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3.3 AVERAGE
3.3 AVERAGE
Hmmm. Not sure if I want to finish the series... The hero is definitely hard to like, though his character traits make sense in context.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loved the flawed main character, but no development and all other characters were just flat. Classic 'quest' but not a satisfying pay-off at the end. Maybe this because it's the first of a series, but I doubt I'll read any more.
This is a reread, journey (dare I say 'quest'?) back into teenagehood. And I've read a lot of other things since this, which does serve to highlight that this book is pretty hard to read. The concept of a central character who is so unlikeable and so unlikely a hero is a good one but the people he meets are either good (very good) or evil (very evil) which makes it rather two-dimensional. That said, it is a simple story that delivers what it sets out to do, so if that's what you want, then go for it.
Really struggled with this one. Only made it a third of the way through before putting my hands up.
I can understand why some writers use unlikeable protagonists, but I need to like them. This protagonist didn't look like he was going to win me over.
Maybe when the book was first written, "Kevin" was appropriate for a hero in a fantasy world, but it just doesn't sound right to me (even ignoring Minions in this day and age).
I also got distracted by the number of "as if" comparisons. Surely an editor would have picked up on it.
Just not enough there to keep me interested.
I can understand why some writers use unlikeable protagonists, but I need to like them. This protagonist didn't look like he was going to win me over.
Maybe when the book was first written, "Kevin" was appropriate for a hero in a fantasy world, but it just doesn't sound right to me (even ignoring Minions in this day and age).
I also got distracted by the number of "as if" comparisons. Surely an editor would have picked up on it.
Just not enough there to keep me interested.
I first read this book when it was released in 1978 and was immediately captured by the rich and varied world that Donaldson had built. This series was a significant departure from other well known fantasy novels of this time as the characters faults and issues are detailed as the story moves along. I still found myself empathizing with the main character (Thomas Covenant) and Bannor of the Bloodguard and Saltheart Foamfollower are two of my favorite characters of any fantasy novel I have read since. This and the other novels in this trilogy are a great read. It is on my list to re-read in the near future.
I tried to like this. I was enjoying it. But Thomas Covenant is just too undeservedly unlikeable, and a rape in the first 100 pages which just felt cheap and as though Donaldson was following a fantasy checklist turned me off of these books entirely. I was going to try to continue reading them, but I caught a typo shortly after that scene which made me believe the books would be poorly edited as well as graphically boring, so I'm done with this series. Thanks for nothing. 2 stars, but only for the premise.
I hated this book. I couldn't make myself like Covenant. Donaldson went too far in his quest to make an antihero, and came out with someone too cynical and self-loathing to be likable. The Land, on the other hand, went too far in the other direction. Everything fit so perfectly into the stereotypical fantasy world that, compared to Covenant himself, it truly looked ridiculous. The pieces -- the protagonist and his backdrop, if you will -- were too disparate to make a cohesive whole.
DNF'd at page 50
I really liked the sound of the concept of this story - man with leprosy gets unexpectedly dropped into an epic fantasy world along the lines of Middle-Earth. Unfortunately I can't get into the writing style or any of the characters to put up with this for another 430 pages. I've got far too many other books that I would rather get to.
I really liked the sound of the concept of this story - man with leprosy gets unexpectedly dropped into an epic fantasy world along the lines of Middle-Earth. Unfortunately I can't get into the writing style or any of the characters to put up with this for another 430 pages. I've got far too many other books that I would rather get to.
The only reason this has a generous two stars instead of one is because of the brilliant cast of characters that somehow exist DESPITE the author's terrible decisions. Every time a character was introduced, I thought how the book would be so much better written from their perspective!
The main character is incredibly unlikeable and utterly useless over the course of the journey he's on. He spends a good portion of the book asleep while others make decisions and is obsessed with shaving. He is incredibly insensitive. If he actually contributed to the plot and did anything for more than 0.01% of the novel, I'd call him a Mary Sue. As it stands, there's something Mary Sue ish about him.
Trigger Warning: Mentions of Rape in this paragraph. Soon after arriving in 'the Land', Covenant rapes a sixteen year old girl. This occurs in Chapter Seven. He isn't particularly remorseful of this until at least Chapter Eighteen or so, and even so he speaks more of how he wronged her mother, with who he has formed a fragile friendship of sorts, than the actual girl. It is not even called rape until much further on in the story. He want to make it up to her by sending her a horse every year, which is a terrible 'sorry-I-raped-you' present.
The writing in this story is like the author bit pages out of a thesaurus, then vomited them back onto a page and called it finished. Sentences are often just lists of words, or synonyms. The authour uses the archaic definitions for some words.
Every new location I could not help but compare to the Lord of the Rings. There's a discount Lothlorien, Minas Tirith, Fangorn Forest, Caradhras, Rohan and Moria complete with Khazadum. Gollum makes an appearance in the secondary villain. The primary villain never shows his face but laughs evilly, and appears in a hallucination at one point.
This book nearly put me off of reading for good, and me with walls of shelves of books of all kinds. each chapter I finished felt like a battle I'd won and I felt just as physically and mentally exhausted. I had to force myself to finish the book mostly due to obsessive completionism.
The main character is incredibly unlikeable and utterly useless over the course of the journey he's on. He spends a good portion of the book asleep while others make decisions and is obsessed with shaving. He is incredibly insensitive. If he actually contributed to the plot and did anything for more than 0.01% of the novel, I'd call him a Mary Sue. As it stands, there's something Mary Sue ish about him.
Trigger Warning: Mentions of Rape in this paragraph. Soon after arriving in 'the Land', Covenant rapes a sixteen year old girl. This occurs in Chapter Seven. He isn't particularly remorseful of this until at least Chapter Eighteen or so, and even so he speaks more of how he wronged her mother, with who he has formed a fragile friendship of sorts, than the actual girl. It is not even called rape until much further on in the story. He want to make it up to her by sending her a horse every year, which is a terrible 'sorry-I-raped-you' present.
The writing in this story is like the author bit pages out of a thesaurus, then vomited them back onto a page and called it finished. Sentences are often just lists of words, or synonyms. The authour uses the archaic definitions for some words.
Every new location I could not help but compare to the Lord of the Rings. There's a discount Lothlorien, Minas Tirith, Fangorn Forest, Caradhras, Rohan and Moria complete with Khazadum. Gollum makes an appearance in the secondary villain. The primary villain never shows his face but laughs evilly, and appears in a hallucination at one point.
This book nearly put me off of reading for good, and me with walls of shelves of books of all kinds. each chapter I finished felt like a battle I'd won and I felt just as physically and mentally exhausted. I had to force myself to finish the book mostly due to obsessive completionism.