（外文电子版资料）Stephen Donaldson - Land 2a - Gilden-Fire.pdfVIP

Gilden-Fire -- Stephen R. Donaldson (Version 1.0 -- 12/09/2001) FOREWORD GILDEN-FIRE is, in essence, an out-take from THE ILLEARTH WAR. For that reason, it is not a complete story. Rather, it describes an episode which occurred to Korik of the Bloodguard and his mission to Seareach during the early days of THE ILLEARTH WAR, after Thomas Covenants summoning to the Land but before the commencement of the actual war. This material survived through two drafts of the manuscript, but is entirely absent from the published version of the book On that basis, I think it requires some explanation. As a general rule, I use my out takes for wastepaper. But Ive made an exception In this case for a variety of reasons. Some of them have to do with why GILDEN-FIRE was taken out of THE ILLEARTH WAR in the first place. The version of the manuscript which originally crossed the desk of Lester del Rey at Ballantine Books was 916 pages long -- roughly; 261,000 words -- That was manifestly too long. With much regret, Lester gave me to understand that I would have to cut 250 pages. Well, Im a notorious over-writer; and I was able to eliminate 100 pages simply by squeezing the prose with more than my usual ruthlessness. But after that I had to make a more difficult decision. As it happened, the original version of THE ILLEARTH WAR was organized in four parts rather than the present three. Part II in that version dealt exclusively with Koriks mission to Seareach; and it eventually provided me with the 150 pages of cuts I still needed. Not because I considered the material to be of secondary importance (I have little sympathy for anyone who considers the fate of the Unhomed, the fidelity of the Bloodguard, and the valour of the Lords to be of secondary importance). On the contrary, I was quite fond of that whole section. No, I put my axe to the roots of my former Part II for reasons of narrative logic. F