Chazzbot's Reviews > Lord Foul's Bane

It's not so much the story--in itself, this is a well-crafted fantasy world, complete with noble horse-riding peoples, stern giants, and delicate elven-folk on a quest of profound importance against an enemy of world-shattering magnitude--as much as Donaldson's overwrought prose that makes this series something of a drag to read. Donaldson wants his tale to carry all the mythic import of Tolkien, but he doesn't quite have the poetic flair that makes Tolkien's characters live and breathe for us. Instead, Donaldson substitutes a needlessly ornate vocabulary and an unlikeable protagonist to challenge the reader's notions of conventional fantasy. In doing so, however, Donaldson forgets to give us any reason to care about his characters. You don't get much more earnest than naming your main character Thomas Covenant! Is this supposed to be profound? When I first read this series, I took Donaldson's verbosity as a representation of Covenant's inner turmoil, but on re-reading this book, I think it's just that Donaldson is not a very good writer.