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Speaking of trilogies/series, has anyone read the entirety of Arthur C. Clark's A Space Odyssy series? The movie of 2001: A Space Odyssy (Kubric) is mind blowing. Pretty much everyone here has seen it and talked about it in other threads, but has anyone actually read it?
I have read the book but not watched the movie. :( The book is great! I sadly don't possess the later Odyssey's but I found the whole thing, specially the HAL concept pretty breathtaking.
Loved them all. Started my husband reading with LOTR. Then he made me read The rift War and Martins Fire and Ice. Still waiting for the forth book, apparently it's out in Britian. Not in Aust. yet.:mad:Quote:
Originally posted by EAP
My favorite triology: the original Foundation books.
I don't really consider Lord of the Rings as a triology since the author didn't intend it that way.
I also like George R R Martin's 'A Song of Fire and Ice Saga' which compromises of three huge books at the moment.
Riftwar Triology is also brilliant.
Kane and Abel, The Prodigal Daughter and Shall we tell the President by Jeffery Archer also form a triology of sorts. Brilliant books.
Other fantasy saga that last's foever is Robert Jordans Wheel of Time. Up to book 10. I found it a non apologetic ripoff of LOTR for inspiration but with a deeper development of the characters in a way that Tolkien did not. With Female leads. Unfortunately his last book I found was a serious let down and I am now reluctant to get the rest until he completes the series.
Thats the same way several other people here feel.
I just finished reading the Foundation books and having never been a real science fiction fan, just reading my brother's out of boredom, but I really enjoyed these.
That's the way 99.9% people feel, and the way everybody should feel, IMO. I loved the first seven books, but after that it grew into such a snailpased unresolvable tangle that it was impossible to continue.Quote:
Thats the same way several other people here feel
I have always been a huge Tolkien fan [His Middle-earth myths still dwarf most of the fantasy worlds out there] but off late I have been more inclined towards Martin. He just is...exquisite.
Are you sure it's out in Britian? The Amazon release date says August and as of three days ago, there wasn't any notice on his official website?Quote:
Then he made me read The rift War and Martins Fire and Ice. Still waiting for the forth book, apparently it's out in Britian.
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
V1. Lord Foul's Bane, V2. The Illearth War, V3. The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson is my favorite trilogy.
uh.... trilogy means 3 and quartest means 4. some of the titles you guys are mentioning here go beyond that =).
meanwhile Tolkien's lotr is NOT a trilogy. everyone keeps propagating that... though there's no way to stop it now. he wrote it as ONE book and because of the cost & scarcity of paper in th 50s they had to chop it up. in fact it was originally supposed to be published in 6 separate books and that's why you can still read "book 1, book2... book6" through the series. the best way to think of LOTR is ONE book... to rule them all and in the darkness... ok ok ok. if you HAD to think of Tolkien's works as a trilogy then please do this:
1. Silmarillions
2. The Hobbit
3. LOTR
regarding Chronicles of Narnia... that's like 7 books, Jordan's is 7 or 9 or somn like that. either way this concept of teh trilogy+quartet exists mostly in pop culture started by star wars. books don't usually follow that convention. they are typically resolving conflicts+resolution in one book because the book's length and pace allows them to do so. a film or TV medium would require multiple separate works to thoroughly engage and tell a grander bigger story. having said that i've never read any 'trilogy' that i thought were as interesting as Tim Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. if lucas never makes Episodes 7-9 (and at this point i hope he never does) then Tim Zahn's trilogy (as well as the duology follow-up) would be the cure for any star wars fan's itch.
CS Lewis has a Space trilogy that I've yet to finish (i'm on That Hideous Strength).
Good point about LOTR.
I haven't read many trilogies but I'd vote for Henry Sienkiewicz and his trilogy about medieval Poland. It consists of three books: "With fire and sword", "The Deluge" and "Pan Michael". Unfortunately I only have had the chance to read the second one but I'm hoping to correct this mistake some day. Also his works "Teutonic knights", "Quo vadis" and "In Desert and Wilderness" more in http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/sienkiew.htm
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Originally Posted by JediFonger
The "Lord of the Rings" series was in fact published in three books, so it easily fits the description of trilogy.
That's partially true. Initially, Tolkien wrote only the Hobbit as an amusing story for his kids, in wasn't until some time later that he decided to go on with the story.Quote:
Originally Posted by JediFonger
That's also inaccurate. Tolkien didn't actually wrote (and by that, I mean completing it) the Silmarillion. He had tons of separate notes regarding the creation of the world, the battles, the alliances, and so on. It was his son, Christopher Tolkien, the one who edited all into a single and coherent piece, which turned out to be, IMO, the best book of the series.Quote:
Originally Posted by JediFonger
(I know, I'm dictionary-obsessed.)
\Tril"o*gy\, n. [Gr. trilogi`a; pref. tri- (see Tri-) + lo`gos speech, discourse: cf. F. trilogie.] A series of three dramas which, although each of them is in one sense complete, have a close mutual relation, and form one historical and poetical picture. Shakespeare's `` Henry VI.'' is an example.
So, to really be a considered a trilogy, the books should be written as separate stories. For instance, "Oedipus the King," "Oedipus at Colonus," and "Antigone." You don't need to read them all in succession to understand what's going on in each.
LOTR (Lord of the Rings, Two Towers, Return of the King -- not talking about the Hobbit. Forget about the Hobbit), on the other hand, was written as all one story. Originally it was a single manuscript, but the publisher said it was too long, so Tolkien had to chop it up. He split it into six parts, to be published as six books. But the publisher took those and decided to condense them into three, and we have "the trilogy," which isn't actually a trilogy at all. It's the same as if you took Moby Dick and separated the chapters into three groups; it wouldn't suddenly be a trilogy.
crisaor,
to add to what em said, in a very technical sense, through evidences in his biography, 'Letters of JRR Tolkien', introductions throughout lotr, 12 volume of history of middle earth, Tolkien started writing 'Middle Earth story' when he was 21. he didn't plan anything. everything that came afterwards just started to fall into his large jigsaw puzzle. JRRT puts it best when he described his own writing process as if the world has already existed and he was merely an historian/acheologist uncovering the entire history of the Middle Earth. what he started then is what we can read in the 12 volumes of history of middle earth, book of lost tales. the quantity of his writings were tremendous, to say the least... yet i do think they weren't very much refined to be read by the public. if you tried reading the 12 volumes it's almost like watching james earl jones reading the phone book... though some of you may perversely enjoy that. my philosophy about them is that they're like 'documentaries' or 'bonus material'. just as when you buy a DVD today and you watched the specials... only the length of the specials supercedes that of the original movie. an example is lotr extended editions. the documentaries are 12 hours long, 4 times longer than th movies themselves. it's the same idea. what does this all have to do with trilogies? well to start with, lotr was written as a sequel to the hobbit... but became something larger. it was never planned to be a 'trilogy'. then when the work was finished it was one long story that Tolkien wanted to publish as ONE book, and by that time he wanted to publish Silmarilions AND lotr simultaneously. Allen&Unwin thought that was insane... so in a business-like-way they split up the books. though Tolkien minded it didn't matter, his work was getting published. he let that slip... until later in his letters and various correspondences he does prefer fans of his work to read lotr as one volume. therefore LOTR technically by business-means it is a trilogy BUT philosophically, with the approval of the author, it is ONE story.
and really would you say one is better than another? i couldn't it is meant to be read as one story and that's how it should be enjoyed. it's like cutting up the mona lisa in 3 parts and saying, well i like the lip better.
Hear, hear. Ah, pointlessly obsessing over minutia...
aye, aye.
s10cr