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oneyeopen's review against another edition
5.0
Bought a white gold ring beacue of this book, now of only if I had leprosy - Murray Ryan
celyncodex's review against another edition
5.0
OK buckle up this is gonna be a long, dot-point one:
-It WAS amazing but I understand why a lot of people hate it
-It was heavy literally and figuratively
-"Diseased child rapist fights the devil"
-I liked that the Land is a gender-equal society and the women are characters first and women second
-DARK LORD OF EVIL WHO IS EVIL TO BE EVIL. I mean Lord Foul? That's what you're going with?
-"I've done so much wrong. I have to try to do something right." ~ Ya think, Tom, my old chum?
-But whenever Covenant tries to do something noble it backfires magnificently
-Mhoram is amazing and I love him.
-I ship Covenant/Foamfollower
-So many quotable quotes I wish I'd read it holding a pencil
-THEMES, THEMES EVERYWHERE
-Donaldson really likes his words.
-I just really, really like how ambiguous it is whether the Land exists or not
Drinking game - drink when:
-Covenant says "Hellfire!"
-Someone says "Melenkurion!"
-Someone trusts Covenant to help despite all evidence to the contrary
-Covenant spends at least a page wallowing in self-pity
-Singing happens
-Vicious monsters
-Foamfollower is melodramatic
-History info-dump
-Donaldson uses "laval" or "roynish" to describe something scary
I made this book sound like way more fun than it is, but hey, I really liked it.
-It WAS amazing but I understand why a lot of people hate it
-It was heavy literally and figuratively
-"Diseased child rapist fights the devil"
-I liked that the Land is a gender-equal society and the women are characters first and women second
-DARK LORD OF EVIL WHO IS EVIL TO BE EVIL. I mean Lord Foul? That's what you're going with?
-"I've done so much wrong. I have to try to do something right." ~ Ya think, Tom, my old chum?
-But whenever Covenant tries to do something noble it backfires magnificently
-Mhoram is amazing and I love him.
-I ship Covenant/Foamfollower
-So many quotable quotes I wish I'd read it holding a pencil
-THEMES, THEMES EVERYWHERE
-Donaldson really likes his words.
-I just really, really like how ambiguous it is whether the Land exists or not
Drinking game - drink when:
-Covenant says "Hellfire!"
-Someone says "Melenkurion!"
-Someone trusts Covenant to help despite all evidence to the contrary
-Covenant spends at least a page wallowing in self-pity
-Singing happens
-Vicious monsters
-Foamfollower is melodramatic
-History info-dump
-Donaldson uses "laval" or "roynish" to describe something scary
I made this book sound like way more fun than it is, but hey, I really liked it.
timinbc's review against another edition
1.0
I read this years ago, but I found an old note to self. All you really need to know about this series is that in the 13-page first chapter of the first book, Donaldson uses these words: spavined, desuetude, turgid, condign, gratuitous, dyspeptic, melanoma, immedicable, improvident, lambent, immanence, celerity, preterite, abnegation, carious, and exudation. Now I have a 99th-percentile vocabulary, and it includes a lot of those words, but I know that most readers don't and I am sure that Donaldson was aware of that.
Later on, Donaldson chucks in words that aren't even in my two-volume Shorter Oxford Dictionary. Telic, cymar, jerrids, ...
In chapter four, I laughed out loud when he wrote, "A grimace like a clench of intransigence knotted her mien." That's just silly. I am convinced that Donaldson wrote at least the first book on a drunken bet. Stir in the repulsive Eeyore of a hero and it's even more likely.
If you haven't read this steaming pile of excrement, don't get sucked into wasting your time with it. Go get some Guy Gavriel Kay or Lois McMaster Bujold and read some GOOD fantasy.
Later on, Donaldson chucks in words that aren't even in my two-volume Shorter Oxford Dictionary. Telic, cymar, jerrids, ...
In chapter four, I laughed out loud when he wrote, "A grimace like a clench of intransigence knotted her mien." That's just silly. I am convinced that Donaldson wrote at least the first book on a drunken bet. Stir in the repulsive Eeyore of a hero and it's even more likely.
