The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict

The Gap Cycle, Book 1

De: Stephen R. Donaldson

Narrado por: Scott Brick

Author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, one of the most acclaimed fantasy series of all time, master storyteller Stephen R. Donaldson returns with this exciting and long-awaited new series that takes us into a stunningly imagined future to tell a timeless story of adventure and the implacable conflict of good and evil within each of us.

Angus Thermopyle was an ore pirate and a murderer; even the most disreputable asteroid pilots of Delta Sector stayed locked out of his way. Those who didn't ended up in the lockup - or dead. But when Thermopyle arrived at Mallory's Bar & Sleep with a gorgeous woman by his side, the regulars had to take notice. Her name was Morn Hyland, and she had been a police officer - until she met up with Thermopyle.

But one person in Mallorys Bar wasn't intimidated. Nick Succorso had his own reputation as a bold pirate and he had a sleek frigate fitted for deep space. Everyone knew that Thermopyle and Succorso were on a collision course. What nobody expected was how quickly it would be over - or how devastating victory would be. It was common enough example of rivalry and revenge - or so everyone thought. The REAL story was something entirely different.

In The Real Story, Stephen R. Donaldson takes us to a remarkably detailed world of faster-than-light travel, politics, betrayal, and a shadowy presence just outside our view to tell the fiercest, most profound story he has ever written.

©1991 Stephen R. Donaldson (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

A Bit Too Depraved For My Tastes

Stephen Donaldson is very good at telling a story about a truly wretched man, a half-crazed female captive and a would-be hero and Scott Brick's narration provides an excellent voice in which to explore the demons and passions that each character are both tortured by and benefited from.

Regrettably, the cruelty and perversity explored in the novel was not something I found any inspiration in.

Note: I did find the author's honest discussion on the haphazardness of tuning in his muse. In addition, his telling of Richard Wagner's music dramas was likably appealing.

I'll not continue on with the series,

very dark,very entertaining.

this is just what I was seeking,something with a ton of real artistic story set in space,the darkness was an unexpected bonus. I'm in on the rest of the series & the authors other works

Dark, but worth it as the setup for what follows

If you've read Donaldson, you know he can be dark.

Well, this is *dark.* The plot is interesting, and if some of the techie ideas are dated, conceptually, they make sense and have analogs to what might be out there today (script vs. 'batch' files, whatever). It's strong work.

But cripes, I understand why some call this misogynistic. I don't think it is, but that's because it's Donaldson and I've read the whole series. There's some brilliant writing in this book, but overall, reading it is sort of the price of admission to the series as a whole.

It's worth it. Remind yourself of that when you squirm and contemplate bagging it. It's worth it.

just a fantastic bleak story

this is one of the most memorable series I have ever read. I love dark stories that abandon traditional hero's and gives you characters with many demons and flaws. this is possible my favorite sci fi series. it has some unique concepts and the story is great but it's not for the faint of heart.

Stop it with Scott Brick

What did you like best about The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict? What did you like least?

An excellent and traditionally dark Donaldson story.

What did you like best about this story?

The layer-upon-layer of story. The peeling away of those layers...

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Scott Brick is possibly the single worst narrator ever. He routinely gets the overall tone for a book wrong, and he has an incredibly odd and annoying rhythm and inflection. He overdoes "sympathy" horribly. Maybe a tollerable reader for some kind of happy/sappy romance, but godawful for all the SciFi and Fantasy he is ruining.

Could you see The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Anyone except Scott Brick.Would be a great series if done "darkly" like Battlestar Galactica (the new one).

Any additional comments?

Please get the publishing houses to stop using Scott Brick. Please request that they have all works read by Scott Brick re-read by someone competent. Please provide those new performances free to those of us here who have the misfortune of finding some many of their favorite works destroyed by him...

A Galactic Adventure into the human condition

Would you consider the audio edition of The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict to be better than the print version?

the unabridged version is as good as, or better than the print version.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict?

The conflict of Angus and Nick at the space station canteena, the secret message and instruction to Morn.

