How old were you when you first read Covenant,

[Guest]

I was 14. It scarred me for life. I've read the series 3 times in the 4 years since.

[aTOMiC]

I found and absorbed COTC when I was 15. A sophomore in High School. I was instantly hooked and those books and the subsequent sequels remain my favorite stories.

[RDGO_50]

Wow - who feels older than I do after reading all the postings?

Let's see.....

Murrin - figures one should wait till a certain age(?)
I think he's pretty much right.... but that's just me!

Nekrimah Vain - ...and 'he' thinks he's a candidate for the "over-the-hill-gang".....ha! I just bet, I'm the oldest Staff lover here....!

Darth Raven - saw the writing on the wall with "Tolkien at his best"....
Raven? - that's exactly how it happened to me, no kiddin'!

Fist & Faith - still waitin, are we? You know the rest of us all took one step backwards, right after you made that post.... you know that, right? [GRin]
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< EDITED on 30 MAR 2008 --- >

Here's my part of this thread....

I had enlisted in the USAF, right out of high school (17) and during my travels around the West Coast of the U.S. and parts of Europe, I spent time reading The Hobbitt, and LOTR a couple of times, actually!

This was partly because my age group all knew that over half of the music written by Led Zepplin was hobbitt-related! Did you? There's still this ongoing argument that Stairway to Heaven is, or isn't. (So, roll a big one and sit down for a treat....!)

I got out in 1976, and almost immediately found TCTC, my first Chronicles has the Book Club cover, which I really don't like all that much. Kept the faith and read all the rest, as they came out. I now have almost all that he has written.

What with Ebay, these days, it's been a bit easier to find all that SRD has written, with exception of THE MAN WHO series. I have two, but the others are hard to locate. I'll keep looking, tho' - those UK book sites may be the answer, who knows....

At that time, I think I was 21, 22, something lilke that...!
The part about TCTC that strikes me so much, is that when he describes the Land..... for me, it feels like the countryside I was living in, in southern West Germany - all along the Mosel Valley - maybe it's only me, but that's the resemblence I see while I read the books.... for a large part of it.

< www.moselcam.de/ or www.hotel-petrus-mosellanus.de/ or www.moselkarte.de/ >

Trust me, gang, I was as big a party-er as you would've ever met... it was my generation during the Seventies with all that.... I did live it... and at the current age of 53 - I still don't have hardly any grey hair. < even now >

I hope to one day head back to the Bavarian Region, and see how things are after so many years. The memories are great, even still. And, re-reading the books still brings it all back.

I'm trying to re-read them even now, as I get time ... these days, the career takes precedent.

Keep reading folks....

[birdandbear]

Hail, and welcome to the Watch RDGO!!! Very good to have you! 14-15 seems to be a very common age for reading TCTC for the first time. Sometimes I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that nobody knows more about alienation and lonliness than a fifteen year old kid. Of course the fact that all this isolation is born of normal teenage angst and melodrama has nothing to do with it. The emotions are genuine, and there is much in our beloved leper for anyone who feels outcast to identify with.

The intriguing thing is that it sticks though. Long after the tempestuous age where many of us first meet Covenant, the story lives in our hearts, and we come back to it again and again.

[dlbpharmd]

Late 1970s, and I was about 10 years old. The books were loaned to me by one of the older guys in my neighborhood. Looking back now, I think that I was old enough to read the books - but I can remember not really understanding what "rape" meant. I mean, I knew that it was a sexual act, but I didn't understand the heinous nature of rape.

I also remember being in a local department store, several years later, and browsing through the books, when suddenly a brown book entitled "The Wounded Land" in paperback and with a great cover caught my eye. Talk about excited!

[Roland of Gilead]

This thread is a little old, but at least it's one I can answer. I read the original Chronicles when they were first published. I got the SF Book Club's editions, printed in 1978. So I was 25. I've doubled that figure now.

I've read a lot of epic fantasy, and it's still one of the best I've ever read. And certainly one of the most original and not just another medieval rehash of Tolkien.

I think I appreciated them a lot, but I'm sure a re-reading now might give me a different perspective. I'd like to think I'm still basically the same person I was a quarter-century ago, but I'm probably deluding myself on that score. My own life's experiences would most likely alter how I viewed Covenant's life experiences.

[Loredoctor]

I read it for the first time when I was 25 - so 5 years ago. I keep reading it, too - the books are beautiful.

[Sandgorgon]

I was introduced to the first trilogy by a friend when I was about 15, maybe 16 or so. At that time all there was was the first trilogy. The part that really struck me solid was in the TIW when Lord Mhoram and a couple of the bloodguard go to Seareach and find that all of the inhabitants of that port city had been slaughtered and a Raver is standing out in the surf whistling up a tsunami . I remember looking up from the paperback clenched in my sweating hands, and thinking "this thing f***ing rocks!"

Shortly thereafter quite a few students and teachers at my high school were reading or had already read the trilogy and were hotly discussing aspects of the story. In fact, a fellow student (a rather prudish, anal-retentive kid who was so narrow minded that his eyes were nearly on top of each other; perhaps I characterize him too harshly ) had a difficult time with the rape of Lena, and refused to finish reading any of it.

I remember, at Christmastime, going to the local bookstore to find something for my friend and accidentally discovering high up on a shelf a mysterious hardcover by Donaldson titled "The Wounded Land" . No one knew of or expected a second trilogy. I eagerly purchased two copies... one for him, and one for me. The succeeding year of waiting for the second book -- not to mention one more year after that for the third -- have to be the longest freaking years of my life .

