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From: roy@gatech.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: of Rings, Shanarra, and Covenant
Message-ID: <338@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Aug-83 10:39:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: gatech.338
Posted: Tue Aug  2 10:39:12 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Aug-83 20:16:00 EDT
Organization: Georgia Tech, School of ICS
Lines: 27

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

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