If I could explain *how* I’m able to do what I do, well…I probably wouldn’t need to do anything else. I could make a very tidy living just doing that: i.e. explaining how the imagination works; how the relatively mundane transactions of neurons combine to produce results which exceed the parameters of those transactions. (Admittedly, there are *billions* of neurons--and many more possible combinations than there are neurons. As Karl Marx observed in a different context, “Differences in degree become differences in kind.” But that merely describes the *problem* of explaining how the imagination works: it doesn’t bring us any closer to an answer.) In response to your first question, I suppose I could say that an interest in paradox was a necessary condition of the specific story I wanted to write (a fantasy about a man who rejects the fantasy world). Or I could say that an interest in paradox is a necessary condition of being a storyteller (since human beings are nothing if not self-contradictory). Unfortunately we all know of storytellers who pay no attention to such details. A more honest--or at least more personal--answer is that my mind-set is an effect of being raised in an artificial “reality” constructed by fundamentalist missionaries. As young children, we were taught, “We know that X, Y, or Z perception of reality is a lie because it contradicts Scripture.” But as we became older, we couldn’t help noticing that every brand of fundamentalist drew its own unique conclusions from the “same” Scripture. And as we became still older, we noticed that X, Y, or Z consensus realities didn’t go away just because the missionaries called them lies. So then we were taught, “Faith is more important than reality. In fact, true faith necessarily contradicts reality. ‘Credo qua impossibila est’ (Tertullian): I believe because it is impossible.” Well, in my case, such training was so intensive, and so hermetic, that now efforts to resolve contradictions between belief (perception) and experience (reality) are inherent to the way I think. I can’t *not* write about “paradoxes and such heavy subjects”. (02/11/2007)

Very carefully. (02/11/2007)

I believe that Stephen King has referred to "The Chronicles" in print (favorably?). Years ago, he let me know that he liked them. My personal favorite of King's many books is "The Eyes of the Dragon." I think he writes what might be called "pure" fantasy exceptionally well. Incidentally (for you trivia buffs), he and I once collaborated--with quite a few other writers--on what I think of as a "gag" story. It was so long ago that I've forgotten most of the details. But the purpose of the exercise was to raise money for a charity at an sf/f convention. Without any prior discussion, each writer in turn wrote for 30-45 minutes, then folded the paper so that only the last sentence was visible. With only that last sentence for "context," the next writer attempted to continue the "story". I had to go on from King's last sentence. The result, as I recall, was hysterically surreal. (02/13/2007)

Aw, shucks. I probably just misspelled "bollocks". After all, I'm an Amurican. What do *we* know? But seriously: "horror and bollocks" is definitely *not* an Americanism. Which is why I like it, even if I can't spell it. (02/13/2007)

I don't think I've *ever* regretted creating a character, even "in the trial stages of a book". I've certainly regretted screwing up when I created a character, but in cases like that I just try to get to know him/her better. (In other words, the fault--if there is one--is always mine, not the character's.) In fact, I can't even *imagine* regretting the creation of a character. That would be like regretting that I *have* an imagination. (02/13/2007)

"Trapped"? No. He is *part* of the Arch of Time, an aspect of the structure which constrains Lord Foul. I suppose you could call that being trapped--but it's a very different *kind* of "being trapped" than LF experiences. And he's there by his own choosing, which sort of negates the whole concept of "trapped". (02/13/2007)

Yes, I knew about this. As a supporter of the National Space Society, I receive their magazine, "Ad Astra," which ran an article about Shannon Lucid and included a picture of her bookshelves (where my books were clearly displayed). I'm quite proud of that. (02/13/2007)

It's just a coincidence. I was visualizing a very different kind of "yellow" in each case. Angus has human eyes with a yellow-ish tinge to the whites (I've seen people with eyes like that). Lord Foul has what might be considered yellow flames that resemble fangs instead of human eyes. The only "connection" is the fact that I happened to use the word "yellow". (02/14/2007)

