Ahira's Hangar

David Zindell's Neverness, A Requiem for Homo Sapiens and all things Science Fiction and Fantasy
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 Post subject: The Lightstone?--Book I of the Ea Cycle
PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2002 12:01 pm 
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Anyone read Zindell's Fantasy book? <i>"White the mist that rose through me, Whiter than land of your dwelling.It is your name that will bind thee,Your name is mine for the telling" </i><i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 6/30/02 4:19:27 pm
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 Post subject: Re: The Lightstone?
PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2002 3:07 pm 
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Ah ha! The famous Calibandar has arrived--welcome! if u click the banner in the board index u can go 2 Seekers of the Ineffable Flame a Zindell page--not a discussion page, alas, where they have a review of The Lightstone and I just found out that the 2nd book in The Ea Cycle is just about 2 come out called: The Red Dragon. I haven't read The Lightstone yet--but plan 2-the review says, and this is kinda odd, that some main characters have the same names found in the Neverness series such as Bardo and Danlo--I'll try 2 copy that review 2 this topic! Fall Far and Well Pilots!<i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 5/31/02 9:49:24 am
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 Post subject: Re: The Lightstone?
PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2002 3:26 pm 
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Actually, I e-mailed Voyager a week or two ago and they regretfully informed me that the second book is suffering from a serious delay. It was due in August and will now only see release in June 2003. Which sucks.

First book is well worth the read btw. <i>"White the mist that rose through me, Whiter than land of your dwelling.It is your name that will bind thee,Your name is mine for the telling" </i><i></i>


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 Post subject: An Amazon.com Review of The Lightstone
PostPosted: Wed May 22, 2002 4:56 pm 
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David Zindell's massive epic fantasy The Lightstone is only the first volume of The Ea Cycle and is characterised by the same grandeur and vividly imagined scenes of glory and dismay as his space operas--the sequence which starts with Neverness. Like them, it is remarkable for scale, ambition and a capacity to evoke sinister beauty; in their case a thousand exploding suns; here a desperate battle in the underground throne room of a Dark Lord and the burning of a great library. There is a sense in which this is fantasy-by-numbers--young prince Val is sent on a quest for the long-lost Lightstone--the cure for the world's pain. He is harassed in his dreams by a demon who was once a bright being and is joined by companions who collect magical bric-a-brac as they go. Zindell though, is trying to work with the inherent strengths of mythic structure, bringing to the tale a sense of urgency and spiritual depth, rather than cynically exploiting the clichés. Val is a man who lives consciously with the myths he is re-enacting--heroism is not just heroic acts but an emotional space that goes with the acquisition of doomed love and mortal enemies. This is an impressive start to an interesting cycle. --Roz Kaveney-editor Locus Magazine Fall Far and Well Pilots!<i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 7/20/02 4:50:32 pm
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 Post subject: Zindell on The Lightstone & The Ea Cycle:
PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2002 11:51 pm 
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''The [forthcoming] 'Ea Cycle' is a grail quest. It's set in a secondary world which is also a secondary universe, something I haven't seen too much in fantasy, though it's like Moorcock's 'Multiverse,' tying his work together. My fantasy is probably more like a traditional science fictional structure, in that there's a secondary world, and there are other magical secondary worlds around other stars, in much the same way a science fiction universe would be set up. And the kinds of world-building I'm doing are more along SF lines. All those hard SF things I did to build the universe and world of 'Neverness,' and even some of the research there, have really helped me out.

''There's an angelic race, then an archangelic race, and a race that's higher than they are. And there's this great galactic civilization. It's not a technological one; it's a magical civilization, but the magic is not 'wizard and elves'; it's more like 'deep structure of the universe.' Built into that structure is the idea that there's an evolutionary progression from lower beings to star people, to immortal beings that would be like angels (though I don't call them angels), to archangels, to kind of an increate race that imbues its life force, its consciousness, into creating universes – of which my universe is one. So there are some very deep structures and a sense of hugeness. And that is something you find throughout Tolkien.''

*

''To change people's lives – that is why I write. And one of the reasons I write is to change my own life. So the mythological structure of the Grail Quest is for me my own quest. It's a quest to be a better human being, a quest for my own transcendence. That has a lot to do with why I'm writing fantasy, because it's very hard to do that within the structure of modern literature.

''One of the things that has made life very difficult for people has been the dissociation between science and religion, where science supposedly does not make moral pronouncements – it's not about good or evil, it's just about a better description of external reality. And religion has reached a place where it's not making any statements about the nature of reality; it's more about 'this is right and this is wrong,' and reason doesn't enter into the discussion. There needs to be a reintegration of the two things. Science needs to be value-oriented, and in religion or spiritual practice we need to take a scientific approach: to evaluate experiences in a scientific way, to say, 'If you had that experience, is it a repeatable experience?', just like a scientific experiment.

''So the next century needs to see this integration happen. That doesn't mean things get jumbled back together, it just means there's not this complete disassociation. It's like the fingers of your hand – they are differentiated, but not completely apart. And that gets back into the question of what would be the literature of the 21st century. If I'm doing my job as a writer, I can move people – and I can move myself – into that place of transcendence. If fantasy is more the literature of the 21st century, it's going to have to be myth.''--part of a Locus Magazine interview

The power of ahimsa is not just the readiness to die. It is the willingness to live. To live utterly without fear - this is a fearsome thing. <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 7/20/02 4:53:00 pm
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 Post subject: Another name???
PostPosted: Tue Aug 13, 2002 5:35 am 
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I've recently heard not only confirmation of what Cali says about delaying the publication of the 2nd book in the Ea Cycle, but from 2 dif sources that it might b renamed "The Silver Sword". I wonder if that has something 2 do w/the book rights 2 the new movie about 2 come out, starring Anthony Hopkins, called The Red Dragon? hmmmmmmmm............. <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 8/13/02 10:42:52 pm
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 Post subject: Re: Another name???
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2002 2:43 am 
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I've got another name for Lightstone -

Total Tedious Bollox !!

