I've tried to explain things like this before, but apparently I can't make myself clear. I'm a very linear thinker. I couldn't get to where I am now in "The Chronicles" if I hadn't first been to the previous places in the story. For me, what has gone before (in the full sense of the story, not in the artificial sense of the synopsis) is a "given": everything that comes after it is predicated on it. Look at it this way. The first trilogy, and more particularly "Lord Foul's Bane," and even more particularly the "Fundamental Question of Ethics," is the foundation upon which the entire rest of the edifice is being constructed. When all of the people who comprise my imagination are hard at work on the 5th or 8th floor of the building, they don't spend their time *talking* about the foundation: their attention is focused on what they're doing *now*. Which is very different than what they were doing when they were laying the foundation. But that doesn't make the foundation irrelevant or unimportant. In fact, the *meaning* (if you'll allow me to confuse my imagery in this fashion) of what the workers are doing on the 5th or 8th floor is entirely dependent on the foundation. Nonetheless the attention of the story *now" is not on the foundation: it's on what can be built from that foundation. As far as I'm concerned, neither the story nor the characters have "outgrown" the Fundamental Question. Nor have they resolved it, moved beyond it, or simply forgotten about it. No, they are STANDING on it. Take it away, and everything else collapses. Or so it seems to me. (02/06/2008)

As usual, every case is different. First, every individual writer has his/her personal sense of, well, decorum. Second, every story has its specific needs and requirements: needs and requirements which the writer ignores at his/her peril. (That peril, as you've indicated, is that the necessary "suspension of disbelief" is weakened.) One less, well, let's call it one less squeamish example: some critics ridiculed "Lord Foul's Bane" because they felt the book didn't pay enough attention to the practical details of living in the Land (e.g. where and how do people get their food? water? clothes?). Well, to the extent that I'm guilty of that mistake, it *is* a mistake: it undermines the credibility of what I'm trying to make real. The same reasoning applies to the example you're curious about. Writers who, consciously or unconsciously, *sanitize* the cruder, bloodier, or simply more unpleasant aspects of their story pay a price for doing so--but IF, and only IF, those aspects are necessary to the story. In practice, on a case by case basis, you can arrive at your own conclusions. (02/06/2008)

Since I don't play computer or video or role-playing games, I'm not qualified to evaluate their potential as vehicles for storytelling. But my hunch is that their possibilities are pretty limited. Not because the storytelling mechanisms themselves are limited in their functionality (although they are, at least at present), but because the imagination of the creator is (I think) fundamentally hampered by the need to allow the *player* to determine the outcome and meaning of the story. I suspect (just my opinion) that the game creator's need to accommodate a multiplicity of story-paths precludes real emotional depth. (02/06/2008)

1) I've spent so much time in the GI discussing the fact that I'm a verbal rather than a visual person (and writer), I really don't have the heart to repeat it all. Suffice it to say that I usually remember *how* something was described rather than *what* was described. 2) After 47 rejections for "Lord Foul's Bane," seeing my books in bookstores was a shattering experience: in a good way, but shattering nonetheless. My entire reality was torn apart and made into something new; and I spent years adjusting to the change. (02/09/2008)

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<sigh> Well, I always *thought* "runnulet" was a real word. But like you, I can't find any evidence that it exists anywhere outside my imagination. Sometimes writers do such things. And sometimes it's a good idea. (Other times not.) In this case, since the neologism is not an impediment to communication.... (02/09/2008)

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(I have no idea what the Washington Post meant. Personally, I've always suspected that the quote was intended to be ambiguous.) I've discussed the "Covenant" vocabulary elsewhere in this interview, but it's been a while. If you've read any of my other books, you know that this kind of language is a stylistic choice, not a personal compulsion: I'm perfectly capable of writing what Judy Blume once called "low diction fiction". In the broadest possible terms, and not referring to any specific example, what I'm trying to communicate is, well, let's call it a sense of the exotic. I want this world to feel beautiful and strange, inherently magical; and since language is my life, it's my best tool to convey what I intend. Familiar words lose their mystery through sheer, well, familiarity. But of course, as you've observed, there's an unavoidable problem. The more unfamiliar the words, and the more crucial the context in which I use them, the more "difficult" my prose becomes. What is intended as an enhancement to communication becomes an impediment instead. So in practice my use (any use) of language is a complex balancing act. And what constitutes an effective balance shifts from moment to moment, situation to situation, character to character. Your reaction, like that of many other readers, demonstrates that I don't always succeed at finding the "right" balance (an impossible challenge, since the "right" balance shifts with the reader as well as with the story, but an important challenge nonetheless). But please be assured that I *do* try. The fact that "crepuscular, rill, risible, louring and plash" are all familiar to *me* only makes the task of finding the right balance for the reader harder. As for why Linden (and Covenant) always understand the rhetoric of the people they encounter in the Land <sigh>: that gets us into the whole question of the fundamental relationship between "mind" and "reality"; and I've struggled to explain my views on that subject so often that I don't have the heart to try again today. (02/13/2008)