[The Chosen]

I was 12 and after I read the first one i thing I mentaly turned 25 lol

[[Syl]]

Heh. I know exactly what you mean.

[SoulQuest1970]

I first read it when I was 13. It was not scary to me at all. In fact I identified with the character of Covenant. I had read the first chronicles 22 times by the 11th grade. Then I did TC and SRD for my Junior Theme. I am 33 now and I can not even count how many times I have read them now. One thing I have noticed is at different times in my life I learn something new about myself in each re-reading. One thing I have learned now is that I have grown and healed so much from the hurt, little 13 year old girl. TC is a story of human suffering, the path to self-discovery and of healing. The books have been very helpful and thought provoking leading me toward the insight I needed to find myself.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

For me, I found LFB at my town library in the summer between 6th and 7th grade, so I must have been 12. Wow... 1984 seems like both a long time ago, but also not that long ago. At 31, I still find something new each time I read it (about as often as leap year).

I've never found anything else that comes close. SRD!

As far as the age-limit thing, I don't think the appropriateness of reading TCTC has anything to do with one's chronological age so much as it does with one's emotional age.
Plus, whether you like it or get on the first read has more to do with the depth at which you are reading the books and whether or not you identify in any way with TC. At the surface level is where you can draw all those <yawn> interesting comparisons between SRD and JRRT, but as soon as you pierce that thin surface skin it's sweet, rich meat all the way to the bone!

DW
[Weird, warped, and waxing carnivorous all of the sudden]

[Baradakas]

I believe I was a whole whopping 12 years old... My step-father owned them, and thought I was too young to read them. So I stole Lord Foul's Bane from him and read it in about three days. He noticed the theft, of course, and sat down with me for a 'talk'. He was worried that the...

SPOILER












rape of Lena would have some psychological impact on me. When I shrugged it off, he went to my mother for her opinion only to find out I'd been reading 'adult' novels for years! (her word, not mine) Needless to say, I blew through the rest in about a month, and the beginnings of a writer was born!

- B

[Cheval]

It was 1979 when a co-worker introduced me to LFB. I was about 17 then. I now own all 6 novels in hardcover. After wearing and tearing 2 sets of paperbacks... and I still have in LFB, TPTP, and TOT in paperback.
Now I am working on the GAP series in hardcover, but that's another story.

[Torrent]

I first read them when I was 18. It took me months to finish the series and at that time I considered myself a quick reader.

At times I hated the book, hated Covenant, at times I was just bored. It really was a struggle. But in the end I really got into it and learned to love it, and then it was a deep love mostly based on pain and suffering, I think. Yes, I cried. Yes, I felt scarred and torn and 10 years older after I'd finished the Chrons.

That was the first and - until now - the only time I read the books.
I've always had the intention to re-read it, but I don't know...somehow I didn't want to water up the experience by reading it over and over again, if you know what I mean. I wanted it to be something special, and I wanted to take my time. Sounds weird, I know.

Part of it always remained in my heart. I used to have the first book around, when I moved away for university. It was a good feeling to have it near me.

Now that I'm 31 I'm ready to read the Chronicles for the second time. I think I wanted to read them at Covenant's/Linden's age. And now that the third Chrons are going to be published, I think it is a good time to earnestly consider to start.

I want to add that the only person I've ever met in real life who's ever even heard of the Chronicles was a guy in Scotland. He was a friend's landlord in Glasgow. I stayed at his house for about a week on holiday and I never even got the opportunity to talk to him. But when I saw the books on his bookshelf it was a very weird feeling...even weirder than finding this forum.

[Ghostrider]

I first read Lord Foul's Bane when I was in 8th grade serving a string of Saturday detentions. I had the other books of the first chronicles, but didn't start on them until rereading LFB my freshman year in college.

Discovering there was a second chronicles stoked my interest and I got through all of them just in time for The Runes of the Earth.

I'm anxiously awaiting Fatal Revenant.

[bloodguard bob]

at 33 i was invited to be on Fantasy Bedtime Hour and i did two episodes before i decided to buy LFB and was hooked by the 3rd chapter. i read the First and Second Chronicles straight through; hence the reason i'm waiting for the completion of the final chrons to pick up Runes.
it's good to get back into sci-fi/fantasy. i went maybe twelve years only reading science/nature, cooking, reference, how-to and religion.

[Dawngreeter]

...somehow I didn't want to water up the experience by reading it over and over again, if you know what I mean. I wanted it to be something special, and I wanted to take my time. Sounds weird, I know.

Not weird. Only my second time around on the series now but as I read I am hoping that I forgot everything since the first time. There's nothing like the first time.

[Ur Dead]

I was about 25 when I read in 1979. The fun of reading it turned me mentally 12.

[lucimay]

when did the paperback of LFB come out?

thats when i read it. read them all in succession as they came out.
then read them all again.
then again.
and again.
then i took a break.

then the 2nd Chrons came out
and i read those as they came out

then, later, i read them all again.
thats when i started giving them away.
and each time i read them,
i gave them away.
i did that at least twice.

then Runes came out later
and i read them all before i bought it

i started reading them again recently.
in anticipation of FR.

and i'll be 49 in august.
so...how long is all that?