Books!

Highlighting the Robert Jordan part.

Mr. Jordan, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your series is getting so damn long it's approaching the level of a racial memory. The last couple were a few hundred pages of people walking from place to place looking confused sandwiched in between two fifty page chunks of stuff actually HAPPENING. It's like watching four sloths trying to complete the Eco Challenge. You've got more major characters than most of the remaining readers have brain cells, there's so much plot and character mixing that people are writing books just to keep up with it and folks are arguing on Usenet about just who is who instead of talking about the plot. Can you please, please, wrap things up a bit before the Wheel of Time rolls over whatever patience I have left?

That was pretty damn good.

Also, I'm kinda late in this, but I'd be curious to hear your musings on epic fantasy if you care to write them down, Blue. It'd be nice to get to be the person who reads someone else's lengthy thoughts on random topics here for once.

I think I've mentioned a good deal of what I was thinking in a few different places on here already, but I can try to get it all down in one post when I get the time.

It is certainly a topic I find interesting, particularily as I've gone through a couple of these series now and can see them in context of each other.

Just so long as it doesn't take you as long as it's taking Norc to write down her bit about LOTR as modernist literature. {{{}}}

Eldorion wrote: Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun looks altogether more interesting to me than most of the big-name epics, though, and I quite enjoyed the bit of it that I've read.

I've been trying to read this. For some reason I really can't seem to get into it. For fantasy writers I'd have to say that Ursula le Guin is my favorite behind Tolkien. The Earthsea saga admits of so much meaning and it is a delight to read. Not to mention her more SF oriented work, like the Left Hand of Darkness, which is simply phenomenal.

The Book of the New Sun is somewhat fascinating, but hard to get into as TA has stated. It's sort of like reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom: you revel in the wording and imagery, but it's hard to see the whole structure.

That's kind of my experience with The Malazan Book of the Fallen too. It has some wonderful characterisation and great concepts, but I'm a good bit in and still don't really have much idea of what's going on.

I've been told that The Book of the New Sun is something that you have to read more than once to really fully get, but fortunately it's short enough that I could see myself potentially doing that.

TranshumanAngel wrote:I've been trying to read this. For some reason I really can't seem to get into it. For fantasy writers I'd have to say that Ursula le Guin is my favorite behind Tolkien. The Earthsea saga admits of so much meaning and it is a delight to read. Not to mention her more SF oriented work, like the Left Hand of Darkness, which is simply phenomenal.

Le Guin is an author I've heard so much about over the years, especially from other Tolkien fans, but just haven't gotten around to.  Sometimes I wish I read as much as I used to, but that would mean giving up other stuff I've come to like.

Haha, nothing is better than reading

I've had earthsea Trilogy for many years, and i can't for the life of me remember if I read all three or just the third. Maybe I need to go backa nd read them. Left Hand of Darkness is a classic too. Maybe I should read that as well. So many great books!

Ursula LeGuinn sort of floats above the classifications of science fiction / fantasy. With the background of her parents as anthropologists, she seems adept at creating mythology in whatever context she chooses. I class her with Samuel Delaney in their ability to transcend the medium.

I've read Earthsea and enjoyed it -- that is, the first three books. I also have Le Guin's essay From Elfland to Poughkeepsie.

And I understand, or possibly misunderstand, that the author took up the world of Earthsea again (at least in part?) due to her own criticism of her portrayal of women in the first three books -- with respect to magic in Earthsea, generally speaking.

These I have not read. Somehow I was unaware that they even existed until recently. Possibly because I knew I had read Earthsea and never looked back at it to realize there was more.

Anyone read these later volumes?

Not really related to this discussion, but kind of to my current avatar.

Asmodean plucked random chords as Rand took a seat on a cushion facing him. It was well to remember that the man had not changed, not inside, from the day so long ago when he had pledged his soul to the Shadow. What he did now, he did under duress; he had not come to the Light. “Do you ever think of turning back, Natael?” He was always careful of the name; one breath of “Asmodean,” and Moiraine would be sure he had gone over to the Shadow. Moiraine and maybe others. Neither he nor Asmodean might survive that.

The man's hands froze on the strings, his face utterly blank. “Turn back? Demandred, Rahvin, any of them would kill me on sight, now. If I was lucky. Except Lanfear perhaps, and you will understand if don't want to put her to the test. Semirhage could make a boulder beg for mercy and thank her for death. And as for the Great Lord —”

“The Dark One,” Rand broke in sharply around his pipestem. The Great Lord of the Dark was what Darkfriends called the Dark One. Darkfriends and the Forsaken.

Asmodean bowed his head briefly in acquiescence. “When the Dark One breaks free...” If his face had been expressionless before, now it was bleak in every line. “Suffice it to say that I will find Semirhage and give myself to her before I'll face the — the Dark One's punishment for betrayal.”

“As well you are here to teach me, then.”

