Illearth War more puissance then 3rd chrons

[Roynish]

I am re reading The IE which is regarded highly and stuff. And it is just a revelation to read Donaldson at his finest. This prose flows. I love this after not reading it for many years.

I want to keep reading. The 3rd chronicles I have to.

[Cambo]

The Illearth War is probably my favourite book of all the Chronicles. It's simply fantastic in every way. The first read of Lord Foul's Bane, I wasn't really hooked until the last few chapters. In TIW, I was avid from start to finish.

However, I am also loving the Last Chronicles. Fatal Revenant is probably my second favourite of the whole series, hard as it is to make calls like that. For me the LC are just as good as what came before.
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^"Amusing, worth talking to, completely insane...pick your favourite." - Avatar

http://variousglimpses.wordpress.com

[Starfire 152]

I remember reading TIW and thinking, can things get any worse (for our characters?) The Doriendor Corishev chapter was my favorite.
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Impediment
Fop
Acolyte of the Madoubt

[Orlion]

I tend to view all volumes on the same level, but to begin with, it was the IW that sold me on the chronicles.

Also, just as a friendly reminder to avoid posting about any plot points in the Last Chronicles. Saying you like IW better than LC is fine as far as I'm concerned, or even, say, "AATE had excellent prose, IMO" is also acceptable.
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'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville

I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!

"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley

[Cambo]

[bikebryan]

The Illearth War has always been one of my favorite to the TC books. We see the Lords in their "glory" using their powers, the power of the Illearth Stone in use by the Raver, the power of a fully mature Forestal...just my favorite book.

Of the three books of the Final Chronicles, Fatal Revenant is my favorite, just because Spoiler:

of the glimpse of the Land's far past, the riving of Melenkurion Skyweir, the cause of the rift in Rivenrock, the formation of Earthroot...

just riveting to me.

[Cambo]

SPOILERS bro!!
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^"Amusing, worth talking to, completely insane...pick your favourite." - Avatar

http://variousglimpses.wordpress.com

[SleeplessOne]

Not only is TIW my clear favourite of the chronicles, it is also just one of my favourite books ever, I can pick it up any time, open a random page and be both transported and intrigued by what I am reading, no matter how many times I have already done so - it's a pretty rare book, in my experience, that can have that kind of effect on a person.

It's like a great album, you can put on any track, or in this case open up to any chapter, and be beguiled, or put on the entire album from start to finish and enjoy the whole rich experience in full ...

The Land has never seemed so vital and teeming with life as it does in TIW, SRD's physical descriptions don't quite match his evocation of beauty that he reaches in LFB (and indeed the story demands that the Land deteriorate as the threat of Foul's dominion looms larger), but he just packs so much into TIW that I am left dizzy at the Land's richness and peril.

Apart from the compelling story, just consider the many regions Covenant and company traverse, Revelstone, Revelwood (which I loved), the Sarangrave, Coerci, Doriendor Corishev, Melenkurion Skyweir, Garrotting Deep.

But it's the philosophical conundrums, the physical trials, the mounting tension and dread and the sheer wonder of TIW that ultimately makes it my favourite of the series to date !
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... he passed among us with dark hints and spite in his mouth, casting sly ridicule on our crafts and customs.

[Orlion]

What IW lacks a little in that tPtP delivers big time is characterization.... actually, a better way to go about it is the following:

LFB seems to have its concentration of Land description. We get to know the beauty of the Land through this book, as SleeplessOne said, I believe.

IW is a mixture of characterization and Land description. We get to see that the Land is imperiled and so are the characters within.

In tPtP, we get to view the characters in the same light that we view the Land in LFB, as incredible people that deserve defending.

By the end, we see that the people (Mhoram, Foamfollower, etc.) are the Land just as much as Covenant is white gold.
_________________
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville

I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!

