Stephen Donaldson

[demigod.bran]

i dont know if any of you have read the thomas covenant chronicles but they rock. he has had two series out in the 1970's. i am 17 and have read them both at 15. recently he is making a final series this year. it will be out some time in Q4. hope this is good news to neone here. ne fans?? cos i feel like im the onle one.

[I, Brian]

Hi demigod.bran, and welcome to the chronicles-network!

I haven't personally read any Donaldson, but I hear good things about them. Especially the Gap series, which sounds like a real challenge.

[knivesout]

I think there are a few people here who've enjoyed the Thomas Covenant books - including me, although with some reservations. We've actually discussed the proposed addition to the series earlier. It is something I look forward to, although this means I'll have to go dig out the older books and re-read them first.


Regarding the Gap series - somehow, the first volume itself put me off, and the second didn't add much. It just seemed to reflect a rather misogynistic and sadistic attitude, without really playing with any sufficiently fascinating SFnal concept. I could have been wrong though. But that first volume, especially, just seemed gratuitously cruel and explicit. There's a difference between a book about cruelty and a cruel book, I realise, but this seemed to to spill over into the latter. None of the characters appealed to me at all, either.

[littlemissattitude]

I, too, have read and enjoyed the two Thomas Covenant trilogies. And I, too, will have to re-read them in preparation for the new books. It's been a long time (at least ten years) since I've read them. I think I read both trilogies all at once within about a month or so. Just devoured them.

I haven't read the Gap series, having been put off of it by the first book, for pretty much the same reasons knivesout mentioned. It just made me uneasy, the way Donaldson approached the story.

[I, Brian]

Has anyone else here read anything by the Marquis De Sade? I just wondered if there's a comparable manner in which Donaldson in the Gap series and De Sade used sex and violence. I guess I'm looking for a frame of reference, really.

[littlemissattitude]

No, I haven't. About all I know about the Marquis is how they presented him in the film "Quills". And I doubt that is very indicative. It's an interesting question, though. Were there actual plots to his books, or were they just, well, scenes? I mean, there was a plot to Donaldson's first Gap book. There was just a lot of sexually-tinged brutalitiy, as I remember. I don't know, I may even be exaggerating it in my mind after all this time, as I read it when it first came out. But I do definitely recall being put off by it. It was worse, in my opinion, than Piers Anthony's "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series, which got pretty brutal in places; I actually read that whole series, at least. And that was before the first Gap novel came out, I'm sure.

[Foxbat]

Regarding the Gap series - somehow, the first volume itself put me off, and the second didn't add much. It just seemed to reflect a rather misogynistic and sadistic attitude, without really playing with any sufficiently fascinating SFnal concept. I could have been wrong though. But that first volume, especially, just seemed gratuitously cruel and explicit

I agree that the first volume in particular seems to be as you describe but, in the later volumes, Morn's torment becomes a pivotal matter. The story itself is, basically, a Sci Fi rehash of the Ring Cycle with characters that become almost interchangeable between the two. The whole crux of Morn's torment is the introduction of something akin to the 'Stockholme Syndrome' - where captor and guard form a special bond.

It's certainly not to everyone's taste but I'd persevere.

As for de Sade: I've read some of his stuff and, frankly, I'm not impressed. Take away his sexual slant and what have you got? Not much at all - avoid, overrated.

[I, Brian]

Indeed, there's not much content to De Sade - basically, it's just cheap pulp erotica, often themed on sexual violence. You can't take it seriously, though, and I don't think there's any attempt to, and that helps form an emotional buffer for the reader.

I guess I was really asking if there's a similar sense of gratuity in the sexual violence of the Gap series. I figure it's a pretty silly question, but it seemed worth asking last night.

[Foxbat]

I guess I was really asking if there's a similar sense of gratuity in the sexual violence of the Gap series

My own opinion is that in the Gap series, Donaldson is dealing with the Human spirit - inasmuch as no matter how low we are forced, or how badly we are treated, somehow, somewhere, we find the need, the drive, necessity and invention to survive. Morn Hyland goes through a horrific time but gets through it through sheer grit and determination with her humanity relatively whole - only to face an even greater menace at the other end. Her tormentor - in a turnabout situation - goes through his own torture and emerges a completely different character. Donaldson was dealing with pure melodrama where characters interchange roles and situations. So, no, I wouldn't say that it is as gratuitious as de Sade - in the fact that there is reason for the horrors inflicted on his characters.

Hope that all made sense.

[demigod.bran]

thank you for your responses. at least i know im not the onle one who has read thomas covenant. havent read the gap series. looked dull when i look at the first book.

[I, Brian]

Of all the adjectives used to describe the Gap series, I don;t believe that I have ever heard "dull" used.

It's certainly not for everyone, though - I'm not sure I want to experience it. Not yet anyway.

[demigod.bran]

Hehe. Sorry I was writing a quick post. Being 17 I don't have as wide a vocabulary as older people. hehe. thanks anyway.

[Morning Star]

Out of interest, I have all of the Thomas Covenant books, they were a gift from my uncle about 2 years ago. I have finally gotten around to reading them. Loving it...so dream like...yet also manages to convey Thomas' feelings that he has merely gone deeply insane, therefore taking all the climatic events around him with a serious pinch of salt.

[demigod.bran]

hehe. pinch of salt?? i dont know wot u mean there but it sounds good. but salt is bad for u.

[littlemissattitude]

Originally Posted by demigod.bran

hehe. pinch of salt?? i dont know wot u mean there but it sounds good. but salt is bad for u.

To say that you take something with "a pinch of salt" or "a grain of salt" means that you look at that statement or thing skeptically, that you don't accept it at face value. For example, Thomas Covenant is called "the Unbeliever" because he does not accept what happens to him in The Land as being real.