The Books of Stephen Donaldson

The first book of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. The man in question is a leper who finds himself summoned into the fantasty realm of the Land. Here Covenant is heralded as the reincarnation of an ancient hero and is faced with a difficult choice; reject his power and responsibility and hopefully survive to return to the 'real' world or embrace the Land and it's people and, in doing so, abandon his sanity. I wasn't hugely impressed by the whole idea of a man taken from our world into a fantasy one and the suggestion at the end that it could all have been a dream was another nail in the coffin. Also, the plot of the book is basically that Covenant has to walk across the Land, deliver a message and then join an impossible quest. Also not very inspiring. Then there's the dialogue which is largely irrelevant and at times completely impenetrable. Ultimately, the book's biggest let down is Covenant himself. For a protagonist to really work in a story you have to either like them or empathise with them and it's almost impossible to do either with Covenant. He begins by raping the girl who was his guide and goes on to insult and argue with every other character he meets, regardless of how they treat him. Rather than exploring the psychological and philosophical ramifications of leprosy, Donaldson just has Covenant use it as an excuse to be a complete bastard. What should be noted in the book's defence is that the author does a fantastic job of bring the Land to life in his writing. Donaldson's wordplay conjured up vivid images in my mind of forbidding mountains, sweeping planes and ancient woodlands. It is the quality of the author's descriptive ability which has led me to give the book three out of five (instead of two).