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[inteuniso]

Has anyone else read this series?

I recently bought the second book of the first trilogy in the goodwill store. It's a really good fantasy series by Stephen R. Donaldson. It's about Thomas Covenant, a writer who has to have two of his fingers amputated due to disease. He then gets leprosy.

After getting cured at the leprosarium, he returns home to find his wife has divorced him, his neighbors and friends shun him, and society treats him as an outcast. He decides in rebellion to pay his phonebill in town. After being accosted by a beggar, he falls down in a police car and falls unconscious. He then finds himself in the Land, a fantasy world where humans can shape wood like elves and craft stone like dwarves. They also have magic.
So that's the backstory. I don't want to reveal any more if people want to read it. I would really like to find out what other people thought of this trilogy, or any other books of the chronicles.

[smigenboger]

I know everything sounds bad in plot summary, but is it a good read? The summary looks like a procedurally-generated story.

[nenjin]

I tried to pick it up when I was a teen. Went rummaging through a friend of my parent's book collection, ton of 70s and 80s fantasy and sci-fi.

I hated it. I couldn't get through the first book even, and I will read shit just on principle. I don't even remember the writing style per se. I just seriously loathed Thomas Covenant. Not for the leprosy, he's just an ugly, ugly person when he starts out. And when he:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rapes that girl

I was just like "this story isn't for me." If the author's intent was to make me hate Covenant, he succeeded.

Since i haven't read the series, I'll spoiler the rest, since what I know may or may not be what the crux of the thing is supposed to be.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I didn't care to hang around for his enlightenment. I tend to like stories where seriously damaged heroes rise up again and find themselves and their truths...but I stopped rooting for Thomas almost the instant he gets to the Land, because he's a fucking jerk, regardless of what he's been through. You kind of have to want the main character succeed to even read the story.

 

[inteuniso]

I'm horrible at summarizing and story-telling in general. Here is the link to the wikipedia article, which should explain it better:

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever

I personally think it's a great read. The main character is constantly battling with the fact that he thinks the world is a delusion, and given obscene power. He hates how everyone looks up to him (He looks suspiciously familiar to Berek Halfhand, a great legend in their history) and just is trying to survive. It's a somewhat dark series that has a sense of continuity.

EDIT:Covenant gets somewhat more bearable towards the end of the second book, and actually stops acting in his leper-shell. Also, it follows another person, Warmark Hile Troy, and he's an actually likeable character.

[ChairmanPoo]

the first trilogy was interesting. The others, not so much.

[Blade_Train3r]

I read through the first two trilogies in the series (took me a while) and then hit the first book of the third, haven't been able to find the last 2 of that.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He "dies" at the end of the 2nd trilogy if I remember right. The third trilogy isn't much about him at all except as a ghost.

[DJ]

I've read it, but I can't say I liked it much. Waaaaaaay too drawn out.

[ChairmanPoo]

I found Troy self-righteous and annoying.

[Eagleon]

I loved this growing up. Could relate well to Thomas. Says a lot about my childhood The whole setting really captured my imagination, though, and probably got me on my track as a writer.