Thomas Covenant - 02b - Gilden Fire - Plot & Excerpts
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 Covenant’s 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 I”ve made an exception In this case for a variety of reasons. Some of them have to do with why GILDENFIRE 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, I”m a notorious overwriter; and I was able to eliminate 100 pages simply by squeezing the prose with more than my usual ruthlessness.
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