Ah, another "how do you do what you do?" question. Honestly, I can't explain it. I just push myself as hard as I can, and you get the results. But on a much more practical level.... The GI is already full of "tips" based on my own experience and my conversations with other writers ("creative process," "writing & publishing process"). In one way or another, I think it all comes down to a form of self-hypnosis. Superficially, the idea is to cut out the awareness and intrusion of the external world. Beneath the surface, the idea is to cut out self-consciousness. There's nothing worse for being creative than watching yourself try to be creative. Of course, I have a whole list of personal rituals and mechanisms to, well, hypnotize myself. But what works for one person is useless for another. Every writer--every creative individual--has to discover/develop his/her own methods of mental or physical preparation. (02/14/2007)

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You are essentially correct. The Ranyhyn are mortal horses embued with a certain amount of Earthpower as part of their essential nature. (In this respect, they are more analogous to the Haruchai than to the Elohim.) The Elohim are pure embodiments of Earthpower. They are immortal (i.e. lacking in mortality) in the same sense that Earthpower itself is immortal: Earthpower is the life-blood of, well, life, and the Elohim will live as long as the Earth lives. (02/15/2007)

Questions like this sort of scare me. Other reasons aside, they seem to impute a degree of wisdom that I know I don't possess. I'm just a guy who muddles through life like most other people. The fact that I routinely talk like an "authority" doesn't mean I actually *am* one. But I can tell you one thing that I've learned from experience. Self-forgiveness--like self-acceptance--usually can't be acquired in isolation. It's an interactive process: it requires other people. Of course, we all need people with whom we can be honest about the things for which we haven't forgiven ourselves. Talking to people who don't judge or reject what they hear can let a little light into the dark places of our hearts. But--and I must emphasize that I'm just talking about my own experience--that isn't enough. Other people serve a deeper purpose in this interactive process. (See? This is what I was referring to. I *sound* like an authority, even when I'm not. <sigh>) The real secret, it seems to me, is to forget about forgiving or accepting ourselves, and to concentrate instead on forgiving and accepting other people. (Which first requires us to *understand* them: a challenge that can only be met by looking at them without judging or rejecting them; a challenge that--I believe--constitutes the underlying purpose of storytelling.) Something mysterious happens when we forgive and accept someone else: some of that forgiveness and acceptance leaks back into us. It's slow; it's hard; and it requires the kind of concentration outward rather than inward that gradually changes "Covenant the rapist" into "Covenant the man who is filled with compassion and grief for the woman he raped". But it does work. At least in my experience. Incidentally, this is why storytelling is good for *me*, whether or not it's good for anyone else. It forces my concentration outward, onto settings and situations and characters, rather than inward, onto my personal sins and woes. The fact that this "concentration outward" is happening entirely inside my own head <rueful smile> doesn't vitiate its benefits. I honestly don't think of my stories as an expression of *me*--much less of my ego--so I really am concentrating outward. (Naturally I'm aware that this is just a trick of perception. Of *course* my stories are an expression of me. And my ego. But I sure don't *see* them that way--at least while I'm writing them.) But I digress. My point is this: in my experience, striving to forgive and accept other people does me more good than struggling to forgive and accept myself. Hmm. One more observation before my head explodes. Knowing what self-judgment, self-rejection, and even self-loathing feel like can be very useful when we try to forgive and accept other people. (02/15/2007)

The mystery writers who influenced me positively were Ross MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, and (to a lesser extent) Dashell Hammett. Negatively? Agatha Christie and--damn, now I've blanked out on the name of the man who wrote all those Perry Mason novels (the Donald Lam books were better). I wouldn't call myself a film noir "buff," but I do enjoy a good film noir. (02/15/2007)

