bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (06/19/83)
Well, I just finished this book. I agree with those who said they disliked it. Here's why: First of all, I have like the series, or else I would not have read all six. Unlike some, however, I tolerated rather than enjoyed Thomas Covenant's (The Unbeliever, Ur-Lord, Ringthane, Giantfriend, Earthfriend, Halfhand, Illender, Prover of Life, Ring Wielder and White Gold Wielder - sheesh! How many titles can they give him?) dispair, and it just got to be too much in this last (?) book. Just about every line has somebody "wincing" with pain because somebody said something nasty. Lines full of powerful emotion are bandied about so frequently they become meaningless. Donaldson is left to search for greater and greater superlatives to get his point through by the end of the book. Very little happens in this book, really, for 475 pages. Most of it is filled with small conflicts which serve to kill people or show how good Giants and Haruchai are. Still more exists to show the power of Vain and leave you wondering why you don't get to know his secret. And what is this great secret? That Vain is to form the new Staff of Law? That's what everybody thought they knew at the end of The One Tree. Why was this secret so grave that if anybody knew it, it would not come to pass. Supposedly ur-Viles went about killing Waynhim just because they thought they had revealed this secret. It wasn't held back just to keep TC from forming the Staff right away - that had to wait until Vain locked on to Finail. It all seems rather contrived to me. So does TC's death. Not much reason for him to die. The local God pulled him from death by snakebite last time, and could easily do it again. Of course, now that the Laws of Death and Life are kaput, we'll still see lots of Covenant floating about like old Obiwan from another famous trilogy. I don't see at all why Covenant and the Dispiser are the same person. Sure TC is full of dispair etc. and his leprosy can be linked to the land, but the Land existed for some time before TC ever visited it, and it was striken by Sunbane long after TC got his disease. And since TC and LF are the same, why is it that we are told LF didn't buy a farm with TC? Finally, does anybody really think they understand the character of Linden Avery? We all know about her past and her worries, but giving odd traits and dispair to a character doesn't make her 3-D. For one, she doesn't strike me very much as a female character in spite of the fact she's in love with TC. No dice, Donaldson. You could have done better than this. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304