Mournful music began to flow from the harp, speaking of loss and tears. “The March of Death,” Asmodean said over the music, “the final movement of The Grand Passions Cycle, composed some three hundred years before the War of Power by —”

Rand cut him off. “You are not teaching me very well.”

“As well as may be expected, under the circumstances. You can grasp saidin every time you try, now, and tell one flow from another. You can shield yourself, and the Power does what you want it to.” He stopped playing and frowned, not looking at Rand. “Do you think Lanfear really intended me to teach you everything? If she had wanted that, she would have contrived to stay close so she could link us. She wants you to live, Lews Therin, but this time she means to be stronger than you.”

“Don't call me that!” Rand snapped, but Asmodean did not seem to hear.

“If you planned this between you — trapping me —” Rand sensed a surge in Asmodean, as if the Forsaken were testing the shield Lanfear had woven around him; women who could channel saw a glow surrounding another woman who had embraced saidar and felt her channeling clearly, but he never saw anything around Asmodean and felt little. “If you worked it out together, then you let her outfox you on more levels than one. I've told you I am not a very goodteacher, especially without a link. You did plan it between you, didn't you?” He did look at Rand then, sidelong but still intent. “How much do you remember? Of being Lews Therin, I mean. She said you recalled nothing at all, but she could lie to the Gr — the Dark One himself.”

“This time she spoke the truth.” Seating himself on one of the cushions, Rand channeled one of the clan chiefs' untouched silver goblets to him. Even such a brief touch of saidin was exhilarating — and fouling. And hard to release. He did not want to talk about Lews Therin; he was tired of people thinking he was Lews Therin. The bowl of his pipe had grown hot with all the puffing, so he held it by the stem and gestured with it. “If linking will help you teach me, why don't we link?”

Asmodean looked at him as if he had asked why they did not eat rocks, then shook his head. “I continually forget how much you don't know. You and I cannot. Not without a woman to join us. You could ask Moiraine, I suppose, or the girl Egwene. One of them might be able to reason out the method. So long as you don't mind them finding out who I am.”

“Don't lie to me, Natael,” Rand growled. Well before meeting Natael he had learned that a man's channeling and a woman's were as different as men and women themselves, but he took little the man said on trust. “I've heard Egwene and others talk about Aes Sedai linking their powers. If they can do it, why not you and I?”

“Because we can't.” Exasperation filled Asmodean's tone. “Ask a philosopher if you want to know why. Why can't dogs fly? Perhaps in the grand scheme of the Pattern, it's a balance for men being stronger. We cannot link without them, but they can without us. Up to thirteen of them can, anyway, a small mercy; after that, they need men to make the circle larger.”

Rand was sure he had caught a lie, this time. Moiraine said that in the Age of Legends men and women had been equally strong in the Power, and she could not lie. He said as much, adding, “The Five Powers are equal.”

“Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and Spirit.” Natael strummed a chord for each. “They are equal, true, and it is also true that what a man can do with one, a woman can also. In kind, at least. But that has nothing to do with men being stronger. What Moiraine believes to be truth, she tells as truth whether or not it is; one of a thousand weaknesses in those fool Oaths.” He played a bit of something that did indeed sound foolish. “Some women have stronger arms than some men, but in general it is the other way around. The same holds with strength in the Power, and in about the same proportion.”

Rand nodded slowly. It did make a kind of sense. Elayne and Egwene were considered two of the strongest women to train in the Tower for a thousand years or more, but he had tested himself against them once, and later Elayne had confessed that she felt like a kitten seized by a mastiff.

Asmodean was not finished. “If two women link, they do not double their strength — linking is not as simple as adding together the power of each — but if they are strong enough, they can match a man. And when they take the circle to thirteen, then you must be wary. Thirteen women who can barely channel could overpower most men, linked. The thirteen weakest women in the Tower could overpower you or any man, and barely breathe hard. I came across a saying in Arad Doman. 'The more women there are about, the softer a wise man steps.' It would not be bad to remember it.”

Rand shivered, thinking of a time when he had been among many more than thirteen Aes Sedai. Of course, most of them had not known who he was. If they had... If Egwene and Moiraine linked... He did not want to believe Egwene had gone that far toward the Tower and away from their friendship. Whatever she does, she does with her whole heart, and she's becoming Aes Sedai. So is Elayne.

Swallowing half his wine did not completely wash the thought away. “What more can you tell me about the Forsaken?” It was a question he was surehe had asked a hundred times, but he always hoped there was a scrap more to dig out. Better than thinking about Moiraine and Egwene linking to...

