Ahira's Hangar

Reporting here from page 297. The first instance of "vild" was detected a few pages ago. It bears a certain resemblance to Lothlórien and such. It's weird to think there are things in this story transposed from science fiction. I have no idea if it works. I know interbook correlation can work. Desperation and The Regulators by Stephen King (the latter written as Richard Bachman) mirrored each others a lot despite not being actually connected and I think it actually added to the works. There were things like the children of a family were the parents in the other book, and the other way around. The villain was almost but not completely the same entity. An imaginary children's TV cartoon existed in both books. And so on. What separated the books was the tone. Desperation was dark and serious and full of, well, desperation. The Regulators had a certain over-the-top fun feeling despite the terrible situation the characters find themselves in.

The Lightstone has not quite been keeping up to my last post. I could have used more eventfulness, but I think the greatest reason probably is in the character of Morjin who just can't reach the level of really great dark lords such as Lord Foul. He's somewhat like the Dark One from Wheel of Time, but prettier. I hope he improves later; there is room for it. <i></i>

I'm getting more and more xcited 2 try the Lightstone--and if it turns out 2 b like Neverness I'll just pretend I'm reading about the Iledra who wrote the Elder Eddas.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Lyall Watson
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I have now reached the book's end, or rather non-end. The first half of The Lightstone ends with the sort of a minor climax we'd been having all along in this fairly episodic story of questing around the continent. There are some nice original ideas, but overall, I would have liked the story to diverge further from the stereotypical quest mold. I have read far too much the likes of Eddings and Brooks, I think, to appreciate the same thing over again even if it is radically better written. Still, there is still half a book worth of time to do something, although it would have been better had it been done earlier. I would also have liked some more tension. I guess like most books Lightstone gets really going in the second half when all the exposition is done and we can get to the scheduled action.

I notice Zindell uses a lot of elements reminescent of other stories. I see homages to the likes of Karl Edward Wagner, Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, Arthurian legends, and Greek mythology. And based on a forum name on this board, the ship called Snowy Owl has a precursor in Zindell's science fiction. <i>Edited by: Nerdanel at: 10/31/02 2:19:28 am
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I have now read The Silver Sword, the second half of The Lightstone and the second sixth of The Children of Ea. It's several pages shorter than the previous, which means the extrapolated length of the complete trilogy is suddenly not as long as Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

The story goes right to the story with no explanations. Reading the first book is absolutely needed here since The Lightstone is really one book whose splitting is an act of violence. I guessed correctly when I thought this book would have the most action and exciting stuff.

Overall I'm a little disappointed with The Lightstone. It's not that the book is bad which it is not; I just think it's not dark enough for my tastes. Sure there is dark stuff interspersed with the light, but the overall tone of the book is one of valiant heroes on a quest that is bound to succeed. Or maybe I am spoiled by the likes of Erikson and Donaldson. There is something Tolkien-like in the way the characters stumble into hidden places of beauty and light, but Tolkien's underlaying feeling of things falling from their original state is replaced with the reasonable hope of the humans of Ea eventually becoming higher level beings. I may be weird but even as a kid my favorite parts of LotR were Mordor and the Dead Marshes.

A good thing I noticed was that climate and vegetation made sense in terms of geography. Zindell's Crescent Mountains have good reason to be misty mountains with the ocean right west of them.

I had guessed the general area of the hiding place of the Lightstone reasonably accurately due to the common dynamics of fantasy storytelling but the exact place was a surprise to me. No more of that, though. <i></i>

According 2 Seeker's of the Ineffable Flame:Quote:Part Two of The Lightstone is titled The Silver Sword. This is not the next book in the Ea Cycle. The next book in the series will be The Red Dragon, due for release in 2003. When The Lightstone was printed to paperback, is was split into two parts. The Silver Sword is part two. There may be no U.S. release.So N what u read as The Silver Sword was a european Part II of the Lightstone, itself not book 2. Book 2 is still officially called The Red Dragon as will b released this spring!
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Lyall Watson
<i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 11/21/02 8:57:41 am
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I noticed the first part and guessed that about Red Dragon. There was no way those two books could have been nothing but one book, even without the common title. It was worse than Mordant's Need in that respect. <i></i>

I just stumbled across a website called Fantastic Fiction. There they have a book cover, by the same guy who did The Lightstone (and The Silver Sword, 4 that matter) called The Lord of Lies set 4 2003 release. This appears 2 b the 2nd book in the series (not The Red Dragon...) however I cannot find any other info 2 confirm this...go 2: Lord of Lies In any case it's a beautiful cover... (later that day...an Amazon. com search just revealed that this book is slated 4 a September release and yes it is the next installment in the Ea Cycle!) And now Danlo looked in that direction, too. He remembered that snowy owls mate in the darkest part of deep winter, and so along with this beautiful white bird perched in a tree a hundred feet away, he turned to face the sea as he watched and waited.

Ahira, Ahira, he called out silently to the sky. Ahira, Ahira<i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 3/26/04 3:39 pm
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Yep - it sure is crap. Its like he's run out of fresh ideas and is just coasting on the old ones but without the freshness. This seems to happen a lot - when did Fiest write anything half decent - on the other hand Frank Herbert wrote some rubbish but chapter house Dune - written not long before his death was one of the best in the series for me. SO maybe there is still hope.
I'm just annoyed that I bought the lightstone twice - yeah they split it into two for the paperback and I though oh great the second one is out. I guess I'm not the brightest mystic mathemietician out there.

great site btw - the design is really nice - not getting too many posters thought by the looks of it. <i></i>

That Fantastic Fiction site rules. I use it all the time to find out what books I haven't read by a particular author. ******************

To seek the sacred river Alph, to walk the caves of ice ...<i></i>

I am in the middle of my third reading of The Lightstone. I have the split version, and I am in the first book, right after they get to Tria.

Let's see; original read, first reread before the release of The Black Jade, second reread now, just before the release of The Diamond Warriors.

I have to say that this book gets better and better with each reread. Each time I have picked up more and more foreshadowing. It is really cool.

I just read Lightstone a short time ago.

I dunno. It's not that I dislike it, it's a perfectly fine book, but after Requiem, which is among my favorite series of all time now, it was something of a disappointment. I think I expected more, but all in all I was satisfied.

I didn't think it was TOO derivative of the requiem books, but maram is way too much like bardo. The terms which reappear from the requiem books (Red Dragon, Gelstei, Ieldra, etc) got me sorta confused and curious; in particular, I can't help wondering why Sivan, a character who was underdeveloped in Wild and didn't even appear in War in Heaven, was given a ship with the same name as Morjin's ominous title.

I did not fully appreciate The Lightstone until I read the rest of the series; it is one huge chunk of world building, etc. Once you read the other books and come back to it, it is also chock full of foreshadowing, and you sit there saying to youself "OH! That is why he threw that in there! OH! That is a little hint about such and so that happens in the second/third/fourth book!"