Books: Against All Things Ending by Stephen R. Donaldson (2010)

I don’t know. I mean, I think I remember enjoying The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant when I read those books 30 years ago. But then again, back when the dinosaurs were roaming the Earth, I read almost every fantasy book that come out between 1979 and the mid-1990s. Maybe my perceptive of them has dimmed in those three decades. Or, after reading so many of them, when I finally decided that the fantasy genre was just repeating itself like an old song, I should’ve never gone back to the genre.

Still, there was Harry Potter, which did rekindle my interest in it a bit, along with Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series (though both writers pen for kids more than adults). But overall, my relevance in reading what was once a very important genre has gone the way of the dodo. Part of the reason started with Robert Jordan’s overlong Wheel in Time series. While the idea of a six book series (which was the original intention) seemed daunting –which it was back in 1990- it promised and epic story that could rival Tolkien in scope –and, obviously, length.

But from the start, I really disliked Rand al’Thor–the young man at the center of this story- along with his two friends Perrin and Matrim and potential love interest Egwene. All were petulant, unappealing and, at times, childish. While someone new to the genre might like that, by the time I started reading them (as they came out), I was bored with the whole anti-hero, because Stephen R. Donaldson had already done that with the six volumes that make up the Thomas Covenant series (plus, as Jordan began to expand the story –the six was now to become twelve, though it eventually topped out at fourteen- he needed new characters to help fully realize the many different factions within this universe he created. So while the scale of what Jordan was doing could be deemed impressive, in doing so many fans felt the novels where slowed down, and that major characters introduced in the first book, essentially were reduced to making just extended cameos in those later volumes. This has begun to plague George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series as well).

For me, Against All Things Ending suffers from being the penultimate volume in a four book series –Donaldson needs to set all the pieces for the final volume. This creates a huge problem in that the set pieces of this novel are few and far between and instead we get a lot of talking, a lot of hand wringing from Linden Avery (who had devolved into a sad, pathetic hero who thinks she can solve all the Lands problems, but really can’t so she uses the magic of the Staff of Law to resurrect Thomas Covenant from the Arch of Time) and a “fellowship” of outcasts who follow Avery, even though I can’t seem to understand fully why (and the only interesting character is The Ardent –a Time Lord/Q like man whose mission is to make sure the The Harrow keeps his word. But even he comes off as silly construct, with the ability to transport the entire Team Linden Avery away from danger when needed, creating -once again- a deus ex machina).

This reliance on an overlarge cast –so big, it seems, they’re incompetent in doing anything - because it’s simply impossible for them to arrive at a consensus about what to do next. And like The Game of Thrones series, Donaldson writes pages and pages of each of those characters reaction when things do happen. This hinders the pacing of the entire book, especially the second half. 

There is no sense of urgency in the fact that the collateral damage to Linden resurrecting Covenant means the destruction of the Land has begun. Do they try to figure out a way to solve this conundrum? Yeah, but in the meantime, Donaldson has his characters shillyshally over stupid personal issues –not to mention that everyone seems to dislike everyone else and that has to rear its head everywhere. It’s like arguing who would win in a fight, Kirk or Picard, while the Zombie Apocalypse is knocking on your door and breaking through the cracks. They torture themselves, as well, over every bad decision, wrestle with every possible action and willfully seem ignorant that their inaction is doing more damage than them actually trying to prevent The Lands destruction. 

After three books, it seems clear to me that Stephen R. Donaldson bit off more than he could chew. The plot has been very thin here, and I remain unsure why he felt The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant needed four books to conclude this series when the first two were able to be told in three. The want to describe everything in great detail, the necessity for characters to ask a question, which then demands a page and half of anxiety description before we get an elusive answer is annoying – not to mention Donaldson's prodigious vocabulary. 

I will conclude the series, but I need a break. I need to read something a little less dense, a little less whiny and a little less frustrating.

Books: Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line By Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham (2014)

While waiting for the Library to notify me that the next book I ordered has arrived, I picked up Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham that was sitting on my shelf. 

Media tie-ins are always tricky. Mostly because what happens in them is not canon to the TV or movie franchise they’re based on. So they sort of exist in a parallel universe, even as this title picks up some two month after the events of the movie. If Thomas can produce another movie, however, there is no obligation to follow what happens in this breezy, easy to read novel. 

Its spring break, which means Neptune is crawling with co-eds, so when a girl goes missing while on vacation with some of her girlfriends, Veronica Mars takes on her first case after the events of the movie. But like the TV series, nothing is quite as it seems and Veronica soon finds herself dealing with people far more dangerous than she had originally planned. But when a development in the case brings someone important back into her life, Veronica must do something even more challenging: confront her past.

The book is able to give more time to characters that got to little screen time in the film (Wallace and Mac), and a few lingering questions about some of the individuals answered almost immediately after they’re introduced in the book -like how Keith got his new detective digs (though no real explanation of the house he lives in now, considering in the series they lived in a crappy apartment {though realistically, that crappy apartment was on the ocean and there should’ve been no way Mars could afford that place as well}). We see almost every character from the show, with the exception of Piz –and I’m assuming they’ll explore that issue in further novels or another movie if Rob Thomas gets a chance to do one. 