“I have told everything I know.” Asmodean sighed heavily. “We were hardly close friends at the best. Do you believe I am holding back something? I don't know where the others are, if that is what you want. Except Sammael, and you knew he'd taken Illian for his kingdom before I told you. Graendal was in Arad Doman for a time, but I expect she has gone now; she likes her comforts too well. I suspect Moghedien is or was in the west somewhere as well, but no one ever finds the Spider unless she wants to be found. Rahvin has a queen for one of his pets, but your guess is as good as mine as to what country she rules for him. And that is all I know that might help locate them.”

Rand had heard all that before; it seemed he had heard all Asmodean had to say of the Forsaken fifty times already. So often that at moments it seemed he had always known what the man was telling him. Some of it he almost wished he had never learned — what Semirhage found amusing, for instance — and some made no sense. Demandred had gone over to the Shadow because he envied Lews Therin Telamon? Rand could not imagine envying someone enough to do anything because of it, and surely not that. Asmodean claimed it had been the thought of immortality, of endless Ages of music, that seduced him; he claimed to have been a noted composer of music, before. Senseless. Yet in that mass of often bloodchilling knowledge might lie keys to surviving Tarmon Gai'don. Whatever he told Moiraine, he knew he would have to face them then, if not before. Emptying the goblet, he set it on the floor tiles. Wine would not wash out facts.

The bead curtain rattled, and he looked over his shoulder as gai'shain entered, whiterobed and silent. While some began gathering up the food and drink that had been laid out for him and the chiefs, another, a man, carried a large silver tray to the table. On it were covered dishes, a silver cup, and two large, greenstriped pottery pitchers. One would hold wine, the other water. A gai'shain woman brought in a gilded lamp, already lit, and set it beside the tray. Through the windows, the sky was beginning to take on the yellowred of sunset; in the brief time between baking and freezing, the air actually felt comfortable.

Rand stood as the gai'shain departed, but did not follow immediately. “What do you think of my chances when the Last Battle comes, Natael?”

Asmodean hesitated in pulling redandblue striped wool blankets from behind his cushions and looked up at him, head tilted in that sideways manner of his. “You found... something... in the square the day we met here.”

“Forget that,” Rand said harshly. There had been two, not one. “I destroyed it, in any case.” He thought Asmodean's shoulders slumped a trifle.

“Then the — Dark One — will consume you alive. As for me, I intend to open my veins the hour I know he is free. If I get the chance. A quick death is better than what I'll find elsewhere.” He tossed the blankets aside and sat staring glumly at nothing. “Better than going mad, certainly. I'm as subject to that as you, now. You broke the bonds that protected me.” There was no bitterness in his voice; only hopelessness.

“What if there was another way to shield against the taint?” Rand demanded. “What if it could be removed somehow? Would you still kill yourself then?”

Asmodean's barked laugh was utterly acid. “The Shadow take me, you must be beginning to think you really are the bloody Creator! We are dead. Both of us. Dead! Are you too blind with pride to see it? Or just too thickwitted, you hopeless shepherd?”

Rand refused to be drawn. “Then why not go ahead and end it?” he asked in a tight voice. I wasn't too blind to see what you and Lanfear were up to. I wasn't too thickwitted to fool her and trap you. “If there's no hope, no chance, not the smallest shred... then why are you still alive?”

Still not looking at him, Asmodean rubbed the side of his nose. “I once saw a man hanging from a cliff,” he said slowly. “The brink was crumbling under his fingers, and the only thing near enough to grasp was a tuft of grass, a few long blades with roots barely clinging to the rock. The only chance he had of climbing back up on the cliff. So he grabbed it.” His abrupt chuckle held no mirth. “He had to know it would pull free.”

“Did you save him?” Rand asked, but Asmodean did not answer.

As Rand started for the doorway, the sounds of “The March of Death” began again behind him.

And that, in four book pages, is why he's a great character.

You're gonna have to explain what that's from....

Based on the name Rand I'm pretty sure that's from The Wheel of Time.

Yup. I guess I figured I had talked about it so much it was getting pretty self evident, though I should have said really.

It's from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.. The character in question was an antagonist/villain who found himself on a bit of an unwanted redemption arc when he was killed off far too soon.  And that passage pretty much sums him up.

The drawing in my avatar is someone on tumblr's impression of him.


http://askasmodean.tumblr.com/

An unfinished early work by Robert Louis Stevenson has been discovered.
Now I quite enjoy his books, but have always found his writing somewhat a bit dry.
This however is an early prefame piece that sadly he abandoned after two years, and I say sadly because it has something in abundance I have found his other books to be lacking- humour. I really like the sense of humour in it.

