Anybody else going to be buying The Runes of the Earth when it comes out in a few days? (beware! PDF file!)
I am so ambivalent about the whole series, yet something about it does call to me. The giants, the Elohim, the bloodguard! So I will return again to The Land.
Anyone else going?
I will definitely be returning to the land. I’m just disappointed that Donaldson’s book tour doesn’t appear to be touching the east coast in any way. But as soon as Runes is out, I’m there.
I really hope there is some of the beauty in the Land that was in the first chronicles; the second was so heartbreakingly barren. When they returned to Andelain, I swear, I was absolutely thrilled to “be” there again…
All that series did was make me hate lepers.
Hmmm, would it be unstable to fly to London for a book signing? 
I wanted to mention www.stephenrdonaldson.com , which has the first chapter of Runes available in .pdf format, and also has a great “gradual interview” where Donaldson answers the question posed to him by visitors to the site (he’s answered two of mine.)
Come to the land.
Be one with the land.
Give your all to the land.
Grab a hand full of land and rub it in your hair and be mired in overwrought self-doubt that makes you doubt the reality of what is happening, and so, you don’t do anything to contribute to solving problems, some of which you created, and yet, with all that doubt, you let the figmentary others push you around and go on arduous and painful quests which you don’t believe you can help with in anyway, which I don’t blame you since you have absolutely no redeeming qualities and I hate you and the land you make suffer before you’re forced to do something to save it, which you do half-assed anyway, causing almost more harm than good.
So… no, not even if the life of the land depended on it will I read the next chronicles. Let the evil cardboard cutout have it.
Peace.
Sounds like Jamaica!
I’ll read it, although I’m going to try to hold out until the whole series is published before I start. I really loved the first two chronicles when I was in Jr. High, and I thought the Gap series was even better.
Never really could get into the other one. Mordant something?
Oh HELL yes. Thank you, Qadgop. I hadn’t heard about this.
I want my very own bloodguard. And I’ll get some Thalidomide for TC so he can stay in his own world a bit longer.
I have to hold out on this one. Something about 1970s fantasy/science fiction, much like with Las Vegas, should stay in the 1970s.
When they’re all out, and easily checked out from the library or in paperback, I’ll read 'em.
How about ex-lepers?
Opposite experience for me. I read the Covenant series. Felt desolate. Attempted the Gap. Couldn’t finish the first book. Tried Mordant’s Need and finally felt empathy for some of Donaldson’s characters without wanting to kill myself. Everything about the Second Chronicles was just too much.
So, no. I don’t think I’ll be visiting the Land again. I’d visit Mordant, though.
Roger Zelazny excepted, of course.
As to the OP, I’ll be getting it, although probably not in hardcover - they’re just too expensive for me. After buying the last three King books and ordering Kay’s latest from Amazon, I’ve put aside my dwindling hardcover budget for the new Martin.
Anyway, I have to buy new fantasy from Donaldson, although I’d be just as happy to buy more short story collections. His stuff is flawed, and sometimes hard to slog through, but it’s always worth it. There are so few modern fantasy writers who still bother to write for - and about - grownups, and I’m not about to let one pass me by.
To go or not to go back to the Land, a tricky one. I read the chronicles when I was a nipper and was blown away. Since then, I have never heard a good word about Stephen Donaldson, he seems to be held up as some sort of poster-boy for dodgy writing in the fantasy genre. A re-visit would be cool, but I’m running the risk that everyone is right and my delicate memories of valiant Bannor and Hile Troy will be shrivel up and die in the cold light of adult literary critique. 
Well, I’ll say some good words about Donaldson:
I think Donaldson has a knack for creating not-necessarily-sympathetic characters that can still matter to his readers. I think he’s more willing than most authors to show the dark sides of people. No one is untarnished.
Donaldson’s prose is annoying and turgid but still hypnotic. He has an overfondness for words like “argent” but I have an overfondness for words like “detritus” so I can’t make too much fun.
And Donaldson doesn’t do things simplistically. That in itself is a rarity in fantasy.
He’s not a favorite of mine, at least the Chronicles, because I really felt like hell after reading them. I’m an emotional and psychological wimp, so I need a pat on the head and an “everything is gonna be okay” on occasion. Donaldson doesn’t bother with such things.
Donaldson doesn’t lead you by the hand in his stories. He makes you slog out front, breaking trail, thru some pretty rough terrain. It’s tiring, really. But boy oh boy the view you get along the way!
I’ve loved some of his short fiction, like the “Reeve the Just” series. And “The Gap” stuff was primo SF to me, hard and heavy duty. But hard work nonetheless.
And he can sure turn a phrase, like “The argent detritus was strewn across the ground outside the old silver mine”. 
Of course.
Okay, for a non-flippant answer to the original post, I might pick up the new books. The thing is, I remember Zelazny, Donaldson, and others fondly from my younger days. Typically, when they try to revisit their characters 20 or 30 years later, I find that they have lost whatever magic they had, and it simply ends up watering down my memory of the original series.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they do this intentionally (they’re trying to recapture it), they just often times can’t obtain the same magic they once had. Witness Zelazny; the second Amber series was okay, but I really could have done without it; it was nowhere near as interesting as the first.
It took me a long time to get into Mordant’s Need (about halfway through the first huge volume), but once I did it got really good.
I read the Chronicles in high school (about 20 years ago), not long after finishing The Lord of the Rings and looking for something to read next. Donaldson actually did a pretty good job of producing an Epic Fantasy Trilogy that was very Tolkienesque in some ways without being just derivative and unoriginal. Of the six volumes, I liked The Wounded Land best (but you definitely have to have read the first Chronicles first), but the rest of the second trilogy didn’t live up to it. (Didn’t TC spend most of the fifth book aboard a boat with that woman I never found all that interesting?)
Not too long ago I tried rereading the first volume of the Chronicles to see if it still held up. I got about halfway through before abandoning it. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t compel me to keep rereading it.
I guess I’ll wait and see if the reviews on the new, third Chronicles are positive or negative. If they’re good enough, I’ll definitely check it out.
Some of his short stories are very good indeed.
I’ve never tried to read his Gap series—should I?
Well, I think so. It’s hardcore SF, with new plausible science, original aliens, and just a lot of human psychodynamics.
As I noted above, Donaldson makes you work for it, but the storylines and characters and images have stayed with me. Which is unusual, as I only read the thing once.
As I mentioned above, I couldn’t finish the first book. Too harsh and too hard sf for me. If a harsh storyline and hard sf is your thing, and you like Donaldson’s writing, give 'em a try.