Donaldson post

Donaldson dropped the ball

The most upsetting aspect of completing the Thomas Covanent series was that the concept could have been pulled off really well. The idea of a downtrodden leper entering a new world and facing a prophesy about himself is interesting. It could have worked out really very beautifully. The biggest problem for the series failure for me is the author.
I don’t like Donaldson’s style of writing at all. The vocabulary he uses is so excessively complex that he put a Thomas Covanent The Unbeliever dictionary on his website. Placing so many large words in a text is distracting to the reader. Someone shouldn’t have to reach for his or her dictionary every few minutes while reading a book. It also makes Donaldson look self- righteous.
Aside from that, I did not like his main character. I did not care about the fate of Thomas Covanent and ultimately I did not care about his journey. I feel like Donaldson was trying too hard to write a series. It felt very forced. The characters were not consistent (as seen with the lengthy, emotional speeches by the Bloodguard) and the constant prospect of the Land being a dream prevented me from investing myself in this fantasy world.
If Donaldson had relaxed a bit more when writing these books I think the result would have been much more enjoyable. The themes of war, violence, and suffering are interesting in the context he placed them but his execution fell short. I don’t believe Donaldson is a major author. For me, a major fantasy author should be an exceptional storyteller. In my opinion, Donaldson is not a good storyteller. I could not invest myself in his world, which is something I look for in fantasy writing. Donaldson dropped the ball on a trilogy that had great potential to be a lasting positive contribution to the fantasy genre.