My 1st trip to the Land, what was it like for you?

[Caesar]

I was given LFB at the age of 11...why would you give an 11 year old boy that book? Anyway, I read it and did not understand much. So I didn't think anything more about it...until two years later in the library when I saw TWL. Something about it seemed very familiar, so I read it. (I know, I read the series out of order! The shame!)

The more of TWL I read, the more of LFB I remembered...so I immediately went back to the library and picked up 1st Chrons. And then 2nd Chrons. I was hooked...but it took TWL (which is still my favorite book...odd, yes?) and not Illearth War to do it.

Now, I've read the 1st and 2nd Chrons many times and I'm about to start over again and read all the way through FR to prepare for AATE...can't wait! I need my TC fix...

[Blackhawk]

Hello Watchers,
Fairly new to the Watch and loving it... thank you all. Been reading a thread in which LFB is being discounted as rubbish, and it got my memory in motion.

The year was 2002. An old roomate of mine stored his bookcase in my room, filled with a literal hodgepodge. Fiction, Non, Religeous text, art books, everything. I had moved to a new area, and was plucking books from his shelf in no particular order... untill I read Lord Foul's Bane. Having no real attachment to fantasy fiction as a genre, I was blown away by the reaction it evoked in me.

There were many things about TC I didn't like, and these very things fueled what became a rampant readathon. I hadn't encountered an antihero with such a good reason to be so antiheroic, leprosy is an altogether singular condition... nothing so physically and emotionally traumatic as watching ones body fall apart. To live an accept such a thing... and then be granted limitless power, hellfire, that's good reading.

I simply could not get enough. Angry at the nights I'd finish and not have the next to move to immediatley. Once reading them through, reading them again, and again. These books effect me like few others, and none in fantasy fiction.

How did it start for you? I'm early mid life crisis-ing, and am trying to figure out why I love what I love. What is it that makes this series such a powerhouse? I feel like I'm at an AA meeting... "My name is Ryan, and I'm a Covaholic..." Just looking for others who can't live without the sweet taste of aliantha on their lips and their stories... thank you Watchers!

Also thinking about sealing the covenant, as it were, with a tatoo. Fan art or any other suggestions please!

It started for me when i was 12-13 ... I only wish i could say why this book has affected me the way it has.. my only comparison would have to be the Bible, and the Dark Tower.

[Rigel]

(I know, I read the series out of order! The shame!)

For some reason, I used to do that a lot when I was younger (I even read TWL, WGW, and TOT in that order). It never seemed to bother me :/

Now, I insist on going in order, so I can enjoy it the way its supposed to be.

[hearthrall antonicus]

I was in New Mexico in my early twenties. I ended up going to a K mart like store there and picked up The Wounded Land. Being and avid Tolkienite since age 13, I got sucked in by TWL. I finished in in 1 day then proceeded to buy the First chronicles . Now to me, with no disrespect to J.R.R.s work at all , Tolkien is like going to a nice church service, but Donaldson is like the religion that its based upon,very deep and compelling. Not to say that Tolkien is superficial, he is a Master. After all, to make up languages, thousands of years of histories,family trees,etc., takes a genius. SRD however fits better at least to me.

[Linna Heartbooger]

I have been coming to the conclusion that I "got in on the empathy ticket." Several friends I cared about instinctively understood what was going on in the Chrons, and for a few, it struck something very deep for them. So I hoped to understand something more about something they cared about. (I wonder if this wasn't a little like Krazy Kat's experience.)

When I read LFB, (at 23!) I really didn't get things. Things like the juxtaposition of leprosy and the Land's vitality, for example. Completely didn't fathom the effect that would have on a person. I'd had a "charmed life" and was naive, naive. I think I even considered stopping there. And I did for over a year.

But I kept being curious because a couple of friends (including my husband) would have intense conversations about the books. (At least two of these friends even kinda wanted to "shelter" me from the Chrons! Makes some sense!)

Another thing that kept me reading was that I -had- to see what would happen to Lena. Maybe that's one of the points where I especially identified with TC. I, too, kept thinking "Lena!" I reallly REALLY was mad when reading TIW, because we didn't get to see Lena. But I think that's where the author's work first started to really get inside my head and show me what was wrong with ME, and that was also making me really annoyed.

Then I got to TPTP, and I think it had the most "lessons" that I appreciated, and more beauty that I enjoyed. Not to mention seeing him treat the poor insane Lena with dignity and proclaim her his Queen. (probably finished it about 2 years after starting the First Chrons - there were loooong breaks in between) And then when Linden showed up in Second Chrons, strangely, she made sooo much sense to me.

HLT- your list of reactions from when you first read it was entertaining and hilarious. I don't know if I could recall enough / be honest enough about myself to post a simple list that frank.