The First Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever

[Zee.]

I found that ^ amongst my books about 10 minutes ago. I don't remember putting it there but remember my mother saying how much she loved it and urging me to read it awhile back. The copy I have is signed and really beautifully bound - so it LOOKS pretty damn inviting. I wanted to know if any of you had read it? did you enjoy it?
Three volumes in one so it's massive.

[Silas Thorne]

Yes, I did read it and enjoyed it. The main character's personality is very unpleasant to begin with (I must tell you there's a rape involved) , but I feel if you can read past that it's a great fantasy trilogy, which is the first trilogy in the series. And the series is still being written now I think.

[Zee.]

Oh, that part wont bother me, i'm sure. I'm gonna start it tonight then :)

[Joreads]

Lim can you tell us what it is about?

[Zee.]

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Stephen R. Donaldson. It was followed by The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, also a trilogy, and The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a planned tetralogy.
The central character is Thomas Covenant, a bitter and cynical writer afflicted with leprosy, shunned and despised by society, who is destined to become the heroic saviour of an alternate world- or, perhaps, only of his own sanity. Through six novels published between 1977 and 1983, Covenant struggles against the evil Lord Foul "The Despiser" who intends to break the physical universe to escape its bondage and wreak revenge upon his arch-enemy, "The Creator." Many of the story elements correspond to those in Richard Wagner's epic "Ring Cycle", but with inverted values.

[Zee.]

From wiki :D

[Joreads]

Thanks Lim your great - this sounds like something I would like.

[Zee.]

No problem lovely :)

Yeah it sounds good - starting tonight, i'm actually.. excited. :\ i'm so weird.

[Joreads]

No problem lovely :)

Yeah it sounds good - starting tonight, i'm actually.. excited. :\ i'm so weird.

Let me know what you think

[JBI]

I hate those books. I think the justification of the rape in the first book as "dream world girls don't count" is silly. Simply a story about someone who refuses to believe anything, over and over again, and goes on to rape people, then deny things, and so on, over and over again, isn't good narrative, it is simply tiresome.

But besides that, the writing by thesaurus seems rather amateurish. How far can poor style go? Not very, even if there are interesting ideas brought up.

[Zee.]

I'm going to give it a go. It sounds really good.

[Joreads]

No problem lovely :)

Yeah it sounds good - starting tonight, i'm actually.. excited. :\ i'm so weird.

Well I for one like weird

[Thespian1975]

Read it a long time ago. Interesting ideas and strong characters. Thomas is an unpleasant hero. A leper in the real world and angry and uncaring in the fantasy one.

I liked his "GAP" series. Wagner's Ring cycle in space. Very good read.

[Zee.]

Okay - good enough for me,

i've only read one page - but.. it's good. :)

[Admin]

Horrible books, drivel, junk, horrible.

Donaldson is one of the most pretentious writers I've ever had the misfortune to read. The "rape" is extremely tame, and not at all shocking (the person who told me to read it said it was shocking, different from other fantasy books, on the edge as it were, yawn).

The plot is extremely simplistic and predictable (covered up by a liberally applied thesaurus). I read all three horrible books hoping there would be some redemption, some revelation to make it all worthwhile, I was sorely disappointed. I keep almost all the books I read incase I may want to read them again one day, or let a family member or a friend read them. I did not keep these, I gave them to the local library, I recommend you doing the same.

Read this instead (http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thegroovebox&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0553381687&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr).

In the end you have an extremely (and I mean extremely) generic fantasy plot. The only difference is the protagonist is this annoyingly one dimensionally whiney character. Note to Mr. Donaldson, making a protagonist people don't like doesn't make you clever when that character is one dimensional and set against a generic plot. You are no more clever than someone writing a character everyone loves instantly.

[Zee.]

It's sitting here looking at me. I have to give it a go.