If you haven't read this steaming pile of excrement, don't get sucked into wasting your time with it. Go get some Guy Gavriel Kay or Lois McMaster Bujold and read some GOOD fantasy.
sleepy_book_wyrm's review against another edition
2.0
This book was awful. On paper, I should have liked this book. An epic fantasy with an anti hero will always appeal. However, Thomas Covenant is not an anti hero, he is just a terrible character.
An anti hero should have some redeeming qualities, some thing that makes you emphasise with them and follow their journey. Thomas Covenant has none of these things. He is self absorbed, whiney and immature. He has no good features and no redemption of any meaning. Any care hr had for the land is superficial.
As the story continues it gets more bearable, but only because the story moves away from Covenant. However, all of the characters are one dimensional. The narrative directs their actions rather than the other way round leaving me to wonder if they had any personality or driving forces.
Then there was the final confrontation. I was ready to judge the book on the ending become slightly more involved as the story went on. This was the final nail in the coffin. This is one of the worst endings I have ever read. The final show down was weird and contrived. Any story with an anti hero should not have a happily ever after.
I have not even mentioned the over use of the thesaurus. I do not think I will be reading the second installment.
An anti hero should have some redeeming qualities, some thing that makes you emphasise with them and follow their journey. Thomas Covenant has none of these things. He is self absorbed, whiney and immature. He has no good features and no redemption of any meaning. Any care hr had for the land is superficial.
As the story continues it gets more bearable, but only because the story moves away from Covenant. However, all of the characters are one dimensional. The narrative directs their actions rather than the other way round leaving me to wonder if they had any personality or driving forces.
Then there was the final confrontation. I was ready to judge the book on the ending become slightly more involved as the story went on. This was the final nail in the coffin. This is one of the worst endings I have ever read. The final show down was weird and contrived. Any story with an anti hero should not have a happily ever after.
I have not even mentioned the over use of the thesaurus. I do not think I will be reading the second installment.
jjmclellan's review against another edition
1.0
I grew disgusted with this book/series. Yes, his name is 'The Unbeliever', but come on!!
I couldn't believe that he didn't believe.
I couldn't believe that he didn't believe.
theaurochs's review against another edition
5.0
A truly astonishing vision, held together immaculately and consistently across the whole trilogy.
To paraphrase Donaldson himself: so what is this series about? Well it's about 1200 pages.
Summaries would struggle to do it justice in truth. It is a sprawling fantasy epic where the underdog hero must save the world from the seemingly all-powerful forces of despair and evil. But beyond that it is an intense philosophical polemic that delves into the nature of reality, the nature of crime and punishment, and most importantly into Rousseau's idea of the social contract, and the bonds that we make and hold with each other.
It is not, importantly, a Tolkein clone, or derivative. It is undoubtedly Tolkein-inspired; but to call it derivative is to miss the wealth of ideas that are framed within the heroic-fantasy adventure, and I would call that a massive loss. Tolkein comes across as more of a straightforward mythology inspired Heros vs Villains when compared to Donaldson's work here, which uses every word and every plot element to further not only its plot, but its intricate political, philosophical, or moral fable.
This is a finely crafted and thematically consistent novel/trilogy, with each book taking on variations of the themes. As mentioned, one of the major themes is the nature of reality, and whether that actually matters or not. As a result of Thomas Covenant's belief that the world he is visiting is in fact a dream, he commits terrible acts, including very early on when he rapes a young girl that he meets. I can fully understand readers who would not wish to carry on beyond this, but a large part of the remaining trilogy is devoted to discussing how he can still exist or be permitted to exist within the society within which he has perpetrated this crime, in addition to his intense self-loathing for having comitted it, and the consequences that it brings to the world.
A key question that Donaldson explores related to the last point is whether a loathsome, self-serving individual can be redeemed by being surrounded by characters who are moral to a fault, or what sort of effect this would have on them.
This is a series where everything ties together, and the sheer force of this cohesion at times truly blew me away. Having the dawning realisation halfway through the second book that, really lifted away the only problem I might have raised against this series, which is that the antagonist initially feels like a faceless malevolence that is evil for the sake of being evil. Considering the thing mentioned in the spoilers, even this seemingly banal villain takes on fresh elements that only serve to reinforce the idea of Covenant fighting to retain his sanity and grasp on what he knows as reality.