Of course I have emotional attachments to my characters. How could I not? I "experience" everything that happens to them. In fact, sometimes my personal (non-writing) life gets pretty complicated because I'm full of emotions that don't have anything to do with the people and circumstances around me: they belong to the story I'm writing, but they don't just evaporate when I leave work. This makes being me an adventure in all kinds of unexpected ways. <rueful smile> I wrote myself into my books? Where? The old beggar? Surely you jest. In a manner of speaking, I *do* write myself into my books; but I do it through *all* of my characters, not through any particular individual. And I do NOT mean that my characters speak for me--or represent me. Quite the reverse. I'm their advocate: I speak for all of *them* as honestly and accurately as I can. (02/19/2007)

First, I like your villanelle. The form you've chosen helps convey the "knell" of the sailors' fate. The definition of poetry that we used in graduate school was: "the most efficient possible use of language." Toward that end, things like metre and rhyme are powerful tools--but they're only tools, and they aren't the only tools. Another is implication: poetry often asks the reader to infer a great deal of its content (which is one reason poetry seldom functions well as "descriptive prose": poetry usually doesn't use enough words to be explicit in the same way that good descriptive prose can be explicit). And just because a poem lacks predictable metre doesn't mean that it lacks rhythm or cadence. Still, I make a distinction between poetry and verse: as I see it, verse is a concentrated or elevated use of language that nonetheless doesn't rise to the level of real poetry. By my standards, I doubt that I've ever written poetry. Certainly I would describe virtually every "song" in "The Chronicles" as verse rather than poetry. (Possible exception: "My heart has rooms that sigh with dust") (02/19/2007)

1) One of the implications of Berek's story, I think, is that the Land was already "settled" when the southern kingdom ruled from Doriendor Corishev went to war. This is confirmed by the forests: SOMEone had already decimated the One Forest long before Berek came along. Well, I've always assumed that people found their way into the Land from a variety of directions long before Berek's war: shipwrecked, perhaps, on the coast of the Lower Land; trekking up through the Southron Range or down from the Northron Climbs (for example, I can picture tribes in bearskins against the cold, with travois and heavy axes, being harried southward by arghuleh). Certainly the Ramen had to come from somewhere. As I read them, the given texts are unclear, or even contradictory, about whether the Land's earlier inhabitants were united in any way before the kingdom where Berek was born began its incursions through Doom's Retreat. (That the texts are unclear or contradictory is no surprise. Every "real" historical record, oral or written, ever produced has the same problem. Human beings are like that. As is the author of "The Chronicles." <rueful smile>) At the moment, I'm only sure that the war between Berek's King and Queen was waged in the Land. 2) I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I go where my ideas take me. At present, I have no ideas for any more GAP books--or any more MORDANT books, for that matter. This may change, or it may not: I don't have a crystal ball. (Actually, I *do*--but it doesn't work for shit. <grin>) All I can tell you is that I'm going to continue doing what I've always done: writing what comes to me to be written. (02/19/2007)

In fact, I *am* disappointed--primarily because I'd like to be better known, but also because I'd like to have a more comfortable income in my <lugubrious sigh> declining years. But I've always thought that the "Covenant" books are essentially unfilmable. They're too inward for movies, and rely too heavily on language. "The Man Who" books would certainly work better on film--as would "Mordant's Need," and even some of my novellas. (02/19/2007)

Thank you! Personally, I'm fed up with elves and dwarves--although fairies are high on the list of things I don't want to read about, and vampires are climbing fast. For some reason, I'm still comfortable with dragons and wizards--perhaps because I've seen both "used" more imaginatively than any elf, dwarf, or fairy I've encountered. If you want to start liking dragons again, read McKillip's "The Cygnet and the Firebird". (02/19/2007)

