Rating: Summary: The Real Story leads to The BETTER Story Review: Call this book a prologue. The first chapter setup is simple: Morn Hyland, beautiful damsel in distress, is rescued from evil disreputable smuggler/pirate Angus Thermopyle by dashing hero Nick Succerso. But that's not The REAL Story. What REALLY happened is much more interesting. The first (and shortest) book in the Gap series focuses on The Real Story. Donaldson has a lot of fun twisting expectations and unpeeling layers. It makes for a good book, but not a great one. The more important function of The Real Story is to get you ready for The BETTER Story, which is The Gap Cycle. I believe Donaldson is one of the best world-builders out there. If you've read the incredible Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, you'll know what I'm talking about. This is what he is best at and I believe his writing fades a bit when he writes character studies. The world of The Gap Cycle is compelling and, in its own way, enchanting but you don't get to see a lot of it in this book. Donaldson is setting up some concepts (Gap Drive, Forbidden Space, Piracy and why it thrives), but most of this book is a character study of the vile Angus and the newly- orphaned Morn. There are huge scads of this book that are dialog free; Donaldson is doing a lot of telling, and not much showing. And some of it is quite brutal. In his afterword (in my edition of this book) Donaldson admits that he thought for a long time before publishing the story because he didn't like to think about what people might think of him. While I'm glad he published it, the nastiness does go over the top in places and seems a bit gratuitous. I believe that following a less-is-more strategy and allowing our own nightmares to fill in the blanks would have been more effective. But who am I to presume to tell SRD to write? I'm just glad he did. Stick with this book because the next one is much better. The Gap Series has everything you could want in a Space Opera. Pick it up. The Gap Series: The Real Story: B+ Forbidden Knowledge: A+ A Dark And Hungry God Arises: A Chaos and Order: A+ This Day All Gods Die: A+
Rating: Summary: Yuck! Review: As a Thomas Covenant and a SF fan, I picked this book up to see what Donaldson had to offer this genre. Frankly, the first word that comes to my mind when writing this is "open sewer". A well-crafted sewer, but one nonetheless. What is most vivid and overwhelming for me in my memory of this book the depravity and sickness at the root of the character-driven conflict. One main character is Angus Thermopyle, a space pirate who captures, enslaves, brutally rapes and humiliates the book's female protagonist, Morn Hyland. Regrettably, this is not a briefly-noted backstory. Morn's struggle to survive life in Angus's hands is a substantial portion of the book, with each subsequent degradation described in sick detail by Donaldson. While I am thoroughly familiar with the concept of an anti-hero and "realistic" "gritty" fiction, this book crossed my personal line. While it has more redeeming value than, say, a Tom Green movie (the structure is nicely done, characterization is vivid), I feel like I am already familiar with the depths of depravity to which humans can descend. I'm willing to traverse those depths if the payoff is great art, but this book doesn't reach high enough to justify getting my mind dirty. There are better ways to spend your limited reading time.
Rating: Summary: Donaldson Breaks New Ground Again Review: I too gave this novel a chance because I loved the Covenant books. In that series, Donaldson broke ground, going completely against type, and gave us one of the first, modern anti-heroes of Fantasy/SF. In the Gap series he breaks new ground again, by starting with a story we think we know, then takes it in a completely different direction. The book starts with a simple space-opera, then flips the stage around and shows us what's going on behind the sets. This book is sort of a gimmick to get you hooked. Judging by some of the other reviews, his gamble in "The Real Story" didn't pay off for some. That's unfortunate because many have passed on what many others have found to be a rewarding reading experience. If you love Covenant, give the Gap a second look. If you love Ben Bova, Hyperion, C.S. Friedman, this series is right up your alley.
Rating: Summary: Actually, NOT the real story! Review: I have read several reviews here which described disappointment at this book and its subject matter. This is the first book in a five part series, and is the shortest of the bunch. While it is an important starting point, after having read it, you will not have any inkling as to what comes next! In fact the rest of the series goes in such an unexpected direction that you cannot judge the entire story by this novel alone. This novel, can be ugly and even disturbing, as we see the complete victimization of the heroine. I can understand how some people can be turned off to the series, but if you make the effort to read this novel, you must read the next novel in the series to get a better understanding of what you are in for. If you stick with what you read, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Rating: Summary: Deep Philosophical Point ...Not Made...sorry...weak Review: I did not find the story interesting at all. The book was recommended to me by a friend whose recommendations I will not take anymore.