Sorry, I hated it. Pure and Simple. I have read the first 350 pages, and will give it away to anyone who wants it. Why you guys (both of whom I respect deeply as book reccers) like it is completely beyond me. Narika nBari nAdun yanakhim<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Another name???
PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2002 3:44 am 
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I'm just trying 2 promote it Beren--I have NOT read it! Mayb Fantasy isn't Zindell's forte...thanks 4 the warning!!! The true human being is the meaning of the universe. He is a dancing star. He is the exploding singularity with infinite possibilities. <i></i>


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 Post subject: Lighstone
PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2002 9:35 am 
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No worrys Danlo. You win some and you lose some. Perhaps Fantasy isn't his strong point. <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Lighstone
PostPosted: Fri Oct 04, 2002 8:32 pm 
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I was browsing through my local bookstore again today. There was STILL no Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson to be seen. If it continues like this I'm still waiting for the third book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen when House of Chains comes out in mass market paperback, but I digress.

Then my eye caught the name of David Zindell. I remembered Danlo's praise and knew our tastes overlapped at least partially. There were only the parts two and three of Zindell's science fiction series, but Lightstone was part one. My impulse purchase was sealed by the words "sinister beauty" on the backcover. I'm a big fan of sinister beauty. Many of my drawings strive for it.

I'm going to read Lightstone as soon as I find the time, which may take a while with the Donaldson group reading on Kevin's Watch, library books that come due, and of course school work. <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Lighstone
PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2002 7:36 am 
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I just noticed I just bought half a book! I thought I was buying the first book of the Lightstone series but then found out they had surreptiously inserted the true series title in the backcover. The original book must have been quite a doorstopper.

ARGH! I hate it when they split books and don't make it obvious! The Ninth Kingdom most likely won't have any kind of resolution or anything, and the structure will easily be skewed. I remember vividly when I read the first eight chapters of To Green Angel Tower as an "independent" book. (In Finland Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy is published in no less than 12 parts. I borrowed about half of them from the library in that form but later I bought the English originals.)

By the way, the second half of Lightstone was nowhere to be seen in the bookstore. <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Lightstone
PostPosted: Mon Oct 07, 2002 1:05 pm 
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Ay yi! What a pain! I didn't realize they did stuff like that over there! At least you have part of the book...I frequent alot of bookstores in Albuquerque and I have yet 2 see a copy of this book, even Barnes & Noble seemed ignorant of it's existence... The true human being is the meaning of the universe. He is a dancing star. He is the exploding singularity with infinite possibilities. <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 12/29/02 4:33:39 pm
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 Post subject: Re: Lightstone
PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2002 5:23 pm 
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I finally got to reading the book. A sudden discovery of Memories of Ice (triumph of patience, waiting for my bookstore get that one!) delayed me. Now I'm on page 50 of the first half of The Lightstone. It's well written and very detailed. I feel I'm really in the story but everything takes a long time to happen. The basic setup looks a bit been-there-done-that, with all those noble young heroes, dark lords, and long-lost magical artefacts. I hope Zindell has taken the twist-the-cliché approach. Otherwise there is not much point in this. (I have tried to avoid the spoilers presented in this thread. I'll find out when I read it.)

Interestingly (or not!) I see several of the place names on the map are plain Finnish! I wonder if Loviisa, the capital of Ishka, resembles at all the quiet little town whose nuclear power plant I visited on a class trip. It looks like Zindell looked for inspiration in foreign maps.

Continuing on the tangent, in a Forgotten Realms book by Salvatore I once spotted something called "the icy wastes of Vaasa". Vaasa is a coastal city in Finland. I have some second cousins there. I hear later the Vaasa in Forgotten Realms was changed to Wasa. It just happens that Vaasa in Finland has a large Swedish-speaking population and they call their city Wasa. Coincidence? <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Lightstone
PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2002 10:48 pm 
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Very cool review ma'am! Thanks--I've read lots of reviews by folks who have read the Neverness series who say that SO much is borrowed from Neverness-or well it's a stab at a Neveness universe in fantasy form--and they didn't ness. like it. I'm hoping u haven't read Neverness, or have u? If u haven't ur continued POV would b facinating indeed!
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Lyall Watson
<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: Lightstone
PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2002 11:45 pm 
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I'm currently at page 180 and I'm hooked. Something like nearly 100 pages ago I pieced out from some hints that all is not how it seems to the main character. Something reasonably un-clichéd is going on. It reminds me a bit of a plotline used by a certain fantasy author, but I'm not going to reveal who because that would be a spoiler. Naturally, I'm not going to reveal the direct spoiler either.

When the quest got underway the plot started really rolling. Although we are still to see those magic stones, the what-they-were-called-agains, they seem to be somewhat less simple than I had feared. And the plot has taken some twists I didn't foresee, which is always a good thing.

Zindell was completely unknown to me before I came to this site and I haven't read anything else by him. I don't know how much the plot follows his science fiction books, but I did notice the suspicious word "neverness" was used a couple of times. As I understand it, the word is not standard English. No instances of "Vild" have been detected, at least for now. <i></i>


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