The tragic element is that Brew killed his brother, as evinced by the title of the first book being "The Man Who Killed His Brother." Fistoulari is the stronger partner. Tolkienisms don't bother me. I read the Chronicles on their own strength, and I think LOTR is badly overrated. I don't have a stance on Belief/Unbelief; I think the Land-As-Delusion makes the first trilogy better but ruins the second, so I just engage in willing suspension of disbelief and read the first with a Land-As-Delusion mindset and the rest with the Land-As-Fact mindset.
yeah man I'd imagine that if he had some Covenant-eque tragic figure solving murders (maybe a revenge story is eventually hinted at and further developed later, in which a loved one was murdered by one of the culprits involved in another crime he's investigating) but I can see how maybe it wouldn't be among some of his best work... would you agree that the Convenant books aren't really so strong due to the Tolkienisms, but rather how the protagonists at every turn are faced with despair, but somehow find hope in their attempts to save the Land, irrespective of whether it exists or not? and also what's your stance on the Belief/Unbelief debate (i.e. is the Land real or a fabrication of Tom's mind and later Linden's?) Also I would dare say that if SRD applied some of his philosophies on hope and the answers strong people find to their culpability/guilt and their resulting despair, he could make an awesome mainstream novel, maybe about a character with terminally severe unipolar depression or something. I'm currently writing such a story, but it's also a sci-fi story.
Daughter of Regals is a collection of short stories, one of which has a magic similar to Mordant's Need; some of them are pretty good, but I can't remember which stories are in DoR and which are in Reave the Just. The Man Who...series I mainly only read because it was SRD; Mystery isn't really my genre and I didn't think it was that great.
also have you read his murder mysteries, the man who something or other?
good to know man, I thought as much. Any thoughts on Daughter of Regals - isn't that the one about the mirrors, or was that Mordant's Need? Goodkind totally ripped that off for Law of Nines...
I find The Real Story does stand alone, but the series as a whole is much better than you'd expect just from The Real Story.
I heard the first book wasn't that great, mostly a setup, and that in fact SRD had gone as far as to request the first two books be amalgamated into a sort of omnibus. Do you think that was a valid decision, or is the first novel OK alone?
I love the Gap Cycle. Nick makes such a good villain.
Even trout like the Gap? What's it like? Thinking of buying it used on Amazon...
I've been a Covenant fan for more than half of my life--got into it when I was 15. I've read literally everything SRD has ever written.
