really enjoyed them.  I'm not generally a mystery reader primarily because I don't care about figuring out "whodunnit" - so what I thought was great about your stories is that there was a story and characters and depth that "seemingly" could have existed as a story in itself without an actual mystery and still be good.  Of course the mystery is there but it feels secondary to the personal struggles of Brew/Ginny -- while certainly providing context and structure to allow self discovery in the story about the relationship between Brew and Ginny.

Something else I noticed after reading all of your stories and all of this GI is that these books reveal much about you, personally; more directly anyway than other stories you've written: your views on mystery novels could have been cut/paste from TMWTTGA into the GI as could your opinions on martial arts from TMWFA.

So, my question: Have you ever been to a mystery camp (a la TMWTTGA)?  If so, what'd you think?

No, I've never been to a mystery camp.  As I've said elsewhere, I virtually never base what I'm writing about on what I've experienced.

Still, it's true that the autobiographical subtext of what I write runs a bit closer to the surface in my mystery novels than it does elsewhere.  One comparatively trivial example:  if you heard me speaking for any period of time, you might realize that mine is the ideal "voice" for reading Axbrewder's narration aloud.  But don't be misled.  "Autobiography" in my work is always more subterreanean than it appears to be.  Sure, I used one character in "The Man Who Tried to Get Away" as a personal "mouthpiece".  But the same is *not* true in "The Man Who Fought Alone":  there my personal views and experiences are refracted through a variety of characters rather than expressed directly.

(06/10/2007)

Mr. Moore

Ok, I'm not trying to bring up a worn-out subject, but I want to talk about visualization a bit.  

You have said that you don't visualize any parts of the stories that you write, that your mind works strictly with and from language, words.  I accept this even though I don't fully understand it.  (And you do seem to have some contradictory statements in the GI on this, but I'm not here to poke holes...)

I teach sixth grade and was trained to teach visualization as an explicit reading strategy, something a reader can do to help him/her understand.  "Seeing" the setting and thereby more fully comprehending the context of the story, its characters and their decisions...like that.  My questions, then, are these:  How were you taught about visualization at any stage in your educational career?  What is your opinion on teaching visualization as an explicit reading strategy to students of any age?  

Hail,
Mr. Moore

I guess I haven't been clear.  I don't remember ever saying that I don't "visualize".  But surely I've said (more than once) that "I see with words."  I mean that I only see things *because* I have described them.  For me, "visualization" is a comparatively pale after-effect of language.  Certainly the *impact* of what I write (and read) lies in the language, not in the images which the words may or may not evoke.  When I read, images are only flickers in the background of my attention:  the foreground is all words.  My point, which I've tried to make more than once, is that I do not *see* the story like a movie (or even a static series of images) in my head and then try to transcribe it into words.  I only see it as an effect rather than a cause of writing it.

(Incidentally, I suspect that this accounts for the rather idiosyncratic effectiveness of my stories.  Because I'm concentrating on the sound and feel of the language instead of on literal images, I give my readers plenty of room in which to participate in the creative process.  I'm not trying to describe what I see:  I'm trying to evoke what I feel--or what my POV character feels.  Of course, setting and image are crucial to what anyone feels.  But my "aliteral" approach to such things leaves the reader free to do his/her own visualization.)

Of course, it does sometimes (rarely) happen that words will spark images which go beyond the immediate words.  In those cases, the images naturally inspire more words.  But that sure doesn't happen often.

No, I was never taught "visualization at any stage in [my] educational career."  Since my ability to read pre-dates my earliest memories (as far as I can tell, I was *born* able to read <wry smile>), I wouldn't know how to go about teaching any one to read--except by reading to them aloud, as my parents did faithfully with me, and as I did with my children.  Teaching reading in the 6th grade sounds to me like an impossible job.

(06/14/2007)

Alan Lantz

Mr Donaldson,

I'm glad to see you extending the Covenant series of books. Given the complexity of the characters and the universe in which they reside, do you find it much harder to write these latest editions and stay true to the universe which you have created?   

Staying "true to the universe" in terms of how it acts and feels, and why it matters, hasn't been difficult at all.  Keeping track of Every Single Little Detail in the previous books (or even in the previous chapter <sigh>) has been very difficult.  It's "internal consistency" on the micro rather than the macro level that threatens to drive me buggy.  A sad consequence of the fact that I didn't/couldn't start with a "story Bible" a la Tolkien.

