Stephen Hayes reviewed The Wounded Land (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 1) by Stephen R. Donaldson (Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (1))
None
3 stars
Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever is back for another trilogy. Donaldson writes a good story, which manages to hold one's interest, perhaps because of the mcguffin of different suns, so that for the first half of the book one wonders what is going to happen next. When it seems that one is at last going to get an explanation, however, it turns out to be disappointing, and as bewildering as if there has been no explanation at all.
But Donaldson's style grates even more after three long books, with Covenant the leper clenching himself on almost every page, gagging on acid and chewing broken glass and other gory and distasteful activities.
Perhaps most annoying, from someone who is supposed to have an MA in English, Donaldson trips over his long words, and piles on the metaphors and adjectives until one wonders if he knows what they mean. He uses "inchoate" more …
Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever is back for another trilogy. Donaldson writes a good story, which manages to hold one's interest, perhaps because of the mcguffin of different suns, so that for the first half of the book one wonders what is going to happen next. When it seems that one is at last going to get an explanation, however, it turns out to be disappointing, and as bewildering as if there has been no explanation at all.
But Donaldson's style grates even more after three long books, with Covenant the leper clenching himself on almost every page, gagging on acid and chewing broken glass and other gory and distasteful activities.
Perhaps most annoying, from someone who is supposed to have an MA in English, Donaldson trips over his long words, and piles on the metaphors and adjectives until one wonders if he knows what they mean. He uses "inchoate" more as if he likes the sound than to add to the meaning, and uses "sojourn" several times when it seems from the context that a journey and not a stay is meant. If he uses relatively common words wrongly, one wonders whether he knows what he is talking about when he uses words like "incarnadine", "crepuscular" and the like, and then describes something as "livid green" in one sentence, and "iridiscent green" in the next, which is almost a total contradiction.
Like Covenant's clenching, Donaldson's malapropisms tend to become annoying.