The best part is the novel progresses much like the TV series; a few red herrings and the usual plot twist/game-changer that occurs towards the end. Like I said, this book is so easy to read, you feel like your watch the show!

While the mystery itself isn’t quite up to par with some of the best Veronica Mars episode, it’s entertaining. Strangely, though, the book is told in third-person point of view, while the movie and TV series always seemed to be told from Veronica’s point of view. First POV usually works better for these whodunits, but here that different style actually works better –we get a better insight I think into what Veronica is feeling.

Again, with this tie-in, none of what happens can actually be called canon –even if there are no other movies (which I doubt). But it was a nice cleansing pallet after the last two Donaldson books that I can look pass some of its shortcomings and enjoy these wonderful characters.

Books: Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson (2007)

Fatal Revenant picks up where The Runes of the Earth ended with the return of Thomas Covenant and Linden’s autistic son Jeremiah. Happy to see both of them alive –considering Covenant is dead and her son in the clutches of Lord Foul- she races to greet them. But, of course, this is a Stephen R. Donaldson book, and nothing goes anywhere near to perfect.

Covenant, who is part of the Arch of Time now, claims he is using vast amount of power to “project” himself and Jeremiah to be in two places at once. And if she touches either of them, she’ll undo time itself, because she has the powerful Staff of Law and the wild magic of white gold. 

So Linden has to somehow be close to her son and not be able to hold him; so, Donaldson being par for the course on causing his characters more pain and suffering. 

I really liked the first part of this book, as Covenant, Linden and her son go on a quest, apparently, to save the world – but something is manifestly wrong. Linden’s journey once again takes her into the past and she learns more about the world’s history (this happened in the first book as well). While this first half really consists of Linden tagging along with others, in ends with a startling reveal and a violent confrontation with her many enemies. And the best set piece by far in the first two books.

As with the previous book, there’s a lot of travel and talk, but here everything moves along with more of a purpose (I think the first book covered less than a week, but even here the days seem to go on). But Linden remains not a strong hero, which is probably why I liked the first half better. Covenant at least brought some humor and some much needed lightness (which is ironic, considering he is a hugely dark character) to the book. The angsty crap of Linden Avery gets repetitive and slows the story down. So the second half seemed to drag and found myself passing over a lot of pages. 

My other issue is all the seemingly all-powerful, all-knowing characters who continually pop up and tell Linden what to do, but don’t explain why or answer her questions. While I assume there is a purpose here, it gets tiresome after a while. Also, one of these folks, the Insequent, we are seeing for the first time and they come across as being awkwardly wedge into the history of the Land. If they’re so important (they seem like Time Lords in many ways, arrogant and all knowing), why are we just hearing about them now (though it’s his universe and if he wants to add more dues ex machina to it, whom am I to complain)?

Donaldson admits he has a large vocabulary and is not afraid to use it, and he especially seems to have a fondness of obscure old English words, many which sound made up, but are, in fact real –he gets his money worth out that Roget apparently.  After reading many fantasy books over the last three decades, I can easily pass over them and I do get the gist of them, but this can be daunting for a new reader. 

As I move onto book three, I ponder where this will all end – he seems to be turning Linden into the one who’ll destroy the Land and Roger who will save it. Is it red herring? With Donaldson you never know.

Books: The Runes of the Earth By Stephen R. Donaldson (2004)

When Stephen R. Donaldson returned to the series that made him (bad or good) famous some 20 years after the last book in that series, the biggest question was could he recapture the same audience who read those six tomes back in the early 80s, plus find a new audience that –most likely- never read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (Lord Foul’s Bane, The Illearth War, The Power that Preservers) and The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Wounded Land, The One Tree, White Gold Wielder)? 

It’s always a huge gamble to let a series sit so fallow, but Donaldson felt to complete the series, he needed some time -"the SecondChronicles taught me that I needed to become a much better writer before Itackled The Runes of the Earth and the rest of the Last Chronicles.” So between 1983 and 2004, he spent a good amount of time writing the science fiction themed The Gap series and penning mysteries. As mentioned previously, he was one of the first few authors in the late 1970s to really build on what J.R.R. Tolkien began in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series. Of course, to set his own distinctive voice, his books were darker and a bit more modern, with an anti-hero whom refused to believe that a place like The Land could exist in the first place. His “high fantasy” books were designed to be more realistic (which, I realize, in a series set in a fantasy land is an oxymoron), with environmental themes and a lot of existentialism. 

When I read them back then, I remember enjoying them because while they were much like Tolkien, they were completely different as well. But I never re-read them (and to be honest, I never knew he had intended to continue the series) if only because I was reading so much other high fantasy, I could never find the time to return to The Land. So in 2004, when this book came out, The Runes of the Earth, I began (what ultimately became) a ten year odyssey of whether I should re-read those six books just so I could read the first of four new books (and I had made a choice back then to stop reading multi-volume series because A, there was so much more I wanted to read and could not devote my time to them, and B, unlike like the first six books that where released one year apart, it could be many years now between books.