Its called the Hair Trunk and concerns the exploits of a bunch of feckless students.
And it has some lovely humour in the lines, among my favourites-

(describing the students)- 'if this great nation should ever awaken to a sense of its true interests with regard to the eccentric and the partially insane, I have no doubt that more than one of them will be fished up out of the dark, anonymous strata of Society, and installed in some fitting situation. '

And their attitude- 'They were all fatally incomplete, shortsighted with one eye and longsighted with the other, totally lacking any sense of proportion in conduct, unable to distinguish between a heroism and an absurdity'

and on their scholarly achievements- 'They saw things wrong-side-up, in a sublime confusion; and they were gifted with a strange instinct for the impracticable and the useless. Even their one successful man was tarred with the same stick, although not so intolerably as the others. He was an accomplished mathematician, and solved many difficult and curious problems; but then they were all problems belonging to an imaginary order of things; and he never condescended to employ his y’s and x’s on a universe of less than half a dozen dimensions at the least.
Another of the crew, who had shown some little talent for stringing verses, instead of following in the wake of Mr Swinburne and venting his passions in sanguinary, anapestic rhapsodies, struck out on an entirely new track for himself, or rather found an old track so entirely discredited and deserted, that he might walk therein with all the isolation of a pioneer.'

'Urquhart was a short, sturdy, vigorous fellow; underhung, which gave him an air of determination; and with a general look of intentness and capability, which was misleading in the highest degree. He had fits of everything, and everything by fits.'

After reading these descriptions I already liked them all!

Indeed, quite enjoyable.
If it's really Stevenson's!


On another note, I've been reading more of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (for the second time), and I am reminded of how enjoyable the characterizations are of the different strata of 1709-ish English society, all interspersed with an invented and mythical tradition of English magic that has now mostly died out.

Ok, I'm sure this has been posted before and it is long winded post but it is the original Riddles in the dark chapter from the 1937 Hobbit. I highlighted the differing parts in bold That way anyone who want to look at their version and what I copied from the original can see where it a different.


