Chronicles of Thomas Covenenant

[SciFi_Short_Story]

Having perused my library of materials bought mostly within a 5-year time frame ending roughly twice that length before today (that's one for the math majors), I noticed a series of books that I fell immediately in love with for its fantastical qualities as well as plot, character development, reader involvement - truly a total package.

And so I ask you all, now: am I the only one that has read these jewels of literature, by Stephen R. Donaldson, which must be read with a dictionary in one hand and a medical manual on the other (the novels themselves supported by book clips...), or have otherse been blessed to be able to enlighten themselves with this beautiful world full of realistically-written people?

Or should I re-read it, because a 12 year old's idea of a good book is far different than a 23 year old's...?

[GOLLUM]

No you'll find there's a number of people here who have read this series including myself.

Donaldson's series for me is one of the landmark series in the past 30 years within the Fantasy Genre. I really enjoyed this study into the psychology of the human condition within a fantasy backdrop.

The other thing you'll quickly find is that a lot of views are fairly polarised with this series. In other words many love the series and plenty of others dislike it as much for the disposition of T Covenant than for any other reason.

You may want to get one of the moderators here to move this thread over to the S. Donaldson section of the Authors forum where there's plenty of discussion on this author and his books...

Nice to see another Donaldson fan on board!..

[stormbard]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Nice to see another Donaldson fan on board!..

I'll second that.
As far as I'm concerned, no age is too young or old to enjoy these novels. I have to admit that the polarisation is a reality, but who really cares? Love them or hate them, I'll keep re-reading them till I'm too blind or too dead to keep it up.

My favourite thing about this series? It all seems so real, I expect (or hope) to wake up and find myself there any day now - with my great family along for the ride too!

[Rosemary]

I read Thomas Covenant and wished now that I had kept all of the books!

It seemed to be one of those series that kept you up all night! It was so easy to get drawn into the world where Thomas found himself.
Yes it was a bit gruesome in places but the rest of the story overroad those parts.
Certainly the type of books that I would re-read again.
I don't think I would want to take my family there though, real world or not.

[dwndrgn]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

The other thing you'll quickly find is that a lot of views are fairly polarised with this series. In other words many love the series and plenty of others dislike it as much for the disposition of T Covenant than for any other reason.

The funny thing is that when I first read this series (oh, 17 or so years ago) I loved it. I found it fascinating and unique. However, now, when I've tried to read it again, I can find no sympathy or relevance to the main character and couldn't get through it. (strangely enough, the first time I read it the beginning of the first novel in our, at that time, modern day was terribly boring to me and this last time I tried to read it - that was the only part I truly liked. Odd how that works)

[Foxbat]

It certainly seems the case that Donaldson is a love/hate thing as Gollum says. I'm a fan but I have to say that I prefer his Gap Series - and this series itself generates it's very own fair share of love and hate from the readership. It's a space saga that is full of extremes and many people don't get past volume one but, if you are a Donaldson fan, I'd say persevere as (in my opinion) it evolves into one of the finest SF works of recent years.

[dwndrgn]

I enjoyed his mirror series quite well only a few years ago.

[Foxbat]

I enjoyed his mirror series quite well only a few years ago.

Yep, that one wasn't bad - more your traditional fantasy tale. It felt a bit rushed though - or maybe that was just me

[Rosemary]

I wasn't very happy with his 'Mirrors" series.
The Gap was infinately better, the writing well done, I found it hard to put the book down!

The Mirror series seemed as if it had been written by a different person.

[GOLLUM]

HMMM.. I liked the Mirrors duology actually but not as good as T. Covenant. I agree it might've seemed like it was written by another author because the content and from memory the style was quite different to the Covenant series IMO.

Not read the Gap series being more sci fi but maybe I'll give it a go..

Guess you're tastes must be changing with age dwndrgn....

[velocity]

I preferred the "mirror" series to the "Gap" series, personally ... although the "Gap" series was still good.

[Brys]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

No you'll find there's a number of people here who have read this series including myself.

Donaldson's series for me is one of the landmark series in the past 30 years within the Fantasy Genre. I really enjoyed this study into the psychology of the human condition within a fantasy backdrop.

The other thing you'll quickly find is that a lot of views are fairly polarised with this series. In other words many love the series and plenty of others dislike it as much for the disposition of T Covenant than for any other reason.

You may want to get one of the moderators here to move this thread over to the S. Donaldson section of the Authors forum where there's plenty of discussion on this author and his books...

