The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

[Bawax]

The Unbeliever

anyone read the books by Stephen Donaldson?

i'd say they are comparible to JRR Tolkiens work, infact i enjoyed the first of donaldsons books more then lord of the rings. :)

[Catz]

ive read the first one, tho it was a looong time ago lol...i liked the conceit of having the hero be a guy with a disfiguring ailment.......makes a change....i do remember finding it hard to get into tho...maybe i need to revisit it
:catz:

[Iarfirithwen]

I think it was the first adult (as in rather than teen, not the other "adult") fantasy books I read. Before reading LOTR. I kept on hearing about LOTR when reading other books because they'd always get compared back to LOTR eventually I went and bought a boxed set of LOTR, but it took me a while before getting around to reading it. I can see strong similarities between the two. I really loved the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (both sets). Definitely one of the best set of fantasy books around. I would like to go back and read them again someday, but I also have Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time to go read again (got up to 3 or 4 and then had to stop for heavy Uni work by the time that let off there were more books and I felt I had to go back to the beginning to remind myself. So that's on my to do list aswell). I was really (I mean REALLY) into it like 15 years ago or whenever it was they came out (ooo now I feel old). That might be because, as I already mentioned, it was the first "big" (i.e, > 1,000 pages) set of fantasy I'd read. i'm sure it made a bigger impression because of it. It would definitely be in my top 3. I think LOTR would be number 1 but its been so long since I read the others it would be a bad comparison
My top 4 in no particular order:
LOTR
Thomas Convenant
Wheel of Time (atleast the first 3 or 4 which I've read so far)
Magician etc

[Bawax]

i am mid-way through the second chronicles now, i was told the second ones are better then the first but so far i enjoyed the first lot better, i like the characters in the second one and theres more action but the first one is winning it for me at the moment. :)

you should go back to the books catz, i found it hard to get into at first but i loved it after the first 5 chapters, i once sat there for 8 hours straight reading it. :grin: lol

[Daughter of Gondor]

I have read one of his short series called Mordant's Need. Those were great books.

[Steve the Great]

Hello,

I have read the first book a few years ago. It was very remarkable for me how TC wanted to bar out of his mind teh reality (?) of the Land.

The others havn't been translated yet, so I have been postponing to read them ('cause english is not my native language). So I don't know "which pill he chose" at last: the blue or the red one? lol

[Bawax]

well i wont give away any storylines for you but i liked the second book slightly better then the first. :thumbs:

[Steve the Great]

And I don't ask you to do something like this. I wan't to read these books in every conditions, so I will buy probably the english version. And a guy whom I have known form an another forum have been translating the second book.

[Steve the Great]

Does anybody know that any illustrations were made for Chronicles of T.C.? Are they accessible somewhere on the Internet?

[BeardofPants]

I'm in the middle of reading the second one now. I found the first book difficult to get into, and found the characters to be unengaging. But I perservered, and I have to say it's one of the most imaginative fantasy stories that I've read in a long time. I'm still not sure if I like the series or not, but it definately gets marks for orginality. I CAN NOT STAND Thomas Covenant! He seems so whiney.

[Steve the Great]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
(...) I CAN NOT STAND Thomas Covenant! (...)

Yeah, it's not so common that the main character of a fantasy book is so fussy (sometimes a bit antipathetic), like TC.

[Brin]

Stephen R. Donaldson is a very good author, in fact I just finished reading the first series of Thomas Covenant a second time. Talk about a hero with flaws. *grins*. I enjoyed both series equally, but I think the second series was much darker and depressing, but nevertheless still very good. Didn't he also write a series of a girl who loved Mirrors? These were good stories too. He has written some other books, which I didn't care for at all, and finally gave up trying to read.

[Steve the Great]

Some news about the Chronicles of TC:
S. Donaldson have been writing the 3rd Chronicles! :whoohoo: (It will conist of 4 books)
The first book will be sent to the publisher in october or november. :hyper:

[Steve the Great]

Okay, here are some news... ;)
The books of the Last Chronicles of TC will be the following:
The Runes of the Earth (its publication is expected by the late 2004)
Fatal Revenant
Shall Pass Utterly
The Last Dark

And a really good one: an official Stephen R. Donaldson site has been launched:
http://www.stephenrdonaldson.com/