Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson

What A Mistake!!by RichardB

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November 22, 2009: When i first read all the glowing reviews for this series, I thought I had found a winner. I purchased all of the first three books of the initial trilogy. I assumed with so many great recommendations I couldn't go wrong. Boy was I wrong! The hero?, Thomas Covenant, whines, cries and rages his way thru page after page after page. Covenant is one of the most despicable characters I have ever come upon. A quarter of the way into the book a young, innocent girl of 16 tries to befriend Covenant, takes him to her home to eat and meet her family, and he repays her by losing his temper and raping her. At this point I threw the book down and refused to read anymore. The image of a leper molesting a child was too much for me. After a few days I decided that something must radically change in the plot because the book has so many good reviews. There must be some redeeming change in his character to make him worthy of being the hero. So I decided to read the rest of it.

I shouldn't have bothered. Covenant doesn't alter his behavior one bit. He whines, he cries, he argues, he rages. When attacked, his first inclination is to hide and cower. He doesn't find the will to fight until he loses his temper from fear. And then he's ashamed of himself because he's killed. I found myself rooting for the bad guys, hoping one of them would lop his head off. That way the story could continue without him in it.

I threw the book in the trash along with parts 2 & 3 unread. I won't have that kind of drivel on my bookshelf. Someone might come across it and think I enjoyed it!

If you enjoy fantasy that doesn't follow the usual tired and overused plot lines, you should check out a series by Kate Elliot called "Crown Of Stars". It's everything intelligent fantasy should be.

I Also Recommend: Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4), King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1), The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3), Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars #2).

Unlikeable Unbeliever: Hoping Sequel Is Betterby TheCrowdedLeaf

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September 03, 2009: How does one start a review on a book one despised for the first 376 pages, and wavered between love and hate for the last 98? Because that's my general feeling about Lord Foul's Bane. It's a nice long book with a fantasy story, a made up land, a strange language, people with pointy ears, people who live in trees, horses that seem smarter than your average horse, giants, mountains, a ring that glows, old men with long beards and special staffs (staves?), and a creepy underground dwelling "cavewight" who yearns for power. Sound familiar? Yes, it's a lot like The Lord of the Rings. But it's a little different: it's slightly easier to read. But that doesn't make it great. The writing was slow and sluggish at times, far too much expository description for locations which could have been understood better with less detail, "less is more" sometimes rings so, so true.

Thomas Covenant's journey is both physical, and mental, as well as emotional for him. The entire span of the book he's convinced he's dreaming. You would think he'd catch on that The Land had helped heal his leprosy, but he's in serious denial. It's one long mental crisis that peaks three-quarters of the way through when Covenant realizes he needs to pick a side, make a decision, but he doesn't do it right away. He has kept moving only because moving forward through the "dream" is the only way he can survive. but when he's met over and over again with those defining moments where an action from him will make him a hero, he cowers and shakes, and runs away. Perhaps that makes him the most realistic fantasy character I've ever read. He doesn't become the hero overnight, in fact, he may not be the hero at all. He doesn't make his own choices because he wants to, he's pushed into a corner where the only thing left is to appear as though he's made a decision. I am not sure if he ever really did decide to be the good or bad guy, or if he did the only thing he could do because that's all there was. He's flawed, and that's real.

Overall, I'm going with a neutral 2 1/2 stars out of 5 on this one. I really did not like most of the book, but the end (slightly) redeemed itself.