huh. Amazon informs me that Stephen R. Donaldson has a new Thomas Covenent book out. I guess he realized that no one wanted to read his ponderous rape fantasies.

Um. Okay, but (spoilers for whole series) isn't Thomas Covenant dead? Pushing up daisies? Pining for the fjords?

Wasn't Thomas Covenant a rape-oriented series too?

I wouldn't say that about the whole series, ita. But it depends on what you mean by "rape-oriented." A rape (with the anti-hero Covenant as rapist) occurs early in the first book of the first series, and there are significant consequences (you could even say its shadow hangs over the series). But that's the only one I recall.

So if "rape-oriented" means that a rape is a key event, yes. But if "rape-oriented" means that there's one rape after another, no.

I used oriented to try and back off themed. Not sure what the right word really is. Inspired? Tainted? Coloured?

I thought about that also, but decided that since, in the Covenant books, the rape was a Bad Thing, and only happened the once, I file it in a different category than the space series, where the chick gets raped and raped and raped, and starts to really dig on it, and we're supposed to align with the rapists POV.

There's anti-heroes, and then there are assholes.

I *think* this Covenant book is a, um, pre-quel. A la Star Wars.

I *think* this Covenant book is a, um, pre-quel.

It would kind of have to be, no?

I still resent the fact that despite completely hating Covenant, and completely hating the story Donaldson was telling, I still couldn't put the books down until I finally flung White Gold Wielder across the room.

Huh. I flung Lord Foul's Bane across the room. Literally. First book I've ever done that with (but not the last). Right about the time the rape scene happened, in fact.

Then I went back and read all 6, a few years later, as two of my best friends LURVED them. They're okay. His description of the physical link with the Land felt right; I felt that way about New Mexico, and I know he lives in NM. Otherwise, eh.

I read his other stuff too, up until the space ones, when the first one in the series became a wall-banger and I stopped.

Is "This Corrosion" by Sisters of Mercy based on Lord Foul's Bane?

Huh. I flung Lord Foul's Bane across the room. Literally. First book I've ever done that with (but not the last).

I waited until the end of the last book, but my flinging was also literal. I felt pretty bad afterwards, not for hating it so much, but because I'd borrowed it from a friend.

I hated the first Covenant book and never bothered with the rest. But I liked the two Mirror books. Less whining, I guess.