Yes, I DID get started with The Lord of the Rings before starting Thomas Covenant. But, it was never my favorite, for a number of reasons (IMO, very popular due to the fact that when it first appeared, there wasn't anything else like it).
I did manage to get through the books, mostly. My assessment was the following:
- The Fellowship of the Ring started slowly, but was interesting, then reached a point when I thought I would not continue when Tom Bombadil showed up. It reached the interesting point again when they reached the Mines of Moria.
- The Two Towers was very good, and I enjoyed it all the way though.
- The Return of the King was good through the destruction of the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. After that, things got so boring I just couldn't finish it, and I never have.
Over the years, there wasn't much for fantasy that I was really into or enjoyed reading - until I encountered The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, which got better and better with every book. This is still a favorite series, but I've become frustrated by the waiting game that has started establishing itself with multiple writers these days (George R. R. Martin and Robert Jordan fit under this umbrella as well - understood that Butcher has had some major life events the past several years, so I cut him some slack). Books were coming out every 1 or 2 years, and were getting longer and longer. When the next book in the series comes out, it will have been 5+ years, which is tough for a series with a complicated, ongoing story line. Plus, he's writing a second series as well, The Cinder Spires, which is a steampunk adventure (one of the better ones I've read), so this "waiting game" trend will continue.
However, The Dresden Files differs from Lord of the Rings and Thomas Covenant - it's not "high fantasy", it is "urban fantasy" - it takes place in modern day Chicago, not in an invented world.
As a side note, I also enjoyed the Codex Alera series by Butcher. The first book was amazing, but the books continued to get larger, and I found by book 5 (Princep's Fury), things were getting long winded and the story wasn't as interesting - I have yet to read the final volume.
Shortly after encountering Dresden, A Song of Ice and Fire was recommended, which, like Codex Alera, started off well enough, and the action continued through book three, and then the waiting game started for the final books. I didn't finish books 4 and 5 (which were originally 1 book - the action all takes place simultaneously, but there isn't much action). Similar to Lord of the Rings, the HBO production was better, even allowing for the disappointing final season.
Anyway, I've known about The Wheel of Time practically since it first appeared, but most people I knew at the time did not really count it as fantasy (as can be noted from earlier paragraphs, I've since learned that there are many sub-genres of Fantasy), and over time, many of the books were disappointing to fans, so I had a tendency to avoid these books, especially when it looked like Robert Jordan would not be finishing the series. Brandon Sanderson was selected to write the final book, which ended up becoming three books.
This latter item was a big red flag for me. Both A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time were originally envisioned as trilogies - now the former is expected to have seven books, and The Wheel of Time, now that it is concluded, has fourteen volumes. At the time, my concern was that both series were heading in the same direction, and neither would actually be completed.
But, a few people had advised me that the early books were quite good, and somewhere in the middle the story grinds to an absolute halt, with some number of books not really contributing to the main story, at which point many people just gave up. I've also been told that the conclusion, mostly written by Brandon Sanderson (based on notes from Robert Jordan), more than makes up for it.
Well, I decided to give the series a try. I bought the first book...and then it sat on a shelf for years and I somehow never got around to reading it. Now that Amazon is making a TV series out of it, I decided it was to try reading it.
My initial reaction is a mixed bag. The writing is good, but the pace is a little slow - at least 60 pages until something remotely interesting takes place, and then for a 150 pages the main characters are fleeing, occasionally with some interesting facts revealed. The biggest detractor is the descriptions - three pages to describe what a village looks like when the characters enter it is a bit much for me - and my understanding is that this gets worse in later volumes. I've heard rumor that these books could be cut in half with the amount of rambling description which is really unnecessary.
There were a few odd things. One chapter started off with a few pages that took place in the present, and then the rest of the chapter was a flashback, from the end of the previous chapter that dealt with these characters up to the present. This was a very odd flashback, and seemed unnecessary, given the linear flow of the rest of the book.
I also found it strange that the author decided to split the central characters, who were all traveling together, into three smaller groups, and then spend five whole chapters on the flight of two of the characters, while not adding much in the way of story progression - just the characters running from town to town. I believe this accounted for close to 100 pages of story. For the most part, a single chapter covered the same span of travel for the other two groups of characters. This just seemed an odd choice to make.
Anyway, once I was about two-thirds of the way through, the characters all came back together, and the story picks up pace, and we start to learn more interesting things. At this point, there were several surprises, and the story did not take the direction I thought it would.
I had a "what the hell happened" moment during an encounter near the end of the story. Perhaps this is just the author trying to keep things mysterious, and maybe we'll learn more about what really happened in later books. We'll see.
Overall, despite the slow places, I did enjoy the story and it held my interest - enough that I had a strong desire to read the second book. I will stick with it as long as it keeps me interested, and when it slows down too much, I'll re-evaluate whether I continue.
I know that many people have read this series over the last 30 years - I'd be interested in hearing from others who have read this book and the whole series. Please feel free to leave comments.
If you are looking for an interesting read, while slow at times, check this one out.
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