Rating: Summary: Disappointment is such an insufficient word Review: (...) Then there's a quite ridiculous, pretentious "afterward" where the author tells of his struggle to achieve "aesthetic perfection" with this book and compares himself to Richard Wagner. All of this is made "profound" by the author telling us that the victim is really the rescuer and the rescuer is really the villain and the villain is really the victim and hip bone's connected to the thigh bone and the... A piece of depth psychology: "maybe if I rape somebody often enough, she'll fall in love with me." (I paraphrase, but only to improve the grammar.) If you like extreme sexual psychopathology -- stick with "The End of Alice." Space jockeys would do better to re-read their Heinlein.
Rating: Summary: A Unique Read Review: The Real Story is a book that captures the readers attention from the first line by pure unique inhabitionless writing, the tone is intense. The story is set in a clasic science fiction future or faster than light travel, space stations, lazers, ect. The unique thing about this story is how deaply it looks into the mind of its characters. The protagonist is defenetly not your stereotypical hero, in fact he's a murder, a rapeist, a pirate, and a cowered, not to mention one bad dude. The only thing i didn't like about this book was that the first few pages seemed to forshadow an epic of plots and subplots, while the story remained fairly strait forward. However there are 4 more books in the series after this one so the story is far from over. Its defenetly worth a read.
Rating: Summary: Flawed opening to a grand epic... Review: The Real Story is, frankly a disappointing start from a master storyteller like Donaldson. Maybe it took him one book to get out the kinks of switching from fantasy to Sci-Fi? This is a real departure from Donaldson's earlier work, although he keeps his focus on the darker impulses of humanity that marked his Covenant series. However, the book is still enjoyable, and, more importantly, it introduces the sweeping Gap epic. This is the only series that I have read where the sequels are far superior to the original. The other Gap books keep getting better and better, leading up to a very satisfying climax -- in fact, taken as a whole, the Gap series is one of the most original and thought-provoking sci-fi works in years. One annoying part of The Real Story is that it includes a lot of horrific brutality and torture, but it is required to set up the transcendent transformations in the following books in the series... So my recommendation is, read it, with low expectations, and then get on with the sequels!
Rating: Summary: Does this book stand alone Review: I read this book, and ONLY this book out of this series. It was sub-par, so I didn't buy the rest. This book ends like a movie serial. I loved The Unbeliever series, and expected more from The Real Story. I sit here and read reviews of all the Gap books, but the reality is that this one is badly written. Perhaps the series is good, but I will never know because I disliked the writing style, the simplistic story, and the pulp ending of the first installment. If an author writes a bad novel, do they REALLY deserve to get more of your money? In this case, I didn't invest another [dollar] in the rest of the Gap books because the first was not very good. I recommend you do the same.... The Gap gets 2.
Rating: Summary: Missing The Point-> Literature is supposed to challenge. Review: Science Fiction has earned it's reputation as pulp. When I was a sophomore in High School I thought I was finished with this type of book where everyone evil wears black and everyone good wears white. I suppose that a persons choes in what books they read has quite a bit to do with how honest we want to be about ourselves. People who love the Pulps seem to place themselves into the story, they want to believe that they are as nobel as the J.T. Kirk. I know better, it's not that we are all evil hopeless bastards. We are real dynamic people and the forces that drive us are complex. This book is about one of the most evil people that could be imagined. But it's not because he wears black. Many people who wrote one star reviews hated this book because they were made to feel sorry for a villain. This is solid writing folks, it is supposed to be challenging. When I read it I was compelled to ask myself why I felt for Angus the villain at the same time I hated everything he was. Angus is not a hero, there are no heroes in this book, not in the classic sense. Each person is flawed as are we all and they are presented in rough strokes befitting the the setting: The twisted mind of Angus. This is not light reading by any means. But by the end of the Gap story I was left with a better idea of what heroics and sacrifice truly mean in the real world.
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