But realizing he finished the last book in October of 2013 (almost ten years after he started up again), and that I had at least book one sitting in the garage, I decided to come back to The Land without re-reading the other books again, even though now in 2014, it had been thirty years since I read them. The good thing about them is that Donaldson always wrote a “what came before" -basically, it was “previously on Thomas Covenant" for today's audience.

While it is helpful, as I read I began to wonder if maybe I should’ve re-read the other books. It wasn’t that I couldn’t follow the book, it was that Donaldson kept bring back small pieces, ideas from those books with little explanation (not that I guess I needed them, I’m assuming he felt that anyone reading this new series was a fan and had already read them). But if you were new to this series, you were going to be lost a bit. 

The story begins 10 years after White Gold Wielder (though in the Land, some 3,500 years have passed) and “Linden Avery is now in charge of a clinic for the mentally ill and is responsible, among other things, for caring for Joan Covenant. Roger, son of Thomas and Joan, comes to visit for the first time in many years and seeks to take Joan out of care, claiming that he wants to assume responsibility for the task himself. Roger also demands of Linden his late father's white gold wedding ring, which she does not relinquish. Linden remains suspicious of his intentions, but she is not able to prevent his forceful removal of Joan at gunpoint, and his abduction of Linden's adopted son, Jeremiah. Casualties mount as Joan is taken and — whilst attempting to intervene — Linden, Joan, Roger, and Jeremiah are plunged into the Land, where they must adjust to its new demands.

“On return to the Land, she discovers that the people have no knowledge of the Earthpower she had so cherished before and this knowledge has been denied them by the blight on the land known as Kevin's Dirt. Also this ancient lore is kept from them by the Haruchai, who have now taken upon themselves total responsibility for the Land's defense, discouraging the learning of Earthpower and a knowledge of the Land's history. They have become the "Masters” of the Land. Also, the Land has been beset by caesures (or "Falls") which are strange disruptions created from wild magic by Joan in her madness.

“Linden learns that the Staff of Law, which she left in the care of Sunder and Hollian at the conclusion of The Second Chronicles, was later lost by their son. Its loss has contributed to the degradation of The Land and the changes she discovers, though there is evidence it may still exist, hidden somewhere. This is her only hope, for past events have also altered the Law of Time, the prison which confines Lord Foul, whose abrogation and presence can be discerned in the caesures which currently roam and menace the countryside. Thus Linden begins a long and arduous search for both her son and the Staff, aided as well as opposed by likely and unlikely foes and allies, including the Ramen and Ranyhyn, the Demondim and their spawn, and the mysterious, possibly deranged and near omnipotent character Esmer, son of Cail and the Dancers of the Sea, as well as, regardless of his father, the implacable enemy of the Haruchai.”

While the book runs 513 pages, Donaldson spends nearly 80 pages in the real world setting up what comes after. It’s tedious and takes forever to schlep through. But once the characters make the transition to The Land, the narrative quickens and tale launches into a more assured and sustained focus. Donaldson writes with all the narrative vigor and imaginative world-building that made me enjoy the first series. His tale is rich in paradox, with metaphor and symbolism, and he continues his explorations into the psyches of his characters, as well as themes of madness, estrangement, guilt and personal responsibility.

Books: The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore (2014)

We return to the late 13^th Century and to see how Pocket of Dog Snogging is getting on since the events of 2009’s Fool. And as much as that book was a skewering of Shakespeare’s King Lear, this one takes on both The Merchant of Venice and Othello by the legendary writer and adds a bit of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado. 

I like Christopher Moore, but I kind of wish he not do sequels to his books. I mean, I loved his 1995 bestseller, Bloodsucking Fiends, but his 2007 follow-up You Suck and 2010 follow-up of that, Bite Me, never achieved the same sort of hilarity of the first. And while I kind of wish he do a follow up to 2006’s A Dirty Job, I’m now hoping he doesn’t -but I think he is. I saw him in 2012 for the tour of Sacré Bleu in Pasadena and he mentioned he was working on one.  

Pocket has been sent to Venice by his queen, Cordelia, to stop a war, and he quickly finds himself caught in multiple revenge schemes. The cast of characters is drawn from both of these famous plays, but also adds a disappointingly brief cameo of Marco Polo (which made me pine once again for the long-lost Doctor Who serial of the same name). The problem here, Polo’s appearance seems wedged in just to move the plot along. It’s a bit contrived and to be honest, now reflecting on it hours after finishing the book, Polo would’ve made for a much more interesting story without all the theatrics of Shakespeare added in.

Yet. 

Yet, even a sub-par Christopher Moore book is still better than most. While this story is not fully narrated by Pocket (which it should’ve), Moore still shows why he’s a genius at what he does, as the book does some great and snappy dialogue with a lot of self-referential comments. The bawdy jokes remain as well (there is not a four-letter word Pocket cannot use), and Moore’s marvelous prose remains as his greatest trademark (the Pound-of-Flesh trial shines with his abundant wit and cleverness). 

Not as astute or as amusing as Fool, but Moore’s The Serpent of Venice reads like an old friend you’ve out grown -it’s still nice to see them every once in a while.