The Gap Cycle

The Gap Cycle is a science fiction story, told in a series of 5 books, written by Stephen Donaldson

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• The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story, Bantam/Spectra, 1991
• The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge, Bantam/Spectra, 1991
• The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises, Bantam/Spectra, 1993
• The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order, Bantam/Spectra, 1994
• The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die, Bantam/Spectra, 1996

As explained in the author's afterword in The Real Story, this series started life as a novella in which characters representing villain, victim, and rescuer would switch places during the course of the narrative. He found the result unsatisfying, and the book was shelved until he had the idea of setting a retelling of Wagner's Ring Cycle in the same universe, and casting the characters from The Real Story in roles from Wagner's opera. The Real Story novella became Volume 1, and the rest of the series explores the Wagner theme.

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The series is not the Ring Cyle explicitly retold, but more an interpretation set in a future universe.

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Like The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, the author's other major work, the story is very adult and can be very dark and bleak at times. There are some very nasty people in Donaldson's worlds.

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The Gap Cycle: Plot Summary ►