It seems to me that we've carried this discussion about far as we can in the abstract. These questions always come down to specifics: we would both have to have the same book open in front of us so that we could comment on specific words or sentences in specific contexts. As one example of the vagueness and general inutility that abstraction imposes on us: it's been a long time since I read "Neuromancer," but I certainly don't remember it being unclear. In addition, I'm not at all sure what you mean by "expressionism," or how expressionism might imply or necessitate a lack of clarity. But I can say this. "Given that 'conventional' usage often lags behind popular usage, how much leeway should an author be given to create their own idioms?" As I see it, there is no "should". There's only what you can do convincingly and what you can't. In my experience, editors aren't theorists or arbiters: they're pragmatic readers. They accept what "rings true," what conveys conviction or authority: they reject what doesn't. Here, unfortunately, we're veering once again into territory that can't be discussed--in this case because it's undefinable. All I know is that there are some writers who can make me trust them right from the start: although I can't see how they do it, they give me the clear impression that they know what they're doing, and that what they're doing matters. When that happens, I settle in to enjoy the experience. But when a writer does not inspire my trust--and inspire it early--I start to look for faults in what I'm reading. Infelicitous phrases. Obscure pronoun references. Faulty parallelisms. Whatever. At least in my case, my trust, my acceptance, my "suspension of disbelief," is won or lost fairly early in a piece of fiction. But I'm often unable to explain *how* that trust is won or lost. As far as I can tell, some writers just *sound* like they know what they're doing--in which case they get all the leeway they want--while other writers lack that *sound*--in which case they don't get much leeway at all. I know of one writer who has published entire novels that don't contain actual stories, but the writer gets away with it because the prose conveys absolute conviction. In fact, I was so entranced by the prose that I read those whole books before I even noticed that they had no stories. Now *that's* leeway. btw, thanks for mentioning "The Time Traveller's Wife". I'll look for it. (02/20/2007)

It's hard to generalize. I've had some *gorgeous* covers in the UK--but I've also had some real dogs (look at the Dominatrix from Hell on the UK hardcover of "Forbidden Knowledge," or the abymal wizard on the UK hardcover of "Reave the Just and Other Tales"). I've also had some terrific covers in the US (I'm thinking of "The Man Who Fought Alone"). But in general, I've had more covers that make me flinch in the US than in the UK. Speaking in the broadest possible terms: the difference in covers may result from the commitment of US publishers to the conventions of "category" (genre) publishing ("A fantasy novel won't sell unless it has a fantasy cover")--which in turn may result from the fact that books are usually harder to sell in the US than in the UK (we have so few readers, and the readers we do have tend to be snobs of one kind or another: "I only read mysteries," or, "I wouldn't touch that sci-fi junk," or, "Fiction is a waste of time"). (02/20/2007)

This is news to me--and I hope that you're just kidding around. Way back in '83, my Australian publisher produced a "Stephen Donaldson/Unbeliever" t-shirt to help promote my Australian book tour. But I've never seen, or heard of, a "Wounded Land: Stephen R. Donaldson" t-shirt. Whatever it is, it's unauthorized, and could be considered a copyright infringement. Not that I care: I actually think the idea is pretty funny, and I'm certainly not going to tattle. But I'm afraid you'll have to hand-paint your own "Covenant" underwear. (Now *there's* an idea I wish I could get out of my head.) <grin> (02/22/2007)

Ah, well. There hasn't been a name change for Covenant 9 (Book Three of "The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant")--yet. I simply mis-remembered the line of verse from which I wanted to derive the title. I remembered the line (from "Lord Kevin's Lament" in TIW) as "shall pass utterly," but when I (finally) checked the text, I saw my mistake; so I corrected the announced title on this site. Since then, however, my editors have let me know that they dislike "Should Pass Utterly" as a title. They think it will inhibit sales. By contract, they have the right to insist on a change. (When I was first published, I was told, "It's a rare writer who can call his title his own.") But they won't insist on a title I don't like, so I've been asked to come up with a new one. Sometime comparatively soon, a new title will appear here--after which I'll strenuously try to pretend that nothing has happened. (02/22/2007)