Nice to see another Donaldson fan on board!..

I'm not as enthusiastic about this series as Gollum, for a change. Unlike the bulk of complaints about the series, I loved Thomas Covenant as a character. And I loved Donaldson's writing of the real world. Other than that, I thought it was distinctly mediocre - the Land was basically a copy of Middle Earth, and no one outside of Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery is well characterised. The plot is again a copy of LotR. Its full of cliches, but with one difference. I can understand the reasoning behind this, but I think the metaphor was carried too far, and an original world and plot would have made the series far better. A very skilled writer could use this effectively, but IMO Donaldson isn't that skilled - he's better than average in his writing, but certainly not close to the top writing in the genre. The novels are about Covenant obviously - but Donaldson lacks subtletly at getting his point across. The character development seems to happen in jumps, rather than as a gradual progression, unlike in say, Gene Wolfe.

I can find no sympathy or relevance to the main character

I hear this very often, and completely disagree that this has any bearing whatsoever on the quality of the book, though I understand that people may prefer books with sympathetic characters. In most cases, if there are sympathetic characters, I'm likely to find the book suspect in its characterisation from the start - they can be well written, but the chances are it's an unrealistically romanticised view of the world with simple archetypes. Sympathetic characters have been done well - eg Eddard Stark in ASOIAF, Corwin in Amber, Fitz in Farseer, Achamian in Prince of Nothing, Ammar in Lions of Al-Rassan - but it tends to be the exception for me. I far prefer Jaime as a character to Ned in ASOIAf, as I far prefer Covenant as a character to Lord Mhoram.

If you need a really simple explanation as to why I don't love them, I think it's probably because of what I'd read before - I'd already read Martin, Erikson and Bakker. And I had high expectations - I expected Donaldson to be as good as these. IMO, he wasn't, he was closer to Tolkien in quality (if you know me, that's not a compliment).

beautiful world full of realistically-written people?

I can't actually think of any of the native inhabitants of the Land who were realistically written - Covenant wasn't a native, and characters such as Lena, Elena, Mhoram, Saltheart, Lord Foul had no credibility for me.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Brys

If you need a really simple explanation as to why I don't love them, I think it's probably because of what I'd read before - I'd already read Martin, Erikson and Bakker. And I had high expectations - I expected Donaldson to be as good as these. IMO, he wasn't, he was closer to Tolkien in quality (if you know me, that's not a compliment).

You make some interesting points here and perhpas you're right but I read T Covenant almost 20 years ago long before Erikson and co. had arrived on the scene when there wasn't arguably the quality (in terms of numbers) of authors we see today in the Genre. Therefore you're right that this series holds a cetain nostalgic quality for me. If I had only read the series now then I may well be arguing more along your lines in terms of content but it still remains significant for me in terms of it's phsychology.

[Brys]

I agree with the psychology point, but for me it doesn't seem enough to write three trilogies on - if the whole series had been condensed into a single trilogy, or even a single novel, I think it could well have been one of the best fantasy novels ever. And if I'd read Donaldson at the same time I was reading Eddings etc, I'd probably have been pretty impressed. The irony is that the Covenant series, along with a great YA fiction that I can't remember it's name (surprisingly dark for a children's book - from the viewpoint of a boy with cerebral palsy who can't communicate in any way, but is actually very intelligent, though of course no one else can see it that way) it's inspiring me to write a novel, while some of my favourite authors, like Peake and Harrison, haven't.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Brys

I agree with the psychology point, but for me it doesn't seem enough to write three trilogies on - if the whole series had been condensed into a single trilogy, or even a single novel, I think it could well have been one of the best fantasy novels ever. And if I'd read Donaldson at the same time I was reading Eddings etc, I'd probably have been pretty impressed

OH that's an excellent point you make about the length of the series. I agree a shorter let's say single trilogy probably would've made a greater longer term impact on the Genre's landscape but having said that as I enjoy his current series and return to The Land I'm not complaining too much in all honesty. When I'm relating the books as a landmark series I'm probably thinking more of the intial impact the first trilogy had on me than anything subsequent to that.

Now I've read very little of Eddings in fact the very thought of those books makes me go all weak at the knees.... In fact 15 -20 years ago I was probably only reading about half a dozen fantasy authors consistently but of course in the intervening 15 plus years especially that's increased to something like 100 plus in total expanding to horror and some SF.