Ahira's Hangar

Danlo and Duchess, what's going on here? Have I stumbled onto a board of psychics, or what? You have unerringly chosen the only form of attack that always leaves me totally defenseless.
How dare you be reasonable with me. That's fighting dirty. That's just not fair.
If you keep this up you'll have me admitting that, yes, I can on occasion be a bit mouthy and, yes, sometimes my choice if imagery borders on what I know others would consider bad-taste. (Which I'll take care with in future.)
What am I supposed to do?
Oh, what the Hell...GROUP HUG !!!

Curiosity brought me back to see what you'd thrown at me next. (To which I swear I had no intention of replying.) But I couldn't get the discussion out of my head. I was sure there was a reason for the basis of my argument. So I dug out The Real Story, and there it was.

In the afterword, Donaldson himself says that he was embarrassed and ashamed that he hadn't so much created Angus as unleashed him from his own dark psyche.

Now if I accept Danlo's word that in real life Donaldson isn't the Charles Manson of SF/Fantasy, then the only conclusion I can draw, is that The Gap is a very brave thing to attempt...and I think all brave authors should be encouraged.

The best current example is probably Martin's Ice & Fire.
His cold, cynical, adult style has, hopefully amongst other things, destroyed the epic fantasy rule that all the characters introduced in book 1 are still going to be there in book 10. Some of them didn't even make it to the end of book 1.
There are no black hats or whites hats. It's all shades of grey. You have good guys doing bad things for good reasons...and Tyron is one of my all time favourite characters.

I remember reading ages ago that Moorcock had a great deal of trouble getting his classic RuneStaff trilogy published. The problem was that it was being released primarily to the UK market, and not only were the villains Brits, but the heroes were French. Loved it.

So where does that leave me with Donaldson?
If I practice a little of what I preach, and un-narrow my own thinking a tad, I guess The Gap does serve a purpose and Donaldson deserves at least the benefit of the doubt...but let's keep it out of the hands of that 12 year old neighbour for a whille, OK?

Adios
Rockin' & in The Land of Oz


PS: Late Thought
I wonder of there's any parallel between Donaldson's disturbing tour of our dark-sides and Gibson's emotionally confronting treatment of The Passion of the Christ.
On seconds thoughts, that's waaay too deep.
Don't think I want to go there.

Adios again


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and drinks all around! Tyrion is my favorite character too. Once you get beyond the rapes, zone implants and various other drugging huge vistas appear both in the Gap saga and the Covenant series. I heartily agree w/ur take on Gap TRS is the only thing my wife has read by SRD and she threw it against the window about four times saying it was too sick, she, somehow finished it and thought it was well written. I felt the same way too but once I made it to the 3rd book I was wrapped up and blown away-straight to the end. *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 3/27/04 11:07 pm
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Tons of hugs for everyone. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Nothin like diving in head first, eh Dragonemisis?

There my be other opinionated persons around here, but they just don't show it all the time.....

So, I guess you guys would say.....go ahead & finish reading the Gap series I started 3 years ago????

Cripple but free; I was blind all the time I was learning to see<i></i>

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*****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>