Okay, how does everyone feel about the Thomas Covenenat books?

Me, I couldn't finish even one. I tried and tried and tried, but I got so
sick of Covenant refusing to believe what was going on in front of him and
of his whining about his leprosy. The writing style, I thought, was dull
as well.

So what did you think if the TC books and why?

15 responses total.

I don't know these books.  What are they about?  (Why am I asking you this?
According to most of you, they're not worth reading.)
 
Griz

  Didn't like them.  Didn't finish either of the ones I started.
Got lost in the whining (and the recurring poison episodes in the
second one I tried to read..)

Liked 'em, read 'em. 
Think the guy writes okay.

Liked them a lot, actually.  I *liked* having a main character who whined
all the time for once.  Made it somewhat "different".  The first series
was better than the second, but I enjoyed both.

I got the impression that he wrote the awful _Lord Foul's Bane_, got
started on _The Illearth War_, stopped halfway through, learned to
write, and came back.  After IW, all the books start getting better
and better.
_The Mirror Of Her Dreams_ and _A Man Rides Through_ are much better.

I've got a couple of them I picked up at those mass book sales.
But, I've yet to read them.
.

The first Covanent book was sent to me free by Ballentine because I used to 
publish a fanzine, and I considered that to be the first sign of a turkey.
The second sign came with the flip-open-at-random-and-try-reading test.
After that, I never paid much attention; life's too short, etc, and I'm 
biased against fantasy to begin with.
 
There has been reported to be a game in British fandom called "clench 
racing" in which each player takes a different volume of the Covenant books.
The judge calls out a list of obscure or archaic words like "clench", and
the contestants race to find the word in their texts.

  What's so archaic about "clench"?  

  You're not doing much to improve the image of SF & Fantasy fans, Ken..  ]-)

read them years ago.  I vaguely remember finding them ok until I got bored with
them.  I only really remember liking the Giant character "Saltheart
Foamfollower:
  Seemed to me I either got bored, started to get disgusted with the 
women characters or both.

The women characters are much more interesting in the second series....
although Donaldson's characters are +all+ pretty psychotic.

    I liked the 'Mordant's Need' series (thank you, mythago, for
saying they were better, as they were).  I found out, last night,
that a friend of mine empathized very much with the Thos. Covenant
character, and was hurt when I said why I didn't like them
(because the character is full of self-pity and unable to muster
enough self-esteem to do anything).  Said friend was in such a
mental state some years ago, though has since overcome it.  Seems
like the books need to be reconsidered (I thought the character
was kind of unrealistic, but I guess not).

     I think the character of Thomas Covenant is much more realistic 
than we'd like to believe.  The series have their flaws, and could have been
chopped  down to two-thirds their length with no loss in story and gain in
clarity, but some of the characters are quite sympathetic, and the endings of
the two series are imho worth the slogging.

I read them all, some more than once.  The realism of the character is
one matter, but the enjoyability of such a character is easy to lose.
The major attraction for me were the other characters.  Lords, giants
Bloodguard and all were great.  Covenant I found to be annoying an 
(that is to say an annoying) character much of the time.
On the other hand the Mordants Need books are some of the best I've 
ever read.  If you haven't read them I'll loan you mine (if I can
find them).

     Thanks Matt, but I dare you to read them aloud.

I've never read the Thomas Covenant books, but here a quarter century down
the road I thought everyone considered them classics. It's interesting to read
the mixed reviews from the dawn of time.

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