When Bilbo opened his eyes, he wondered if he had; for it was just as dark as with them shut. No one was anywhere near him. Just imagine his fright! He could hear nothing, see nothing, and he could feel nothing except the stone of the floor. Very slowly he got up and groped about on all fours, till he touched the wall of the tunnel; but neither up nor down it could he find anything: nothing at all, no sign of goblins, no sign of dwarves. His head was swimming, and he was far from certain even of the direction they had been going in when he had his fall. He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment. He did not go much further, but sat down on the cold floor and gave himself up to complete miserableness, for a long while. He thought of himself frying bacon and eggs in his own kitchen at home—for he could feel inside that it was high time for some meal or other; but that only made him miserabler. He could not think what to do; nor could he think what had happened; or why he had been left behind; or why, if he had been left behind, the goblins had not caught him; or even why his head was so sore. The truth was he had been lying quiet, out of sight and out of mind, in a very dark corner for a long while. After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at all, and that shattered his hopes completely. Just as well for him, as he agreed when he came to his senses. Goodness knows what the striking of matches and the smell of tobacco would have brought on him out of dark holes in that horrible place. Still at the moment he felt very crushed. But in slapping all his pockets and feeling all round himself for matches his hand came on the hilt of his little sword—the little dagger that he got from the trolls, and that he had quite forgotten; nor do the goblins seem to have noticed it, as he wore it inside his breeches. Now he drew it out. It shone pale and dim before his eyes. "So it is an elvish blade, too," he thought; "and goblins are not very near, and yet not far enough." But somehow he was comforted. It was rather splendid to be wearing a blade made in Gondolin for the goblin-wars of which so many songs had sung; and also he had noticed that such weapons made a great impression on goblins that came upon them suddenly. "Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter. Now certainly Bilbo was in what is called a tight place. But you must remember it was not quite so tight for him as it would have been for me or for you. Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people; and after all if their holes are nice cheery places and properly aired, quite different from the tunnels of the goblins, still they are more used to tunnelling than we are, and they do not easily lose their sense of direction underground—not when their heads have recovered from being bumped. also they can move very quietly, and hide easily, and recover wonderfully from falls and bruises, and they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard or have forgotten long ago. I should not have liked to have been in Mr. Baggins' place, all the same. The tunnel seemed to have no end. All he knew was that it was still going down pretty steadily and keeping in the same direction in spite of a twist and a turn or two. There were passages leading off to the side every now and then, as he knew by the glimmer of his sword, or could feel with his hand on the wall. Of these he took no notice, except to hurry past for fear of goblins or half-imagined dark things coming out of them. On and on he went, and down and down; and still he heard no sound of anything except the occasional whirr of a bat by his ears, which startled him at first, till it became too frequent to bother about. I do not know how long he kept on like this, hating to go on, not darying [sic] to stop, on, on, until he was tireder than tired. It seemed like all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond. Suddenly without any warning he trotted splash into water! Ugh! it was icy cold. That pulled him up sharp and short. He did not know whether it was just a pool in the path, or the edge of an underground stream that crossed the passage, or the brink of a deep dark subterranean lake. The sword was hardly shining at all. He stopped, and he could hear, when he listened hard, drops drip-drip-dripping from an unseen roof into the water below; but there seemed no other sort of sound. "So it is a pool or a lake, and not an underground river," he thought. Still he did not dare to wade out into the darkness. He could not swim; and he thought, too, of nasty slimy things, with big bulging blind eyes, wriggling in the water. There are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish whose fathers swam in, goodness only knows how many years ago, and never swam out again, while their eyes grew bigger and bigger and bigger from trying to see in the blackness; also there are other things more slimy than fish. Even in the tunnels and caves the goblins have made for themselves there are other things living unbeknown to them that have sneaked in from outside to lie up in the dark. some of these caves, too, go back in their beginnings to ages before the goblins, who only widened them and joined them up with passages, and the original owners are still there in odd corners, slinking and nosing about. Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum—as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes. He had a boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold. He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but never a ripple did he make. Not he. He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking. He liked meat too. Goblin he thought good, when he could get it; but he took are they never found him out. He just throttled them from behind, if they ever came down alone anywhere near the edge of the water, while he was prowling about. They very seldom did, for they had a feeling that something unpleasant was lurking down there, down at the very roots of the mountain. They had come on the lake, when they were tunnelling down long ago, and they found they could go no further; so there their road ended in that direction, and there was no reason to go that way—unless the Great Goblin sent them. Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake, and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back. Actually Gollum lived on a slimy island of rock in the middle of the lake. He was watching Bilbo now from the distance with his pale eyes like telescopes. Bilbo could not see him, but he was wondering a lot about Bilbo, for he could see that he was no goblin at all. Gollum got into his boat and shot off from the island, while Bilbo was sitting on the brink altogether flummoxed and at the end of his way and his wits. Suddenly up came Gollum and whispered and hissed: "Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it's a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it'd make us, gollum!" And when he said gollum he made a horrible swallowing noise in his throat. That is how he got his name, though he always called himself 'my precious.' The hobbit jumped nearly out of his skin when the hiss came in his ears, and suddenly saw the pale eyes sticking out at him. "Who are you?" he said, thrusting his dagger in front of him. "What iss he, my preciouss?" whispered Gollum (who always spoke to himself through never having anyone else to speak to). This is what he had come to find out, for he was not really very hungry at the moment, only curious; otherwise he would have grabbed first and whispered afterwards. "I am Mr. Bilbo Baggins. I have lost the dwarves and I have lost the wizard, and I don't know where I am; and I don't want to know, if only I can get away." "What's he got in his handses?" said Gollum, looking at the sword, which he did not quite like. "A sword, a blade which came out of Gondolin!" "Sssss" said Gollum, and became quite polite. "Praps ye sits here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It likes riddles, praps it does, does it?" He was anxious to appear friendly, at any rate for the moment, and until he found out more about the sword and the hobbit, whether he was quite alone really, whether he was good to eat, and whether Gollum was really hungry. Riddles were all he could think of. Asking them, and sometimes guessing them, had been the only game he had ever played with other funny creatures sitting in their holes in the long, long ago, before the goblins came, and he was cut off from his friends far under under the mountains. "Very well," said Bilbo, who was anxious to agree, until he found out more about the creature, whether he was quite alone, whether he was fierce or hungry, and whether he was a friend of the goblins. "You ask first," he said, because he had not had time to think of a riddle. So Gollum hissed: What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees, Up, up it goes, And yet never grows? "Easy!" said Bilbo. "Mountain, I suppose." "Does it guess easy? It must have a competition with us, my preciouss! If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it, my preciousss. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, we gives it a present, gollum!" "All right!" said Bilbo, not daring to disagree, and nearly bursting his brain to think of riddles that could save him from being eaten. Thirty white horses on a red hill, First they champ, Then they stamp, Then they stand still. That was all he could think of to ask—the idea of eating was rather on his mind. It was rather an old one, too, and Gollum knew the answer as well as you do. "Chestnuts, chestnuts," he hissed. "Teeth! teeth! my preciousss; but we has only six!" Then he asked his second: Voiceless it cries, Wingless flutters, Toothless bites, Mouthless mutters. "Half a moment!" cried Bilbo, who was still thinking uncomfortably about eating. Fortunately he had once heard something rather like this before, and getting his wits back he thought of the answer. "Wind, wind of course," he said, and he was so pleased that he made up one on the spot. "This'll puzzle the nasty little underground creature," he thought: An eye in a blue face, Saw an eye in a green face. "That eye is like to this eye" Said the first eye, "But in low place, Not in high place." "Ss, ss, ss," said Gollum. He had been underground a long long time, and was forgetting this sort of thing. But just as Bilbo was beginning to wonder what Gollum's present would be like, Gollum brought up memories of ages and ages and ages before, when he lived with his grandmother in a hole in a bank by a river, "Sss, sss, my preciouss," he said. "Sun on the daisies it means, it does." But these ordinary aboveground everyday sort of riddles were tiring for him. Also they reminded him of days when he had been less lonely and sneaky and nasty, and that put him out of temper. What is more they made him hungry; so this time he tried something a bit more difficult and more unpleasant: It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter. Unfortunately for Gollum Bilbo had heard that sort of thing before; and the answer was all around him any way. "Dark!" he said without even scratching his head or putting on his thinking cap. A box without hinges, key or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid. he asked to gain time, until he could think of a really hard one. This he thought a dreadfully easy chestnut, though he had not asked it in the usual words. But it proved a nasty poser for Gollum. He hissed to himself, and still he did not answer; he whispered and spluttered. After some while Bilbo became impatient. "Well, what is it?" he said. "The answer's not a kettle boiling over, as you seem to think from the noise you are making." "Give us a chance; let it give us a chance, my preciouss—ss—ss." "Well," said Bilbo, after giving him a long chance, "what about your present?" But suddenly Gollum remembered thieving from nests long ago, and sitting under the river bank teaching his grandmother, teaching his grandmother to suck—"Eggses!" he hissed. "Eggses it is!" The he asked: Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, All in mail never clinking. He also in his turn thought this was a dreadfully easy one, because he was always thinking of the answer. But he could not remember anything better at the moment, he was so flustered by the egg-question. All the same it was a poser for poor Bilbo, who never had anything to do with the water if he could help it. I imagine you know the answer, of course, or can guess it as easy as winking, since you are sitting comfortably at home and have not the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking. Bilbo sat and cleared his throat once or twice, but no answer came. After a while Gollum began to hiss with pleasure to himself: "Is it nice, my preciousss? Is it juicy? Is it scuptiously crunchable?" He began to peer at Bilbo out of the darkness. "Half a moment," said the hobbit shivering. "I gave you a good long chance just now." "It must make haste, haste!" said Gollum, beginning to climb out of his boat on to the shore to get at Bilbo. But when he put his long webby foot in the water, a fish jumped out in a fright and fell on Bilbo's toes. "Ugh!" he said, "it is cold and clammy!"—and so he guessed. "Fish! fish!" he cried. "It is fish!" Gollum was dreadfully disappointed; but Bilbo asked another riddle as quick as ever he could, so that Gollum had to get back into his boat and think. No-legs lay on one-leg, two legs sat near on three-legs, four-legs got some.  It was not really the right time for this riddle, but Bilbo was in a hurry. Gollum might have had some trouble guessing it, if he had asked it at another time. As it was, talking of fish, "no-legs" was not so very difficult, and after that the rest was easy. "Fish on a little table, man at table sitting on a stool, the cat has the bones" that of course is the answer, and Gollum soon gave it. Then he thought the time had come to ask something hard and horrible. This is what he said: This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down. Poor Bilbo sat in the dark thinking of all the horrible names of all the giants and ogres he had ever heard told of in tales, but not one of them had done all these things. He had a feeling that the answer was quite different and that he ought to know it, but he could not think of it. He began to get frightened, and that is bad for thinking. Gollum began to get out of his boat. He flapped into the water and paddled to the bank; Bilbo could see his eyes coming towards him. His tongue seemed to stick in his mouth; he wanted to shout out: "Give me more time! Give me time!" But all that came out with a sudden squeal was: "Time! Time!" Bilbo was saved by pure luck. For that of course was the answer. Gollum was disappointed once more; and now he was getting angry, and also tired of the game. it had made him very hungry indeed. This time he did not go back to the boat. He sat down in the dark by Bilbo. That made the hobbit most dreadfully uncomfortable and scattered his wits. "It's got to ask uss a question, my preciouss, yes, yess, yesss. Jusst one more quesstion to guess, yes, yess," said Gollum. But Bilbo simply could not think of any question with that nasty wet cold thing sitting next to him, and pawing and poking him. He scratched himself, he pinched himself; still he could not think of anything. "Ask us! ask us!" said Gollum. Bilbo pinched himself and slapped himself; he gripped on his little sword; he even felt in his pocket with his other hand. There he found the ring he had picked up in the passage and forgotten about. "What have I got in my pocket?" he said aloud. He was talking to himself, but Gollum thought it was a riddle, and he was frightfully upset. "Not fair! not fair!" he hissed. "It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?" Bilbo seeing what had happened and having nothing better to ask stuck to his question, "What have I got in my pocket?" he said louder. "S-s-s-s-s," hissed Gollum. "It must give us three guesseses, my precious, three guesseses." "Very well! Guess away!" said Bilbo. "Handses!" said Gollum. "Wrong," said Bilbo, who had luckily just taken his hand out again. "Guess again!" "S-s-s-s-s," said Gollum more upset than ever. He thought of all the things he kept in his own pockets: fish-bones, goblins' teeth, wet shells, a bit of bat-wing, a sharp stone to sharpen his fangs on, and other nasty things. He tried to think what other people kept in their pockets. "Knife!" he said at last. "Wrong!" said Bilbo, who had lost his some time ago. "Last guess!" Now Gollum was in a much worse state than when Bilbo had asked him the egg-question. He hissed and spluttered and rocked himself backwards and forwards, and slapped his feet on the floor, and wriggled and squirmed; but still he did not dare to waste his last guess. "Come on!" said Bilbo. "I am waiting!" He tried to sound bold and cheerful, but he did not feel at all sure how the game was going to end, whether Gollum guessed right or not. "Time's up!" he said. "String, or nothing!" shrieked Gollum, which was not quite fair—working in two guesses at once. "Both wrong," cried Bilbo very much relieved; and he jumped at once to his feet, put his back to the nearest wall, and held out his little sword. But funnily enough he need not have been alarmed. For one thing Gollum had learned long long ago was never, never, to cheat at the riddle-game, which is a sacred one and of immense antiquity. Also there was the sword. He simply sat and whispered. "What about the present? asked Bilbo, not that he cared very much, still