(06/14/2007)

Fatma El Sakhawy

In " The Djinn Who Watches Over the Accursed" Fetim was an irresponsible sinful character who cared only for his pleasures, but still had some feelings towards his mankind. However,  at the end he was a heartless man who not only cared for his own pleasures, but also manipulated his miserable situation to torture and destroy humans.What does this development imply and does it symbolizes our world nowadays?  

If you'll forgive my saying so, this strikes me as an unusual interpretation of "The Djinn Who Watches Over the Accursed".  The way I read the story:  callow, self-centered Fetim is cursed; gradually during the course of the story he comes to understand that his inescapable curse brings harm to the people around him, even good people; so in an (extremely painful) attempt to make something good out of his curse, he starts using it to destroy sadistic tyrants and torturers.  His *final* victims in the story are not the victims of his selfishness:  they are victims of his efforts to make a righteous use of his curse.  Or so it seems to me.

(06/16/2007)

Matthew Verdier

Hello again Mr. Donaldson.

I was amused by your response to my previous "question".  I really didn't take that question seriously or expect an answer to it.  I just wanted to say hi and sorta have a virtual hand shake if you will.  Not many authors do this for their fans and it means a lot to me, and obviously to others.

Also, in thinking about your answer, in effect not trying to give away if the land is real or not in your eyes, I thought about that issue a bit more.  By the time I finished reading the first six books, I personally had come to the conclusion the Land is real.  I understand my decision to believe this has no bearing on anyone else, your intents(if any) when you wrote the books and I understand the paradox of believing both is important to Covenant as a character.

My thinking is that Hile Troy, Linden and the old man indicate to me that the Land is real (the irony of that- debating the "reality" of a fictional place).  Troy being able to see in the Land should not be possible without it being real.  He had no intellectual referent to imagine the sense of sight in a delusion.  Linden being able to use health sense in the "real" world at the end of TOT.  The old man not being involved in some way with the Land is too big of a coincidence; that a crazy old man shows up just before each of the delusions Covenant and Linden experience.  I personally don't buy into shared unconsciousness.  Common archetypes in dreams is one thing, multiple people dreaming the same dream with the scope of the Land is beyond what I am willing to believe.  These are my reasons for believing in the reality of the land, and I know that doesn't mean everyone will (or should).

Hmm, again, those aren't questions, but statements of what I believe.

Here is a real question.  Over the years, apparently I had misread the books and assumed that Berek had white gold of his own.  Did I misread that into the books?  Did he not?

Thanks again!

Matt

I accept your reasoning for what it is:  your reasoning.  As you clearly understand--and accept--other people may think differently.  As far as I'm concerned, this is as it should be:  we all have to make up our own minds about the meaning of, well, practically everything.  From my perspective (which is only relevant because it tends to be reflected in Covenant and Linden), the important thing about the whole "Is the Land real/unreal?" question is that it doesn't really matter.  I like to think that my story--and my characters--have moved beyond such considerations.  (Which is why the issue disappears from the text so early in "The Second Chronicles".)

Boy, I sure don't *think* Berek had white gold of his own.  If he did, and I've simply forgotten about it, I'm in big trouble.  <rueful smile>  If you find any textual evidence, please let me know.

(06/21/2007)

Perry Bell

Hi Stephen,
 I was wondering, have you made any plans for the next book you will write (Man Who for instance) after the TC series is complete?
Thank you,
Perry Bell
Reno Nevada

The short answer is no.  I've never tried to plan my writing life beyond the story I happen to be working on at the moment.  That said, I do have some possibilities in mind for another "The Man Who..." book.  But at this stage they aren't, well, real enough to support a story.

(06/21/2007)

Mr. Moore

Ok, I just scoured the GI for an answer to my question, or a clue to it, but found none (quite surprisingly).  My question concerns translation to the Land.

In the First Chronicles, Covenant (and Hile Troy, I guess, for that matter) was summoned to the Land by way of a tool, i.e. the Staff of Law.  Triock and Foamfollower didn't have the Staff in TPTP, but they still used a tool (orcrest by Triock and incantations of some kind by Foamfollower--yes?)  In the Second Chronicles, summons happens...how?  I never found a real answer to this.  There was the fire, and the ritual (guided or caused by either Foul or a raver...), and when Covenant and Linden arrived on Kevin's Watch, no summoner was there to greet them, in contrast to all summons in the First Chronicles.  So now the questions:

Does these changes or differences in being summoned to the Land have anything to do with the breaking of laws in the Land?  How connected is a summons to the Land with white gold?  How essential is a tool of power for a summons to the Land?

