A Book Not to Read

I don't usually do this, I am such a book pusher most of the time, but I have come across a total waste of time, money and readers imagination. So I decided to post a warning. Do not read the newest Thomas Covenant book titled: Runes of the Earth. Good title, excellent potential just because its written by Stephen Donaldson and belongs to his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series. Unfortunately it never stops being utterly disappointing.

I am at least two thirds of my way through the book, which is much too far in to still be wondering when its going to pick up and get good. I was so damned excited about reading it too. What a waste. I don't know what the author was thinking, but he seems to have completely forgotten the desirable qualities that existed in the earlier stories. Namely Thomas Covenant. I mean, how can you relate this book to those earlier ones and not use either the original main character, or if you can't (because he's dead) then you must replace him with another main character who might possess a similar... distastefulness. After all, Covenant was a leper who raped an innocent young girl trying to help him and failed his friends time and time again. An un-hero worth remembering...

What Mr. Donaldson has done is take the wimpy character from the last story and make her the main character, and even throws in some kind of a plot line about trying to save her son. Give me a fucking break... Thomas Covenant never cared about saving anyone but himself, so why should we? Dammit I hate when an author tries to cash in on prior success because he's run out of creative juices and then sells us a piece of crap with a good name.

I give this book a big flip of the old bird.