"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley

[Orlion]

[Cambo]

[TheFallen]

[perpetualchange]

Ive read The Illearth War more then any other of his books, still my favorite. The army's march and the scenes inside Melenkurion Skyweir are some of his best writing imo.
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"Speak to me of summer,
long winters longer
than time can remember"

"I still remember the talks by the water
the proud sons and daughters
that knew the knowledge of the land
spoke to me in sweet accustomed ways"

[peter]

Have to say quickly that saying a book has exelent prose and saying you like it are not neccesarily the same thing....

re TIW, yes - when you start listing the things that make it 'the best book' of the series I almost immediately fall into line and hold my hand up in agreement. Then I realise you could do the same for any book in the first two seies and I would still be there with my hand stuck up in the air like an idiot, so I guess I just love each one for it's own reasons and in summation I have derived more pleasure from the books than from any other man made 'art' ever produced (though the Sarah Michelle Geller lesbian kiss in the film Cruel Intentions .....).
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http://jhfv.blogspot.co.uk/

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

[ninjaboy]

I always recommend people read TIW when I recommend them the series, and if they like it they usually read the whole series after that..

It's just an amazing book. But also the Final Chrons has been an amazing trip so far as well.. In time I might rate AATE as good a book as TIW, but I'll have to re-read them all a few more times!
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Forgive my death.
It was my flesh that failed you, not my love.

[ussusimiel]

TIW is easily my favourite of the Chrons.

Today I was reading from it. I was spending some time in Revelstone with Mhoram and Covenant. This interlude is probably my favourite in the 1st and 2nd Chronicles because it is the only time that we get to spend an extended period enjoying the Land at peace. Yes, war is impending. Yes, there are undercurrents that threaten to erupt at every turn, but just before we are plunged into all that we get to experience Revelstone, Elena, Bannor, Lord Kevin's Lament, Glimmermere, the Unfettered One, Mhoram, Hyrim, the Hall of Gifts and much more.

I think that this is the time we learn to love the Land in detail and we do so at the same time as Covenant does. We learn that like Covenant we too can be touched by Beauty. Touched and maybe wounded. We cannot not care and that leaves us exposed to hurt. A hurt that may eventually lead, as it does in Covenant's case, to death. This is not the hurt of grief, this is the hurt of love.

And SRD's genius here is that even as he write's the Beauty he recognises the necessity of the hurt. There is a sureness and a purity to the writing that shines like a beacon from people like Mhoram, Tohrm, Borillar, from Revelstone itself, from Glimmermere, from the Unfettered One. From this Beauty and hurt we are inexorably led, a bit like Mhoram with Elena's marrowmeld sculpture of Covenant, not towards the Ritual of Desecration but towards the means of salvation that Covenant eventually recognises in WGW.

We can only be saved if we allow ourselves to love. Beauty draws us into love like a merewife and we drown. In death we are transformed as Covenant is transformed at the end of WGW. This is not a physical death. It is not ego-death. This is the death of the self. The death of the illusion that we have invested so much of our life-force in.

And it is in relative peace that the wound is received. 'Something there is in beauty/ which grows in the soul of the beholder/ like a flower ... but the soul in which the flower grows/ survives.' In LFB we are overawed, stunned and amazed by the Lands grandeur and beauty. At the start of TIW we are wounded by it and our fate is set. The end is inevitable the only thing we don't know yet is how we are going to get there.

SRD was in the zone when he wrote TIW. It shines!
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Tho' all the maps of blood and flesh
Are posted on the door,
There's no one who has told us yet
What Boogie Street is for.

[peter]

Interesting that Roynish in the thread header uses the word 'puissance'. In fact I don't neccesarily think The Illearth War is more powerfully written than the Last Chrons - it's just much better. And Orlion - I hate to be a jerk but "AATE had exelent prose". Don't get me wrong but it's hardly going to get you running for your local Barnes & Noble is it!
_________________
http://jhfv.blogspot.co.uk/

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard

[Orlion]

[amanibhavam]

[peter]