Have you listened to any of Scott Brick’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, and I feel this is one of his signature performanes. I look forward to more programs read by Scott Brick.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

The Gritty Reality of Humans in Space

Any additional comments?

I read the book back in the early nineties and had hoped there would be more stories to follow. This is an adult adventure that Disney cannot touch, I hope they don't touch. The only way to have this story made into any visual narration, would be to have the Japanese anime masters develope a series. (See Ghost in the Shell or Akira) Then again they wouldn't do it justice either. I look forward to listening again, but not too many times, I don't want to get burnt out on this story as i did with Bladerunner and Star Wars: A New Hope. I look forward to the next four stories. The Gap series still needs to have the fifth book, with Scott Brick, for me to add to my growing library. If I can discover another space adventure, it will have to stand up to my comparison of the Gap series, as my standard of comparison.

Oddly compelling

The Real Story starts with the patrons of a bar experiencing something that doesn't make sense. Angus Thermpylae walks into the bar with a beautiful woman at his side. Angus is an evil man and a suspected pirate/smuggler with a reputation for being a loner. The young attractive woman at his side is Morn Hyland, a law enforcement officer who should want nothing to do with someone like Angus. It is obvious to many of the patrons that she is a captive of some sort but she doesn't seem to be acting like one. Enter the dashing Nick Succorso, who confronts Angus and appears to rescue Morn away from him. The patrons of the bar then speculate on what they just witnessed and it is clear to many that this is a classic case of a hero (Nick) rescuing a victim (Morn) from an evil villain (Angus.) While that is indeed true, it is also not "The Real Story."

Donaldson wrote this novella because he wanted to take the classic character triangle of hero, victim, and villain and have his characters switch roles as the story progresses. And while this is the case in "The Real Story" what happens is actually far more complicated than that. As is typical of Donaldson, he weaves uncomfortable subject matter into his story and grabs your attention with it. In The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever he offered up the subjects of rape, leprosy, and possession and forced the reader to be conflicted by manipulating them into rooting for an undeserving anti-hero. In The Real Story the subject matter is even more uncomfortable and all of the main characters are deeply flawed.

In Donaldson's future there is a psychosis known as Gap Sickness. After an interstellar craft uses hyper-space to cross "The Gap" on rare occasions a member of the crew may start to commit despicable atrocities. This illness can cause a person to do violence to themselves, attack or kill other members of the crew, or even to destroy the ship itself. Gap Sickness is incurable and unpredictable and the only solution to the problem is to insert a "zone implant" into the affected person. Such an implant allows the individual to be remotely controlled in order to prevent them from being a threat to themselves and the rest of the crew. Due to the nature of the technology misuse of such an implant is classified as a capital crime and punishable by death. This is the stage upon which The Real Story unfolds.

Without spoiling too much suffice it to say that all 3 of the main characters in this tale are deeply flawed and despite the disturbing nature of how they treat each other I found myself eager to continue reading. I aligned with none of the characters but still needed to know how it was all going to play out. It seemed that Donaldson had once again grabbed my attention with subject matter I could do without. Is it like slowing down to view a traffic accident or watching footage of a disaster on the news? Perhaps but the tale was interesting enough for me to pick up the second book after I was done with this one so I could see what happens next. This is a short story and complete in nature, but as the first book of a series it did leave me wanting to know more.

Scott Brick is a well known narrator and he and Donaldson often team up together. Scott's narration on The Real Story is solid as usual and he remains the narrator for all 5 books of The Gap Cycle so the entire series is in good hands.

Amazing story.

Angus is my favorite, he is how humanity really is. Self Preservation is his number one goal.

Timeless

Great story that works whatever the year is. Loads of imagined technology that is very believable. Get the whole series!

Annoying narrator, good characters, thin story

I am not a fan of narrator Scott Brick, he is melodramatic. Donaldson is perhaps over-enamored with his connection to Wagner, but the character development is satisfying as far as it goes. This series should perhaps be collapsed into three books instead of 5. This feels like a novella.