1) Your idea fails the Occam's razor test. In other words, it's too complicated. As a people, the Elohim exist at every (known) moment of the Land's history. Therefore they already exist prior to any malign (or benign) adventure backward in time. And they would always act to preserve the Arch of Time. So they don't need to go leaping around through the ages: they are already present (as a people: not necessarily as specific individuals) wherever the danger might occur. 2) Absolutely not. I feel an active abhorrence for the idea of mingling the realities of my stories. I'm not sure I can explain why; but it probably has something to do with the sheer scale of the *explanations* I would be forced to devise. Or maybe it involves the obvious fact that Covenant and Linden and the Land could never exist in the "reality" of Terisa Morgan's mind. Just as she and mirrors and Imagers could never exist for Covenant and Linden. (02/13/2008)

I disagree. The "2 *obvious* powers that LF could hope to save him are gone." But evil as a concept, a fundamental principle, can never be destroyed. And there are other dark forces in the Earth that LF could draw on--for lack of a better term--to resuscitate him. My point in both the first and second trilogies is that the victories over LF are *real*: they are not (as the Elohim want Linden to believe) illusions. (02/13/2008)

I didn't learn anything that inspired "the necessity of freedom" in India per se. The missionaries did everything possible to prevent their children from learning ANYthing about the country; and I remained effectively ignorant about India itself until I studied the subject in college (in the US). However, "the necessity of freedom" may well be a reaction *against* the particular beliefs of my parents. My parents were Presbyterian: they believed in "predestination," which makes a joke out of the whole notion of free will. I found that belief offensive as soon as I was old enough to understand it. There can be no true morality without free will. Indeed, "predestination" makes a joke out of religion itself. (02/13/2008)

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Step back! Them's fightin' words. How do you propose to demonstrate that ANY of Linden's decisions in "The Last Chronicles" has been wrong? I'll grant you some errors in judgment in "The Second Chronicles," but even there your assertion doesn't hold up. Who decided to rouse Covenant from the stasis imposed by the Elohim? In "The Last Chronicles," however: well, let's just say that I'm looking forward to your efforts to back up your statements with hard evidence. (02/17/2008)

In my view, these clan distinctions vanished a long time ago. They were only mentioned once, in "Gilden-Fire"--which was intended to be an out-take, so I don't consider it part of the official Covenant "text". (02/20/2008)

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Well, "ever".... It isn't realistic to assume that Ace will *never* release "Runes"--or any of "The Last Chronicles"--in mass market paperback. Ace simply has no *present* plans to do so. As far as it goes, I don't consider this a good decision. But it isn't my decision to make. And speaking of books that you "know didn't sell as well as Runes," sure, vast numbers of them have appeared as MMPBs. But how many of those titles appeared first as hardcovers and then as trade paperbacks? I'm confident that quite a few never saw hardcover or trade paperback publication at all. And of the remainder, a large majority went straight from hardcover to MMPB, without passing through the trade paperback format. What Ace is doing with "The Last Chronicles" represents something of a departure from conventional publishing. For good or ill. (02/20/2008)

This is a huge spoiler, but I can't resist. I would rather be dead than leave my readers (and myself) feeling the way I felt when I finished "The Dark Tower". (02/20/2008)

As far as I know, "The Fundamental Question of Ethics" was something that I just made up. It seemed to me to be a) a logical extension or expression of the story's inherent themes, and b) a necessary introduction to those themes (a way to get the ball rolling, in a manner of speaking). (02/27/2008)

1. Broadly speaking, I think of Earthpower as the fundamental energy of life. It is inherent to every living aspect of the world. (And since, in a story like this, even "inert" matter is alive in some sense....) But, like energy in our world, its form and function vary dramatically from one context to another, one being to another, one use to another. Of course, the sun is the most overt expression of that life: hence its usefulness as source for Troy's sight; and as an (apparent) source for the Sunbane--although the perverse nature of the energy which the sun (in this case) reflects or boosts is defined by the malice of Lord Foul and his servants. However, it seems safe to assume that *any* manifestation of life/energy can be perverted, given enough malice and will. Because the energy for Kevin's Dirt is drawn from different sources for different purposes than the Sunbane, it naturally manifests itself differently. Is any of this clear? 2. In my view, "being forever aware" is not a necessary quality of Appointment. Remember, first, that Kastenessen was being punished: the other Appointed Elohim (at least the ones we know about) were not. Requiring, say, Findail to remain "aware" when his identity has been effaced in the Staff of Law seems both unreasonable and gratuitously cruel. (02/27/2008)

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This has come up before.... I'm sorry. I'm working without a net here myself, and I'm afraid you'll have to do the same. I really don't mean to keep my readers in suspense like this. But if I'm going to live, I have to eat, which means I have to do things like sell books to publishers when I get them written; and once a publisher buys a book, I can't very well expect them not to publish it. But I love life, so I pay close attention to my own well-being. That's the only reassurance I can offer you. (02/29/2008)