he felt that he had won it, pretty fairly, and in very difficult circumstances too. "Must we give it the thing, preciouss? Yess, we must! We must fetch it, preciouss, and give it the present we promised." So Gollum paddled back to his boat, and Bilbo thought he had heard the last of him. But he had not. The hobbit was just thinking of going back up the passage—having had quite enough of Gollum and the dark water's edge—when he heard him wailing and squeaking away in the gloom. He was on his island (of which, of course, Bilbo knew nothing), scrabbling here and there, searching and seeking in vain, and turning out his pockets. "Where iss it? Where iss it?" Bilbo heard him squeaking. "Lost, lost, my preciouss, lost, lost! Bless us and splash us! We haven't the present we promised, and we haven't even got it for ourselves." Bilbo turned round and waited, wondering what it could be that the creature was making such a fuss about. this proved very fortunate afterwards. For Gollum came back and made a tremendous spluttering and whispering and croaking; and in the end Bilbo gathered that Gollum had had a ring—a wonderful, beautiful ring, a ring that he had been given for a birthday present, ages and ages before in the old days when such rings were less uncommon. Sometimes he had it in his pocket; usually he kept it in a little hole in the rock on his island; sometimes he wore it—when he was very, very hungry, and tired of fish, and crept along dark passages looking for stray goblins. The he might even venture into places where the torches were lit and made his eyes blink and smart; for he would be safe. Oh yes! very nearly safe; for if you slipped that ring on your finger, you were invisible; only in the sunlight could you be seen, and then only by your shadow, and that was a faint and shaky sort of shadow. I don't know how many times Gollum begged Bilbo's pardon. He kept on saying: "We are ssorry; we didn't mean to cheat, we meant to give it our only only pressent, if it won the competition." He even offered to catch Bilbo some nice juicy fish to eat as a consolation. Bilbo shuddered at the thought of it. "No thank you!" he said as politely as he could. He was thinking hard, and the idea came to him that Gollum must have dropped that ring sometime and that he must have found it, and that he had that very ring in his pocket. But he had the wits not to tell Gollum. "Finding's keeping!" he said to himself; and being in a very tight place, I daresay, he was right. Anyway the ring belonged to him now. "Never mind!" he said. "The ring would have been mine now, if you had found it; so you would have lost it anyway. And I will let you off on one condition." "Yes, what iss it? What does it wish us to do, my precious?" "Help me to get out of these places," said Bilbo.Now Gollum had to agree to this, if he was not to cheat. He still very much wanted just to try what the stranger tasted like; but now he had to give up all idea of it. Still, there was the little sword; and the stranger was wide awake and on the look out, not unsuspecting as Gollum liked to have things which he attacked. So perhaps it was best after all. That is how Bilbo got to know that the tunnel ended at the water and went no further on the other side where the mountain wall was dark and solid. He also learned that he ought to have turned down one of the side passages to the right before he came to the bottom; but he could not follow Gollum's directions for finding it again on the way up, and he made the wretched creature come and show him the way. As they went along up the tunnel together, Gollump flip-flapping at his side, Bilbo going very softly, he thought he would try the ring. He slipped it on his finger. "Where iss it? Where iss it gone to?" said Gollum at once, peering about with his long eyes. "Here I am, following behind!" said Bilbo slipping off the ring again, and feeling very pleased to have it and to find that it really did what Gollum said. Now on they went again, while Gollum counted the passages to left and right: "One left, one right, two right, three right, two left," and so on. He began to get very shaky and afraid as they left the water further and further behind; but at last he stopped by a low opening on their left (going up)—"six right, four left." "Here'ss the passage," he whispered. "It musst squeeze in and sneak down. We durstn't go with it, my preciouss, no we durstn't, gollum!" So Bilbo slipped under the arch, and said good-bye to the nasty miserable creature; and very glad he was. He did not feel comfortable until he felt quite sure it was gone, and he kept his head out in the main tunnel listening until the flip-flap of Gollum going back to his boat died away in the darkness. Then he went down the new passage.It was a low narrow one roughly made. It was all right for the hobbit, except when he stubbed his toes in the dark on nasty jags in the floor; but it must have been a bit low for goblins. Perhaps it was not knowing that goblins are used to this sort of thing, and go along quite fast stooping low with their hands almost on the floor, that made Bilbo forget the danger of meeting them and hurry forward recklessly. Soon the passage began to go up again, and after a while it climbed steeply. That slowed him down. But at last after some time the slope stopped, the passage turned a corner and dipped down again, and at the bottom of a short incline he saw filtering round another corner—a glimmer of light. Not red light as of fire or lantern, but pale ordinary out-of-doors sort of light. Then he began to run. Scuttling along as fast as his little legs would carry him he turned the corner and came suddenly right into an open place where the light, after all that time in the dark, seemed dazzlingly bright. Really it was only a leak of sunshine in through a doorway, where a great door, a stone door, was left a little open. Bilbo blinked, and then he suddenly saw the goblins: goblins in full armour with drawn swords sitting just inside the door, and watching it with wide eyes, and the passage that led to it! They saw him sooner than he saw them, and with yells of delight they rushed upon him. Whether it was accident or presence of mind, I don't know. Accident, I think, because the hobbit was not used yet to his new treasure. Anyway he slipped the ring on his left hand—and the goblins stopped short. They could not see a sign of him. Then they yelled twice as loud as before, but not so delightedly. "Where is it?" they cried. "Go back up the passage!" some shouted. "This way!" some yelled. "That way!" others yelled."Look out for the door," bellowed the captain.Whistles blew, armour clashed, swords rattled, goblins cursed and swore and rather hither and thither, falling over one another and getting very angry. There was a terrible outcry, to-do, and disturbance. Bilbo was dreadfully frightened, but he had the sense to understand what had happened and to sneak behind a big barrel which held drink for the goblin-guards, and so get out of the way and avoid being bumped into, trampled to death, or caught by feel. "I must get to the door, I must get to the door!" he kept on saying to himself, but it was a long time before he ventured to try. Then it was like a horrible game of blind-man's-buff [sic]. the place was full of goblins running about, and the poor little hobbit dodged this way and that, was knocked over by a goblin who could not make out what he had bumped into, scrambled away on all fours, slipped between the legs of the captain just in time, got up, and ran for the door. It was still ajar, but a goblin had pushed it nearly to. Bilbo struggled but he could not move it. He tried to squeeze through the crack. He squeezed and squeezed, and he stuck! It was awful. His buttons had got wedged on the edge of the door and the door-post. He could see outside into the open air: there were a few steps running down into a narrow valley between tall mountains; the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone bright on the outside of the door—but he could not get through.Suddenly one of the goblins inside shouted: "There is a shadow by the door. Something is outside!" Bilbo's heart jumped into his mouth. He gave a terrific squirm. Buttons burst off in all directions. He was through, with a torn coat and waistcoat, leaping down the steps like a goat, while bewildered goblins were still picking up his nice brass buttons on the doorstep. Of course they soon came down after him, hooting and hallooing, and hunting among the trees. But they don't like the sun: it makes their legs wobble and their heads giddy. They could not find Bilbo with the ring on, slipping in and out of the shadow of the trees, running quick and quiet, and keeping out of the sun; so soon they went back grumbling and cursing to guard the door. Bilbo had escaped.