I've spent some time discussing this (look under "Runes of the Earth--spoilers"). Doubtless I'll spend more as the story continues. We're probably all familiar with the ol' time-paradox problem. An event in time A leads to disaster in time B, so people in time C go back to change A. They succeed: B is altered. Therefore the people in C are spared the consequences of the disaster--so they have no reason to alter A. Therefore A remains unaltered, the disaster in B happens, and the people in C go back to change A. It's a logical loop from which there appears to be no escape. No wonder it's confusing. As best I can, I'm working with a paradigm in which people from C visit A in order to accomplish things that have no effect at all on B, but that produce otherwise-unattainable benefits for C. If my reasoning holds, this preserves the linear sequence which leads from A to B to C without disturbing the logic that induced the people of C to go back to A. Of course, if time ain't linear, I'm screwed. <grin> But I console myself with the knowledge that if time *isn't* linear, I'll never know the difference. In either case, I think it's clear that my "mechanisms" are based on magic rather than science. I don't know enough about (among many other things) quantum mechanics to use any other approach. (02/22/2007)

Damn. That sure *looks* like an "authorized" t-shirt. It even has the DEL REY logo. But if Ballantine decided to license t-shirts, they never told me. Not (as I say) that I actually care. (02/22/2007)

Sorry, I have no way of knowing *if* Putnams will release an audio version of "Fatal Revenant," much less if Scott Brick will be hired for the job. It's way too early in the publishing process: Putnams hasn't even thought about such questions yet. In the end, it will come down to, How well did "Runes" sell on CD? Since I don't know, I can't predict what Putnams might decide. (02/23/2007)

One unfortunate side-effect of the amount of time I've spent *studying* writing is that I'm very seldom able to read spontaneously rather than analytically. Books only (for lack of a better term) slip past my defenses when the storytelling and/or the writing is really superb Well, there isn't much out there that's *really* superb. And when the storytelling and/or the writing *is* that good, the writers often aren't aiming for the kind of emotional charge you describe. As a result, I'm almost never moved to tears by what I read. (Poetry is another matter. George Meredith's "Modern Love" sonnets get to me. And one of Robert Browning's poems for his wife, "To E. B. B.," hit me hard recently.) But Steven Erikson has managed it a couple of times in his "Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen" series. The Chain of Dogs. The betrayal of Whiskeyjack. The eventual fate of the Mhybe. (02/23/2007)

Depends on what you mean by "open". Am I inclined to accept free money? <grin> Yes. Do I think that, say, anime would be an effective approach to the "Covenant" books? No. In my personal opinion, anything that isn't "live action" would inevitably falsify some of the fundamental characteristics of "The Chronicles". (02/28/2007)

I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere that working on a particular books never seems to end: it just dribbles away. There's the map for "Fatal Revenant" to consider (always a painful process because the people who draw maps punish me for requesting corrections by introducing new inaccuracies). Both my US and my UK publishers will send me copy-edited copies of the text, which I will have to go over meticulously. (Copy-editors delight in destroying my prose, my meaning, and even--occasionally--my characters.) Later both publishers will send me new copies for proof-reading. Both will want my help with things like cover copy. Both will want my input on cover art. Both will try to orchestrate as many interviews as they can: always an arduous process. Both will probably ask me to sign several thousand advance copies. Both may wish me to go on book tours. And as if that isn't enough, I proof-read my books after they're released in hardcover, looking more for internal inconsistencies than for typos (although there are always typos) so that the paperback will represent the best possible version of my intentions. What with one thing and another, getting started on Covenant 9 won't be easy. (02/28/2007)

No, the Haruchai share no responsibility for the existence of Kevin's Dirt. They don't do any magic. Withholding or stifling knowledge isn't the same thing as manipulating or tarnishing Earthpower. If asked, they might say that they consider Earthpower sacred: too sacred to be (mis)used by fallible human beings. According to at least one of the Creation myths in "The Chronicles" (memory, don't fail me now), the Creator was unaware of the Despiser's presence within Time when he sealed the Arch. But even if you don't accept that hypothesis, imprisoning a being like the Despiser seems a pretty rational thing to do. (At the moment, I'm too tired to engage in a theological discussion about whether or not evil is a necessary challenge for human beings to face.) (02/28/2007)