Let me start by saying that I hate, yes HATE, the fantasy genre.  The made up little worlds with the stupid little names and ultimate good vs. evil plots.  For some reason they just annoyed me.  I think I am one of about five people that hated The Hobbit - I quit reading it 1/2 way through and never picked it up again.  It all just seemed too idiotic for me; too much boring symbolism and rhetoric.  So, at the tender age of about 13, I had sworn off the whole genre.  Then just before a camping vacation with my family, a friend suggested I read Lord Foul's Bane.  I rolled my eyes in that particularly grating teenage way and told him thanks but no thanks.  I mean Lord Foul?  Really?  That is the name of the evil character?  The author couldn't come up with at better name than that?  But the friend persisted so I gave it a try and was amazed.

Yes, Stephen R Donaldson, the author, uses tons of dumb names i.e. The Land, Berek Halfhand (he actually had half a hand), Drool Rockworm, Saltheart Foamfollower, etc., but it was the lead character that blew me away - Thomas Covenant.  Well, it wasn't just the lead character, it was also the way he presented the fantasy world.

See, Thomas Covenant exists in the real world and has many real world problems including Leprosy and an ex-wife.  You never really know whether the fantasy world even exists because it may be just in Thomas' mind.  The only way that Thomas (sometimes I call him Tom) gets to the fantasy world is through some near life ending injuries (hit by car, falls through glass coffee table, etc). And he always returns to the real world minutes after these injuries have occured no matter how long he was in the fantasy world.  I found that all intriguing.  Especailly since Thomas is kinda the anti-hero.  He rapes a woman when he first enters the fantasy world, he never really wants to do anything and he is always complaining.  Yet, he always seems to do the right thing at the right time for this fantasy world.

Lord Foul's Bane is the first of two trilogies on Thomas Covenant.  I like the first series a lot more than the second.

I tried a couple of fantasy books after the Thomas Covenant series but could never really get into them so this series is the only fantasy books that I would recommend.

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