I read this when I was younger and I think I never read the first book of the series. It confused me back then and even now it is a bit confusing, sometimes rambling. I have rarely read a book with a protagonist as unlikable as Thomas Covenant and yet I started reading the second book yesterday ... so somehow it does have that "something".

Interestingly the scene where the Quest watches Drool's army march from Mount Thunder read as an exact copy of the one where Frodo watches the armies emerge from Mordor in the movie. Now I really need to go back and read that part of LotR to check if not only the image - which is younger than this series - was copied but if maybe the whole scene was ripped in so much detail or if it is just an accident.

Of course in genre books you'll always have a certain amount of similarities ... I don't mind so much. Sometimes it's fun finding out what inspired an author by being able to link a scene to another book.