Another magnificent reflection of this that I really enjoyed in the first book of the trilogy is that as he continues to lose his grip on his original reality, he slowly loses items of the clothes that he was wearing when he arrived, until finally he is forced to lose his shoes from his original world, just as his sanity is really being questioned. This mirroring of the physical elements of the story to the psychological felt incredibly powerful, and served the ambiguity that remains, even at the very end of the trilogy, as to whether or not The Land is 'real'. The reader, like Covenant, is left asking themselves this question, and the further question of whether or not it matters.
This is not a perfect series, but the the singular power of the vision and strength of the characters mean that I am bound to give this the full 5 stars, although I could definitely argue myself down to a four (especially during some of the battle/siege sequences, which can certainly drag).
And ultimately, even disregarding the philosophical elements, this is still a really solid high fantasy adventure that's fun to read and explore the world, and that really shouldn't be overlooked either.
I could write so much more about this series, and hopefully I will find people to talk about it with, there's really an awful lot to unpack.
To paraphrase Donaldson himself: so what is this series about? Well it's about 1200 pages.
Summaries would struggle to do it justice in truth. It is a sprawling fantasy epic where the underdog hero must save the world from the seemingly all-powerful forces of despair and evil. But beyond that it is an intense philosophical polemic that delves into the nature of reality, the nature of crime and punishment, and most importantly into Rousseau's idea of the social contract, and the bonds that we make and hold with each other.
It is not, importantly, a Tolkein clone, or derivative. It is undoubtedly Tolkein-inspired; but to call it derivative is to miss the wealth of ideas that are framed within the heroic-fantasy adventure, and I would call that a massive loss. Tolkein comes across as more of a straightforward mythology inspired Heros vs Villains when compared to Donaldson's work here, which uses every word and every plot element to further not only its plot, but its intricate political, philosophical, or moral fable.
This is a finely crafted and thematically consistent novel/trilogy, with each book taking on variations of the themes. As mentioned, one of the major themes is the nature of reality, and whether that actually matters or not. As a result of Thomas Covenant's belief that the world he is visiting is in fact a dream, he commits terrible acts, including very early on when he rapes a young girl that he meets. I can fully understand readers who would not wish to carry on beyond this, but a large part of the remaining trilogy is devoted to discussing how he can still exist or be permitted to exist within the society within which he has perpetrated this crime, in addition to his intense self-loathing for having comitted it, and the consequences that it brings to the world.
A key question that Donaldson explores related to the last point is whether a loathsome, self-serving individual can be redeemed by being surrounded by characters who are moral to a fault, or what sort of effect this would have on them.
This is a series where everything ties together, and the sheer force of this cohesion at times truly blew me away. Having the dawning realisation halfway through the second book that
Spoiler
Lord Foul, the primary antagonist, is going through the exact same experience as Covenant, being trapped in this 'dream' world, just over a longer scaleAnother magnificent reflection of this that I really enjoyed in the first book of the trilogy is that as he continues to lose his grip on his original reality, he slowly loses items of the clothes that he was wearing when he arrived, until finally he is forced to lose his shoes from his original world, just as his sanity is really being questioned. This mirroring of the physical elements of the story to the psychological felt incredibly powerful, and served the ambiguity that remains, even at the very end of the trilogy, as to whether or not The Land is 'real'. The reader, like Covenant, is left asking themselves this question, and the further question of whether or not it matters.
This is not a perfect series, but the the singular power of the vision and strength of the characters mean that I am bound to give this the full 5 stars, although I could definitely argue myself down to a four (especially during some of the battle/siege sequences, which can certainly drag).
And ultimately, even disregarding the philosophical elements, this is still a really solid high fantasy adventure that's fun to read and explore the world, and that really shouldn't be overlooked either.
I could write so much more about this series, and hopefully I will find people to talk about it with, there's really an awful lot to unpack.
kroedel's review against another edition
1.0
One of the most annoying main characters in any book. I read the first one and started the second, but could not take anymore.