Chaos and Order : The Gap into Madness [Import] [Hardcover]

Stephen R. Donaldson (Author), Paul Youll (Illustrator)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 666 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002238306
• ISBN-13: 978-0002238304
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,768,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like all of Donaldson's books, excellent, August 2, 2000

By 

Dylan Bruzenak (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chaos and Order: The Gap Into Madness (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is not so much about the world that the characters are living in, but the characters themselves. Donaldson seems to take real people and fold them into the page, bringing them alive. They all have a sense of balance and reality to them, so that you even find yourself interested in 'the bad guys'. They are set out into a unique universe and sucked into an expansive and dramatic struggle that makes all of the books in this series 'page turners'. Donaldson is simply the best. I suggest giving it a try(start with 'the real story'). If you like this series give his fantasy series, Thomas Covenant the unbeliever, a try. Even if you don't usually like fantasy, his characters make it worthwhile. Summation: If you haven't already, READ THIS BOOK.... and then review it so that more word gets out.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great book ruined by horrible quality control, March 4, 2011

By 

Brendon Towle (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chaos and Order (Gap) (Kindle Edition)

If I were reviewing the paperback edition, I'd give it 5 stars; I love the story, love the book, love Donaldson's writing. But, I'm not reviewing the paperback. I'm reviewing the Kindle edition. And, my friends, the Kindle edition is a leprous turd of a book.

Why, you may ask? Well, because it's a poorly-proofread OCR scan, and the typos and formatting errors show up fast and furious. By the time I reached the end of the book, I was annoyed enough to start counting them. 13 in the final 8 chapters that I noticed, which is on a pace for about 80 in the book. Some samples, for your edification and amusement:

From Chapter 46:
That was the first attack, the first nard g. (should be "hard g.")

From Chapter 48:
"Do it now I Hit those keys!" (should be "Do it now! Hit those keys!")

From Chapter 50:
"Jesus, that's gravity] There must be a black hole back there!" (should be an exclamation point instead of a square bracket.)

From Chapter 51:
Carrying her flesh like a bur den which had grown too heavy, ... (should be "burden", without the internal space)

All of these are errors which don't exist in the paperback. Somehow, Amazon decided that they didn't need the source files, and could just OCR the book to get the Kindle edition without checking the results. It's painful. It's annoying. It should be embarrassing for Amazon. I'll be requesting a refund; don't waste your money until someone at Amazon decides that ebooks need quality control too.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wild ride, October 19, 2004

By 

Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chaos and Order: The Gap Into Madness (Mass Market Paperback)

Yet again there is action, counter-action, plot twists, side stories..it's almost dizzying in its MTVish momentary presentation. Maybe that's why it was either widely acclaimed or panned to the skies. For some time, humans have been working on an anti-alien (mutagen) drug that prevents them from converting to something not human.

Thantos, that hell of a place, explodes and Nick manages to rescue several people including Nick (downgraded from hero to simple pirate with illusions of grandeur), Morn, Davies, her son who was aged rapidy by the evil aliens, the sadist Angus, etc. We have lovers, family, enemies -the whole gambit, from good and bad and they are all on the same small vessel. One undercurrent is the struggle against the evil mining company that has control of their brain.