Tony’s Comments (group member since Dec 19, 2018)

Tony’s comments from the Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy group.

I finished reading The Wounded Land. I am finding the Second Chronicles more of a slog than the First Chronicles - Covenant is no longer a complete arsehole, but he is still completely self-absorbed and self-pitying. And Donaldson continues to overwrite and continues his personal quest to introduce readers to all of the obscure words of the English language. Learning new words is one of the joys of reading, but if I have to consult a dictionary 7 or 8 times each chapter, it gets to be a chore. I will continue to read through the entire 10 book series, but I feel that there will be gaps between the books for other reading.

The Dumarest saga by E.C. Tubb has over 30 novels and the Perry Rhodan series has 126 novels in English - far, far more in German - a new 66-page novella has been published every week since September, 1961.

I finished Gilden-Fire and started on the first book of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Wounded Land.

Andrea wrote: "Daughters of Regals includes Gilden-Fire, I know since that was the reason why I bought it, so I could claim I completed reading the Chronicles. The rest of the stories are indeed not related but just thought if you were a Donaldson fan you might be interested."

That's interesting. My copy of Daughter of Regals and Other Tales doesn't include Gilden-Fire, although it is listed in the other books by page - as are both of the Thomas Covenant trilogies. My copy is the UK hardcover from 1984, so I wonder if you have a US publication - there may well have been a difference in content.

Andrea wrote: "Tony - Donaldson has a story in this one too :) I don't know where you got a copy of Gilden-Fire from but if you are reading as part of the Daughter of Regals and Other Tales you'll find "Mythological Beast" as part of the anthology"

I picked up my copy of Gilden-Fire when it was first published in paperback - back in 1984. I might be misinterpreting what you wrote Andrea, but all the tales in Daughter of Regals were written by Donaldson, but my recollection is that none of them are set in The Land, so they won't be part of my Thomas Covenant odyssey :)

Finished The Power That Preserves, which brings to an end The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - kind of. Some 4 years after the final book of the trilogy, Donaldson released Gilden-Fire, a short story detailing an episode which had been cut in the final edit of The Illearth war, which makes it book 2.5 in the trilogy - I have started reading it.

Hehe Andrea, I agree with almost everything you just posted. Now that I have a lot more books (and ebooks!), I limit my rereading. LotR still gets reread (probably close to 30 times now) and Heinlein fairly regularly. I'm currently in the middle of slowly rereading my Moorcock books.

On the infrequent occasions when I have a cull of my books, I find it really hard to get rid of any.

I finished The Rod of Seven Parts. Books based on role-playing games are rarely great, and this is no exception. The best game-based books are probably the Warhammer and Warhammer 40K novels. I will now continue with the Thomas Covenant series, next book is The Power That Preserves

Unfortunately, I don't think it will be an issue. I reckon GRRM is at least 3 books away from finishing the story, and given the length of time between books is currently around 6-7 years, I don't expect he's likely to be around long enough to finish it.

There are currently over 50 novels in the Horus Heresy series, and I believe it contains at least 4 different story arcs.

Started this year:
The History of the Runestaff by Michael Moorcock - 4 books - completed.

No Man's World by Pat Kelleher - 3 books - completed.

Alex Cave series by James M Corkhill - 6 books (so far) - I've read the first 3 and have the 4th.

Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson - 10 books - I've read (reread) the first 2 and have the rest.

From the SF list, I have read 14 and there are another 14 on my to-read list. From the fantasy list, I have read 17 and there are another 12 on my to-read list. None of those SF books were read in the last year, but I read two of the fantasy books - The Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn - for the first time in the last year (and reread Lord of the Rings).

I finally finished The Illearth War. I'm taking a short break from reading the Thomas Covenant series to read The Rod of Seven Parts

Still working my way through The Illearth War and Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

I had already started reading sci-fi by the time I watched the moon landing as a 10 yo (I recall owning The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet ) but that experience was one of the things that pushed me onto the path that led to a degree in physics (not that I have ever used much of it in my work life :) ). Had I been American I expect I would have aimed for a career in NASA.

After seeing the documentary Apollo 11 yesterday, I started reading the non-SFF Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond written by one of the mission controllers for both Apollo 11 and Apollo 13, which has been sitting on my shelves for some time.

I finished reading Lord Foul's Bane which I always find a difficult read because the protagonist is so thoroughly unlikable, but still worth the effort because the world is so well-realised. I have started the second book in the series, The Illearth War

No, in a grimdark book, I don't necessarily expect the triumph of good and, in fact, in what is the prototype grimdark world - the Warhammer 40K universe - it could almost be argued that there are no forces of good. Certainly the forces of humanity under the Emperor and led by the Space Marines, wouldn't count as good although perhaps some of the other races such as the Elves or the Tau might.

Also, in what I understand by grimdark, a victory for good is more of a temporary respite rather than an enduring triumph.

I agree Andrea. When I was managing a bookshop, I would never have put the True Blood series in YA and likewise, I was always uncomfortable selling Fifty Shades to schoolgirls - although I certainly couldn't refuse to sell it to them.

A lot of the rise in popularity of YA came from Harry Potter and the huge adult audience that it had, so publishers pumped out more YA, requiring more shelf space. We used to keep copies of HP in both the SFF section and the YA, and a lot of publishers started to print copies of their popular YA titles with "adult" covers.

As for grimdark, I think it's a valid genre, but much smaller than marketing people would indicate - it's the latest buzzword, and they seem to be trying to put large amounts of what is really epic fantasy into it. There is no way that LotR is grimdark, and I would argue that the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant aren't either - the ultimate triumph of good in both of those shows that. I don't think SoIaF is either, but it's closer than most epic fantasy.

I finished The Distant Suns and read Flux, the short story that completes Sailing to Utopia. As volume 5 of the Chronicles of the Eternal Champion, none of the books in this volume really has anything to do with the Eternal Champion, but that was a convenient way to repackage all of Moorcock's books for re-release. I am rereading Lord Foul's Bane - intending to read all 10 Thomas Covenant books (although I expect I will take short breaks at times).