[Hereford Eye]

Guilty as charged by the game theorist. Walks from room with head down realizing how long I have travelled down the wrong sidewalk.

[velvet hammer]

Originally posted by Crysania


Then do yourself a favor and steer clear of George R.R. Martin.

I’m going to have to (respectfully, of course) disagree with you on this one.

My troubles with reading this book have already been mentioned on this thread. Well, I finished the book and was left feeling like I’d eaten chalk (dry, dusty, and never wanting to do it again)…not that I’ve actually eaten chalk.;) I, too, like to get away from life’s nitty-gritty details when I read. The thing with this story is the internal “conversation” that TC has going. I think that most people have a skeptical “voice” in their mind that, if accepted without question, would lead all of us to be unbelievers. The reality is that we argue with that voice, think optimistically or at least realistically, and get through life. TC makes no effort what so ever to think or act differently so that ordinary everyday internal conversation becomes oppressive.

As for GRRM, I’m currently reading Clash of Kings and I’m enjoying the whole series enormously. I think that there is a difference between the nitty-gritty facts of life (sex, politics, religion, relationships, conflict) and crawling inside someone’s head, getting caught in their thought patterns, and drowning.

[Crysania]

Uh, hey, I love BOTH series.

What exactly are you disagreeing about? You think he WILL like GRRM? That was point.

The WAY hclark described what he didn't like about Covenant lends credence to my theory that there's NO WAY he will get into GRRM. If he doesn't like nitty gritty, he won't like GRRM. Simple as that. It really has nothing to do with TC's 'internal dialogue'.

[Yobmod]

I love this series, the language, plot, characters and setting are all great. I had no problem understanding how TC acts, but i guess i'm quite a bitter person.
Someone said it would have been more realistic for Lena to have been beaten than raped, but when i read it i considered it to be very understandable in context. The rape was about asserting his power over the land and people and trying to take back some control, not about fancying Lena, and it had important consequences later in the series.

As other people have said tho, LFB is the weakest book of both trilogies. Later books give you more characters to focus on, and more high drama. Although it pretty much wraps up the story at the end (compared to series like WoT anyway) you really have to read them all to appreciate it.

[LordBalthazar]

This book was a chore to read but I persevered given the great word-of-mouth and the fact that many consider it a seminal work. To me, it read like a travelogue as our wholly repugnant protagonist is regaled, over and over, with length tales of the Land puctuated by the occasional outburst into song or rhyme. A couple of friends who recommended me the book empathized with my feelings - they found LFB damn difficult to get through - but urged me to stick with the series as it "really gets good around the third book". Seriously. Fool me once...

[WaciteSerf]

Interesting that this old thread popped up again. I'm reading, "The One Tree," the 2nd book of the second trilogy. I read the 1st trilogy just prior to this one.

I tried reading the 1st series back when they were new (1977 or thereabout) and just couldn't get into the plot and seriously disliked Covenant. 30 years later, I seem to have more patience for the plot, but Covenant hasn't endeared himself to me a whole lot more. I find him to be utterly exasperating and I'd love to grab him by the scruff of the neck and shake the self-pity out of him.

One of the blessing/curse things about Donaldson is his fascination with rare and obscure words (I've read an essay that claims SRD keeps a list of rare words to be "sprinkled" through his writing...and not 100 percent accurately, although with some of them, how would anyone know?) I've always thought that I had a better than average vocabulary, but I keep dictionary.com open on my laptop when reading Donaldson. I suppose expanding one's vocabulary is a good thing, but I doubt I'll be using words like, "ichor, rheum, lorn, incondign and sibilated" in casual conversation any time in the foreseeable future. My favorite is the use of ambergris as a verb. And several times in very close proximity to add insult to injury.

Would a person who likes or dislikes SRD hold the same opinion of GRRM? Good question. I seem to be one of the minority who dislikes Martin's work. Granted, they're well-written, the characters are well-defined and they evoke vivid images. To a fault, I'd say. I can only take so much raping, pillaging and other forms of inhumanity to man in a series of novels. I may read the forthcoming book, but I won't re-read the entire series to "catch up."

I'm not sure that one can draw a conclusion about liking one series with reference to the other. Aside from both series being technically well-written (the vocabulary issues excepted), I don't see much similarity in any areas except that they both relate to struggles of one sort or another.

I'll be somewhat relieved to finish this series. I have no idea what I'll read next, but I hope it's something a little less depressing.


An old turnip farmer

[Zedar]

LordBalthazar, those are exactly my feelings about the series, finally someone who can put into words how I feel about it :) The Land seemed utterly bland and uninteresting, Thomas Covenant frustrating, and the songs, legends and poetry added nothing to the story. Then again, I never finished the lord of the rings for the same reasons (minus the irritating main character).

The strange thing is that I list Mordants Need and the Gap Cycle as some of my all time favourite books, so I know that its not Donaldson's writing style that turned me off. Just a lack of any real "content" as such. The book seemed all filler and no story.

I also second your refusing to read the second book because "it gets better". I see this a lot of times for a variety of series, and it never fails to amaze me. Why should i suffer through a couple of dull books I don't enjoy in the hope that I will miraculously enjoy a third or fourth book which is no doubt written in the exact same style?

[Soupy11]

Hey sorry to dig up an old thread!

I am at Revelstone and am struggling to get into this book! I find every character to be a clone and the flowery language is dreadful to get through. The similarities to LOTR are quite apparent and they usually don't bother me in fantasy books but in this case it is tough to swallow. The spreading blight, the dark lord, the ring of power, the travelling to a council, the attack on the wraiths that mirrored the ring-wraiths assault on weathertop, etc. Although the alternate reality twist is interesting and the leprosy issue brings some weight to the book I find myself really struggling. I am going to plough through and will post some more thoughts once I get finished.