roy@gatech.UUCP (08/02/83)
Somehow I don't think it is too fair to pick on stories (Thomas Covenant or The Sword of Shanarra) for being a rip-off of Tolkien. After all, Tolkien didn't make it all up himself, he was just skilled in borrowing from much older sources. And so what if the Sword of Shanarra is slow starting, the first hundred or so pages of LotR isn't so fast moving itself. Personally, I thought that the Sword of Shanarra (and The Power that Preserves, for that matter) was pretty bogus because I couldn't quite believe in the way the bad guy was defeated, and I think Thomas Covenant needs some lessons on how to be an effective human being. I think that Donaldson's biggest problem with the TC series is in creating believable characters. I find it very difficult to believe that real human beings would act the way his characters do. By the way, I saw (in "The Reader's Guide to Fantasy") that there is a third Chronicles of Thomas Covenant planned, although no titles were given. Any speculation about what may be in store for us in the Land? Roy Mongiovi roy.gatech@Udel-Relay (ARPANET) roy@gatech (CSNET) ...!allegra!gatech!roy (UUCP/mail) ...!decvax!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!roy (UUCP/mail/news)
alb@alice.UUCP (08/03/83)
Stephen Donaldson spoke at Princeton a few months ago, and one of the subjects brought up was the continuation of the Covenant series after the second trilogy. He said that he is currently finishing a book of fantasy/ adventure short stories and to look for it in a year or so. He also said that he would probably write a third (and LAST -- yes, last) trilogy of Covenant, but he had little or no plans for it at the time.