I am re reading The IE which is regarded highly and stuff. And it is just a revelation to read Donaldson at his finest. This prose flows. I love this after not reading it for many years.

I want to keep reading. The 3rd chronicles I have to.

If you really want some hard sci fi read Charles Stross. There is no denying that the term hard sc-fi applies.

For me Vain was about 6 Ft or a bit taller. I never envisioned as short. This is Vain for fucks sake.

If we exclude literature like Faulkner, Foster Wallace, Joyce, Pynchon etc Donaladson rules dark fantasy for me. RR martin would if he released the next dam book be rated above. What SRD does is almost unimaginable. He writes pain and loathing in a fantasy setting that reminds us of the cruelty of r...

I also found this book to be difficult going, though their are some well written sections. The whole she thing just seems clunky and awkward and why choose a moniker that so closely resembles a character from the most popular series of books of this generation. It really just is curious and don't te...

shadowbinding shoe wrote:Maybe it shouldn't but the word "tsunami" grated on me when said by a Humbled. It doesn't seem to fit into their world.

Yeah I can see that.

The pacing of this book is one of the most excruciating reads of my life. Yet I am compelled to feel the pain. Donaldson has a spell on me. (i loathed all the characters in The Gap yet still read it and may again). Noone moves. They well just talk and talk and we get Linden anguish 101 in various de...

Donaldson is nothing if not consistent with these obscure words. Its his style and I love the guy for it. Its been that way since the beginning but he does pull out the stops in this one. If it started out as smart arse behaviour who cares. Its his style. The land would not exist without this vocabu...

This is painful to read. AATE from the first few hundred sucks. We all know and we all know. Its friggin awful stuff.

I don't think Assimov is abusing his scientific background. Actually the Foundation trilogy is science fiction, with the science part "light". Rather I'd say that Assimov's scientific background makes his work more "realistic" in the science parts. Yeah, Foundation is actually m...

Enders Game. Its clever, written by a Mormon and is overrated. Its an adolescent coming of age story basically. Read some Banks or Simmons, or Reynolds. Much better fare. What does that got to do with anything? I don't know, a simple statement of fact. N Dynamite that curious film was as well as fa...

I'm reading the Gap series again after letting it gather dust on my shelves for years. I had read it before, it didn't light my fire, and have re-read the TC books several times in between. But having finished the Chrons again just last week, I had to do something to fill the next 2+ years, so I pi...

The Gap is soft and flabby compared to hard sci-fi. Read some Reynolds if you want hard sci-fi. Things are difficult and much more elaborate than the gap drive. It still holds up in some respects, but the details are lacking. I don't want to come over as a hater of this series as I feel he was on to...

Enders Game. Its clever, written by a Mormon and is overrated.
Its an adolescent coming of age story basically.

Read some Banks or Simmons, or Reynolds. Much better fare.

Ahh Donaldsons beautiful words getting a blast. Love it...

The Amnion were a rather lame and impotent foe. Donaldson's one and hopefully last escapade into specualtive fiction on the scientific side is by any means basic.

After a gap after reading The Gap, I am astounded how unpleasant the reading experience was. I am a mad donaldson fan but this goes down as the most unpleasant series of books i have ever read. It just does not capture me, and I can see how it could but its just not for me. If you are aware of liter...

Well the dream resolves and he wakes up. The land ends...

Comparing The Gap and TC is a bizzare thing. I am a sci-fi fan first and a fantasy reader second. Look dudes, the landsacpe and the land created by D in the Covenant books exceeds almost anything in fanatsy literature. Sure he took from Tolkien. But is this another world. The Sunbane, a most brillia...

The futility of the human condition to reconcile good and evil in the short term of emotion is one theme. The cliche of Donaldson's writing is that of being redemption. (many discussions etc) But more than his other books cruelty and a nasty disposition are a theme in itself. Some are irredeemable. ...