From: "Casey Rousseau" <casey at trinityhartford.org> >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. ah, the memories that this has dredged up. summer of 1977, i think; was 11 and my mom somehow scraped the money together to allow me to buy whatever i wanted from the scifi book club. mainly bought collections, like _again dangerous visions_ and _epoch_, most of which went right over my head, but i also recall sitting outside of our soon-to-be-condemned one-bedroom house, on the front porch sofa, reading _lord foul's bane_, my first or second fantasy book. the other was _sword of shannara_ which was the first non-children's book that disappointed me. recall being boggled by this, that a book might not be *good*. but as for covenant, loved it. hated the main character, thought that was odd, that the main character could be someone not likeable; but loved the world, and all the other characters: saltheart foamfollower and lord mhoram most of all. was asked a couple of years back if there were any fictional characters that i could see myself as, in the place of, and struggled, couldn't think of any at first: corwin, vlad, elric, etc....i'm not like any of these people. but then remembered the lord mhoram. ah, have to reread them now :) and i recall being fourteen, in freshman english, the teacher/football coach called away from class because football trumped english, and my best friend bemoaning the lack of series in progress, saying all the great series were finished: _dune_, _foundation_, etc. (back when there were only three of each of those, and no sequels yet in sight) and i was able to pipe in with donaldson and chalker. he did, iirc, get into _the well of souls_, but had no interest in fantasy. i recall waiting impatiently for _the one tree_ to arrive, and then being floored by what lord foul had done to the land, so terrible and enthralling. remember several friends in high school telling me that they couldn't finish _lord foul's bane_, and my giving them what became a stock reply: "yes, yes, covenant's an asshole, but...", and prevailing upon them, sometimes successfully, to continue reading. and lying on the floor of my dorm room in korea in 1985, listening to my new old zeppelin records and rereading the series, because ketchup goes with everything. ah, a million pardons for my dreadful nostalgification, but, come to think of it, i wouldn't recommend these either, not in this situation. although, it does have a pro-theistic point, in that covenant was chosen by the creator, who had hope that he could defeat lord foul. this is another of my favorite things about the series, that the person to pass from our world to the land would have to be acceptable to both the creator and his enemy, someone that lord foul would believe to be corruptable, but that the creator would believe to be redeemable. one last memory, apologies again to whoever might still be reading, remember telling people that "yes, it's a terrible book, perhaps poorly written, too, but it's also a great book." had forgotten that, even though that's how i describe _atlas shrugged_, nowadays. appy polly loggies, chris cunningham