That was really interesting ! I dont have a copy that states all those, shame, as I found that so good to read. Why leave out such lines ? Doesnt come across to me as long winded or unnecessary ? would have taken up an extra page maybe, Praps in printing terms it is to long ? I dunno ?

Tolkien changed Gollum's behavior in the second edition of The Hobbit because the more nefarious and powerful nature of the Ring, as it developed over the course of LOTR, would have been undermined by Gollum just allowing Bilbo to take it.

I prefer the new version greatly. I like how Bilbo's actions aren't really quite honest. And faced with the desperation and rage of Gollum... Well it gives Bilbo more reason to keep his ring secret from the others, this lingering sense of guilt. Surrounding his finding of the ring with near-death and horrible circumstances is also quite appropriate considering it's revealed nature.
And, of course, it's far scarier the new way. I listened to the audio-tape before I read the book growing up, and hearing Gollum cry out in the echoing tunnels, "We HAAATES IT! WE HAAATES IT FOREVER!!" gave me shivers!

I've seen this before, and am once again struck by how in the original version gollum kind of amiably slips in and out, more a deux ex machina than a character that sticks with you. As Forest said, "We HAATES IT FOREVER!" does tend to stick with you.

Somewhere online the two versions are presented side by side. Much easier to see the workings that way.

I see nothing about a bunny sled in there.