Subject: donaldson

From: [email-masked]
Date: 6 Nov 86 19:26:12 MET

I've just read the new Donaldson novel. I got it kind of to give him a
last chance after the abysmal second Covenant trilogy.

Reports:

- side:
 As usual the protagonist is an incometent dweeb transported from
Earth to another world she doesn't understand or care about.
Furthermore, the protagonist is such a wimp that she is more or less
uninteresting throughout most of the novel. The magic in this world is
totally illogical, not just antiscientific -- magic is of course that.
But this stuff is just unreasonable. It's interesting, though, if you
ignore some of the weirdness and inconsistencies that are implied.
Another minus -- as usual the only normal and sympathetic characters
around are pretty much set up to get killed or have bad things happen
to them -- it's kind of obvious in Donaldson's work that as soon as
you read about someone you like, they will get killed, possessed,
roasted, assassinated, you name it...

+ side:
 The protagonist may be a wimp, but she at least shows some signs of
escaping her wimpitude eventually, as the novel progresses, unlike
Covenant, who should have been killed immediately after the rape in
the first book.... Also, she isn't a leper. Big plus, that. No more
stupid mangling of English. There is a big difference between, say,
Gene Wolfe's kind of word play and the annoying misuse of words that
Donaldson was prone to in his previous two trilogies. The characters
are in general more fun and interesting, since these book(s) seem to
be much lighter and more comedic than the last ones. One really funny
prolonged joke is how the heroine continues to avoid having sex with a
villain -- kind of like Shakespeare.... Also, as I say, though the
magical premise is bizarre, it is at least interesting.

By the way, I believe it is more or less stated somewhere that this
"series" will be two books (a bilogy?).

-Laurence

			 Laurence R. Brothers
		      [email-masked]

			"I am a pure crystal."