(There's something here, I just know it...)

Hail, 
Mr. Moore

From my perspective, the question of "tools" is secondary.  As I've said before, in "The Chronicles" power ultimately comes from the living will and heart of the being who wields it, not from the means by which that power is wielded.  Sure, particular tools are designed for specific purposes.  It's difficult to drive nails with a chisel.  But it isn't the hammer that drives the nail:  it's the man or woman using the hammer.  In this sense (if in no other:  I'm not sure how far I'm prepared to follow this line of reasoning today), the Staff of Law and white gold and the Illearth Stone and orcrest etc. etc. are comparable to mundane tools.  (Although a nail-gun might be a better analogy, since nail-guns run on electricity, and electricity can be compared to Earthpower without too much strain....)

It's true that no tool is specified when Lord Foul summons Covenant (and--perhaps inadvertently--Linden) to the Land.  But the circumstances aren't really comparable.  In "The Second Chronicles" (and "The Last"), LF had, in a manner of speaking, help on *this* side; the "real world" side.  The pain and malice of people in Covenant's/Linden's world helped LF perform the summons.  Perhaps that obviates the need for an appropriate tool.  Perhaps those people were themselves the tool.  Or perhaps the fact that LF is an immortal being implies that he isn't constrained (by mortal limitations) in the same way that Drool and Atiaran and Elena and Mhoram and Triock and Foamfollower were.

In any case, as Atiaran demonstrated with Hile Troy, there is no *necessary* relationship between being summoned to the Land and white gold.

(06/25/2007)

Peter Hunt

Mr Donaldson,

in a previous answer, you mentioned that you liked the Fontana cover illustrations for the First Chronicles. They are also my favourite; the front covers somehow evoke the tone of each book without necessarily reproducing a specific scene from them.

I thought I'd also mention, though, that if you put the three volumes face down, the back illustrations combine to form a single wonderful panorama of the Land as seen (I think) from the summit of Melenkurion Skyweir.

Best regards,
Peter

You're quite right.  This is just another example how well I was published 30 years ago--and how much things have changed since at Fontana (now HarperCollins) and DEL REY/Ballantine.

(06/26/2007)

Peter B.

Hi Steve.

Just wondering if you've seen the cover art for Fatal Revenant yet and what you think of it. Any chance we'll all get a sneak peek anytime soon?

Take care.

-Peter

Yes, I've seen the cover art for "Fatal Revenant".  Both UK and US.  I have mixed feelings about both (feelings which it would be premature to discuss here), but they are *extremely* well done.  My webmaster will be posting them as soon as we receive finalized versions from my publishers.  But I have no way of knowing when that will happen.

(06/26/2007)

Scott

This may be a better question for your webmaster.... or you may not wish to share, but- how many hits does this site recieve in a day, or a month- or however you are measuring?

Just curious to see how many of us are out here.

This site averages just about 70,000 hits a month.  Unfortunately, the software we use to compile statistics doesn't distinguish between "new" and "repeat" hits.  For all I know, one person visits this site 70,000 times a month.  If so, he/she must be *very* lonely.  <grin>

(06/26/2007)

I would like to hear your thoughts on how metanarrative--those stories or schema that function to order and explain human experience--operates in your Covenant work.  In modernity, confidence in metanarratives started to deteriorate.  In socalled postmodernity, confidence in metanarratives is almost completely lacking.

Tolkein, writing in high modernity, famously invented Middle Earth to serve as a myth for Britain.  In the Lord of the Rings, the characters' lives are governed by the metanarrative of the First Age, the tales of Numenor, etc.

So my question has two parts.  First, how does the metanarratives of the Old Lords, especially Berek Halfhand, function for the characters in the Chronicles?

Second, given that every story becomes a story in which the reader lives, at least for a while, for your modern readers, did you have any hopes about how your work might help people make sense of their lives in modern/postmodern times?  On this note, I would just let you know that as a teenager in the late 70s, I was sick onto death with cancer, and your stories helped me make sense of my experiences--they taught me the importance of not giving in to despair or despite.

Thanks.

