The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict [Paperback]

...but also an extremely well written beginning to an excellent series. Make no mistake, this book is not for the faint-hearted. There are scenes in here that'll make the blood boil and the stomach turn. And most of the book deals with the relationship (if you can call it that) between Angus Thermopyle and Morn Hyland, with Morn acting as little more than a toy of Angus, who gets most of the character development. Donaldson takes us deep into the recesses Thermopyle's twisted soul, and makes the reader wallow with Morn in those festering sewers. This is actually necessary to understand her motivations later in the series, since The Real Story is mostly set-up for what follows later.

Really, it's well-written stuff that stays with you long after you put the book down (whether you want it to or not). If you can get through it, it's worth the read. But make sure you continue the series. But if you're looking for an uplifting, mind-expanding story with a happy ending, look somewhere else.

One way to distinguish between good and bad authors is to examine the breadth of their career. Lesser authors often do one thing and then repeat themselves endlessly. Truly great authors take on a variety of projects, challenging themselves by seeking out new stories. Like most people, I was first introduced to Stephen R. Donaldson by the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, and I sort of expected "The Real Story" to be something similar only this time in a science fiction setting. Was I ever proven wrong. This little novel is a completely different animal, one that tackles different issues than the Thomas Covenant books and uses different strategies.

The story takes place at some point in the future in DelSec, a region of space where police hired by the United Mining Company exercise only limited control. The events described on the jacket cover all take place within the first few pages; the majority of the book is spent returning and going over those events once again from the perspective of one character, thus letting us actually understand motivations and details. One notable aspect of the story is the incredibly fast pacing, with at least one new twist arriving every ten pages. In contrast to the Covenant series, "The Real Story" uses direct and unsophisticated language, quite appropriate for the direct and intense emotions that dominate the story.

Character, of course, is at the heart of any great novel. Friends have complained that they can't understand the behavior of Donaldson's characters, and the above Publisher's Weekly review insists that they act irrationally. They're right. Real human beings, needless to say, are irrational and frequently difficult to understand. Donaldson has obviously studied our species carefully, and noted the ways in which guilt and fear play out inside people's heads. There are occasions in "The Real Story" where characters act counterintuitively, just as in real life, but there's always an explanation for it if you look carefully enough.

I cannot crown "The Real Story" as the greatest science fiction novel of all time. It has some odd lapses in common sense. For instance, one character sneaks into an enemy spaceship from the outside. Has this futuristic society somehow forgotten the concept of locked doors? More significantly, it fails to build up that amazing force that you find at the endings of each book in the Covenant trilogy, and it isn't as compulsively readable. However, I can still recommend this book highly, and praise the authors for trying his hardest to break free from conventions in a world where cliché and formula often rule the day.

This series is a straightforward space opera (interplanetary traders, pirates, space police, icky aliens) with a nod to high opera--Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen cycle, to be precise. Unfortunately, Donaldson, whose writing sparkles here as it has in his other books (particularly the first Thomas Covenant series) has latched on to a genre that is stale and leavens it with touches that are creepy at best and at work downright unpleasant.

This volume (which is the best in the series) follows the misadventures of a young space cadet named Morn Hyland. She's a junior pilot on a huge family-owned freighter. When her ship comes out of 'the Gap' (read warp/lightspeed/whatever), everyone on the ship but her is killed. A pirate/scavenger named Angus Thermopyle, a sleeze-ball of the first order, take her aboard, has his way with her, and is eventually arrested when he pulls in to a space station for repairs. That's the "Real Story".... or is it? Donaldson plays a Rashomon-like game, going back and retelling the story in greater depth, more close to the character's point of view, revealing that what really happened may have been something quite different. We get to watch Morn raped and degraded. And Morn raped and degraded. And Morn raped and degraded. Angus displays all sorts of neurotic soul, so we're supposed to come to sympathise with him--that we almost do is a tribute to Donaldson's writing skills, which is why I even give The Real Story 2 stars--but the fact of the matter is that this is a book about abusing a woman who never appears as more than a victim or a cypher. I read, somewhere, that Donaldson wrote this series during and immediately following his divorce. If so, I feel his pain, but I really would rather that I hadn't read the book. I went on to read the rest of the series, waiting for some kind of redemption, but aside from the fun of identifying characters from the Ring cycle in various spacers and magnates, it's more scenes of Morn being raped and degraded, literally or figuratively.

As science fiction, it's stale; as softcore S&M porn (a genre I must admit to being much less well read in) it's flat. For either, go elsewhere.