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One of my favorite fantasy series of all time is "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" and its sequel "The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant". Anyone ever read it? And did you like it?
Posts: 440 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I fear I couldn't gag down the Thomas Covenant series. I felt it was just... boring. It's been long enough ago that I tried, that I can't give you any more detailed specifics than that. I tried to read it twice. My belief is if, like brussel sprouts, you can't gag it down after twice trying to consume it, just give up and move on to something more to your taste.
Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I liked (and remember vividly) the framing "leper" sequences of the first books...but the fantasy stretches didn't impress me at all and I only recall a few details here and there. I know this one got, I think, the most praise of the ones published in those years, but it didn't impress me that much---not a unique occurrance. (Of the era, say, 1975 to 1985, I liked David Eddings's series a good deal (but haven't reread it since then or picked up any sequels), and Niel Hancock's series the best (and reread it every few years). Curious.)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I was impressed by the flawed main character, but not so much with the milieu, which seemed overly generic (since the Land is intended to be a symbol for Covenant's fight against leprosy, I understand that choice, but I can't get into it). And I remember the second sequence as being really bleak at times, and highly boring at others.
Posts: 1075 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I happen to have the first book sitting on my desk next to my keyboard right now. I've been trying to finsih it for months, and I just can't get into it.
There are things I love about his writing style, which I need to learn. I keep wanting to read it, but it bores the heck out of me. (Probably since I've forgotten most of what I've read, by now.)
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I remember one of the books on Tolkien mentioned Donaldson and his use of the phrase "dour-handed," saying that he had to derive it from Tolkien because it drops out of published English between its use in some medieval manuscripts and Tolkien's use of it.
Every commercially published heroic fantasy author after, say, 1955, shows some form of Tolkien influence.
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I was quite influenced by the Thomas Covenant second series, the ill-earth wars I think.
Found it every important to my early ideas on what fantasy could be at its best, I think a lot of people got turned off TC though because he was the forst real anti-hero happening in fantasy of which I am aware. I thought he was a better man in the second series.
Other ones by him like; Mordants Needor some such, I couldn't get into at all. odd.
Oh and Mr Nowall, I think one expert does not a water-tight case make.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited September 30, 2005).]
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I may have mangled the citation. I don't remember which particular book or expert it was. I'll browse through a couple, track down the reference, and post it here.
I think that Tolkien influenced Donaldson (and others) is obvious.
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Found one reference. "J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century," Tom Shippey (Houghton Mifflin: 2001), p. 322. Following a discussion of Donaldson's similarities to Tolkien, and a quote from Donaldson insisting he "stayed as far away from Tolkien's example as the exigencies of my own story allowed," Shippey writes:
"Reconciliation of the observed facts and the author's statement may be gained by noting that Donaldson uses several words which were to say the least extremely uncommon (especially in America) before being used by Tolkien: for instance, 'gangrel', 'eyot', and 'dour-handed', the latter surely a borrowing. Yet people often do not remember where or when they learned particular words, nor do they regard them as a debt. My suggestion is that in some cases---many cases, like Diana Wynne Jones's heroine---Tolkienian words and images, are learned so early and so thoroughly, possibly by compulsive rereading, that they become internalized, personal property rather than literary debt."
Point well taken. I've reread "The Lord of the Rings" at least once a year since I first read it, sometimes more often. Tolkien has certainly influenced my own work, though I haven't attempted a full-fledged "quest" in any of it.
(Boy, it's hard to type out something on the computer while holding the book open in front of me.)
quote:The best way to hurt someone who has lost everything is to give him back something broken.
That was my favourite idea out of all six books; I thought it was brilliant.
Has anyone got any opinions on Donaldson's recent return to the Land (I can't even recall the title of the new book)? I've always been ambivalent about Donaldson; some good ideas mixed with some horrendously derivative rubbish, some breathtaking concepts mixed with chapter after chapter of filler. I don't think I've ever read an author who's more effective at kicking his characters when they're down. And then kicking them again. And then poking something sharp under their fingernails. And so on...
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THe new book focuses on Linden Avery. And yes he's very much into kick kick kick. I can't comment on more than that except I liked it. Linden has become a much more focused person, and there are more elements of mystery (or just basic confusion) in this one.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Yeah I tried this series too and hated the first book. The leper begining was all right, but right from the first moment where he went into the other world I hated everything, especially when he raped that girl. I was kinda pissed, and after that I hated that guy, and also the book.
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