[allanon]

Yesterday evening I bought "Lord Foul's Bane" by Stephen Donaldson and today I started it. I read only 50 pages,but I must admit that the style is excellent. Also, I think that Lord Foul will become one of my favourite villains.
I'm sure that the book is great.

[Rob B]

allanon, glad you're enjoying Donaldson. I'm almost finished with his Mordant's Need duology of books, which are very good, too.

Post back here when you finish Lord Foul's Bane. Often people have said they have trouble with the first book. The series ranks VERY high with me.

Dennizm? Shehzad?

[Eventine]

The Thomas Covenant books are my second favourite series. If you can get thrugh Lord Fouls Bane, the rewards of the series are immense (Especially the second Chronicles in my opinion).

I've got the Mordants Need books next on my to read list. I can't believe they've escaped me for so long.

[Caliban]

I think I was a bit young when I first read them.
I should revisit.

[Shehzad]

I missed this one--but FF calls and here I am http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

A lot of people have great difficulty starting Donaldson because his style is very different from the usual fantasy stuff that they have been reading - much less action oriented and far more "intense". Thomas Covenant is certainly not a conventional hero. You may not admire him, but you have to understand how he is behaving because, under the circumstances, many of us would behave the same way. Put in a strange land and forced to abandon all of those beliefs that were the foundation of his life, he reacts in a very natural way: either I am mad or I am dreaming - and so proclaims himself the Unbeliever.

This series is certainly one of my favorite fantasy series, but I am also a great fan of his other works-- Mordant's Need, Daughter of Regals and The Gap Series. Donaldson excels in creating fundamentally flawed characters who tend to behave in extraordinary yet entirely believable ways. I hope he comes out with something very soon.

[Erebus]

Well, Shehzad, I believe the The Man Who Fought Alone is out now. I'm not sure what it's about yet, but I'm told it's very different from his other books.

(Okay, I just checked up on this book and it appears to be a fourth book in the The Man Who... series which were previously published under the pen name Reed Stephens!)


[This message has been edited by erebus (edited November 16, 2001).]

[allanon]

Now I'm on page 130[ I'm not so quicley because I read it in original}. I'm shocked that some people have problems with "Lord Foul's Bane". It is terrific,really.

[mundanemies]

I read the Lord Foul's Bane and felt disgusted. What a boring, mis-mashed piece of "semi-funny" Tolkien-clone.
Then I read Mordant-duology. Was this the same man? OK, I read the Finnish translation of the LFB and Mordant's in English, but shurely the translation couldn't have been that bad?

Yes it could. It's a translation-disaster of gigantic proportions. A school-book example for generations of translators to come. And the only Donaldson-book translated into Finnish.

I liked Mordant-books a lot and someday I may be strong enough to resume and re-read Thomas the Covenant -series. Maybe in few decades, after the foul taste of "Berek Puolikäden paluu" (The Return of Berek Halfhand - Finnish name of Lord Foul's Bane -book) has finally gone away.

[Shehzad]

mundanemies--if you liked Mordant's Need you oughta have LOVED Covenant... We can safely assume the translation was crud, since the original had a beautiful writing style.

Do give it a go some time.

[allanon]

Ough! Try LFB again,now I'm on page 217 and it is really great!
And the translators perhaps are the cruellest
men in the world!
Donaldson rules!