I've been procrastinating because I don't really know how to respond.  (I keep waiting for inspiration to strike, but alas....)  Perhaps the problem is that I'm not comfortable with terms like "metanarrative," "modernity," "high modernity," and "postmodernity":  I'm not sure that I actually understand them.  If metanarratives are indeed "those stories or schema that function to order and explain human experience," then I don't see how it's even *possible* to lose "confidence" in them.  I've never met--and I never expect to meet--a human being who doesn't use "stories or schema...to order and explain" his/her experience.  It seems transparently obvious to me that none of us (including the people who have lost "confidence" in metanarratives) can think or even live without using some form of patterned storytelling to make sense (or nonsense, if we prefer) out of what happens to/in us.  (Indeed, I suspect that virtually all of what we commonly refer to as "thought" is a form of storytelling.  I'm not even sure that a distinction can be made between "story" and "mind".)

It seems to me, therefore, that the whole concept of losing confidence in metanarratives is patently absurd--if for no other reason than because simply making a statement like, say, "Metanarratives have no relevance to modern--or postmodern--life," is itself a metanarrative act.

On the other hand, it's possible that my confusion arises from my inclination to think of "metanarrative" as a *process*, whereas other people use the word to refer to the *content* of specific "stories or schema".  In which case--

(Unlikely as it may sound, I'm actually trying *not* to be abstruse here.  <sigh>)

--we probably need to start by making a distinction between (what I choose to call) devised and inherent metanarratives.  In my terms, a devised metanarrative would be a learned or inherited "story or schema" intended to explain human experience.  An *answer*.  The theology promulgated by modern jihadists--or by modern Presbyterians--would be an example of a devised metanarrative.  In contrast, an inherent metanarrative would be the underlying question which prompts the devised answer.  A question like, "How is it possible to go on living in a world which seems to be falling apart around me?"

On that basis, I can see how one might lose confidence in the answers; but I don't see how one can lose confidence in the validity of the questions.

(OK, so maybe I've completely missed the point of "metanarrative" as a concept.  *I* don't know.  Someone else will have to make that determination.)

So, taking your second question first:  as I've insisted on occasions too numerous to count, I'm not a polemicist.  I don't *have* answers (except to the extent that I believe storytelling itself can be an answer).  All I have are questions--and characters who struggle to find their own (extremely personal) answers to those questions.  As part of my creative ethic, I strive to reject all *devised* metanarratives.  So no, I had no hopes (or illusions) about writing stories which "might help people make sense of their lives in modern/postmodern times".  I'm not wise (or perhaps stupid) enough to tell other people how to make sense of their lives.  Rather I hoped to create authentic characters who struggled with valid questions--and who found viable (if entirely personal) answers for themselves (instead of accepting someone else's answers).  If a reader, a real person, finds an answer in what I've done, I neither take nor deserve credit for that.  Since "every story becomes a story in which the reader lives," whatever the reader gleans from the story belongs to him/her.  Similarly, if the reader refuses to glean anything from the story (loses confidence in inherent metanarrative, metanarrative as process or question rather than as devised answer), that's his/her problem, not mine.

But "how [do] the metanarratives of the Old Lords, especially Berek Halfhand, function for the characters in the Chronicles?"  I want to say:  Gosh, I'd tell you if I knew.  <sigh>  Here again, you appear to be thinking of me as a polemicist rather as a storyteller.  The relevance of the questions that, say, Berek faces (e.g. "How is it possible to go on living in a world which seems to be falling apart around me?") to the questions that Covenant and Linden face seems pretty obvious.  On the other hand, the relevance of Berek's *answers* to Covenant's and Linden's questions seems fairly obscure.  The whole point of telling stories like "The Chronicles" is that characters like Covenant and Linden have to find their own answers.  Repeatedly.  And no one else's answers will suffice.  On every level, the metanarrative within "The Chronicles" (if it exists at all:  I'm still not sure I understand what we're talking about) is inherent rather than devised.

(06/28/2007)

Matt Vomacka

A short time ago, some guy named Bob Benoit asked whether there were any novelizations or dramatizations of the Rhinegold story. There was, in fact, a TV miniseries released on sci-fi called "Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King," which was based on either the Volsung Saga (story which Wagner's operas are based on) or the actual operas. I can't actually remember which. Also, I think there's a novelized, english version of the saga called the Volsunga Saga by Wallace Morris or something like that.

Personally, I thought the sci-fi thing was pretty crappy, and I haven't read the novel.

For the information of those who are interested.  (Could it be "William Morris" rather than Wallace?)

(06/29/2007)