Dragaera

A question re: Beginning Fantasy for Youth

Mon Nov 25 09:02:43 PST 2002

David Dyer-Bennet wrote (in response to me):
> > As for Kurtz, yes, I was explicitly recommending the first two
> > trilogies.
>
> That's about right.  Either that or just the first 1.  I'd be very
> doubtful about anything past that, anyway.

I was trying to stick firmly to books published by 1982 or '83 at the latest
to be sure to be close to the right age range.  Then again, by the time I
was 11, I was well into Fantasy and working my way through Heinlein, Herbert
and a bunch of other hard SF.

> > Wow.  People feel strongly about Donaldson!
>
> True.  Well, about his *books*.  From what little I've seen of him

Touché.

> personally, he's not only a generally nice man, he even expresses all
> the right attitudes (i.e. he agrees with me) in philosophy-of-writing
> discussions.  I just can't stand the books he writes.

I'm curious.  A question especially for those who responded strongly to my
recommendation for the Covenant series, how old were you when you read them,
if you recall.  I, for example, do not recall the rape scene mentioned by
someone as being at the begining of the first one - Lord Foul's Bane -
although I think I do remember a human sacrifice.  It has been many years
since I went back an reread this one.  Ususally I'll start with The Illearth
War if I want to dip back into it.  I definitely read them before The One
Tree came out in April of '82 which means I was not yet 12 and may have been
only 10 when I started reading these.

Casey