Sherman continues marching through the Georgia of my bookshelves, throwing the rear area of my mind into considerable disarray. In the process, I’ve chosen to get rid of some more books:

Stephen R. Donaldson: Donaldson is the author of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, an epic fantasy that people I knew either loved or hated. The main character is, literally, a leper; and near the first book he commits a brutal rape. There are reasons—not excuses or justifications, mind you—and that’s where most of the ladies dropped the book. There were good things in it, though, past that. The second book was spotty, but the third was really amazingly good. I liked them all well enough that I got the complete set in hardcover.

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant followed some time later, and they were….a disappointment. Donaldson cashed in all of the checks he’d written in the first trilogy, describing all of the strange and far off places and peoples he’d hinted at, and frankly the detail was a lot less interesting than the hints. I bought the books in hardcover, expecting to love them, but I don’t think I’ve read the last book of the three more than twice. In fact, I don’t think I finished it the second time. I can’t imagine attempting them again.

After that, or possibly between the First and Second Chronicles, Donaldson wrote Mordant’s Need, a pair of massive novels that I also bought in hardcover. The first of the two is very slow; the second picks up quite a bit, as all of the things set up in the first begin to pay off. Alas, I can’t imagine re-reading the second without re-reading the first to remind myself what all was going on; and I can’t imagine re-reading the first at this late date.

Donaldson’s next series began with a short novel (short! wow!) called The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict, which I bought eagerly in hardcover, and was so repelled by that I got rid of it almost immediately. All I remember is two people on a spaceship, with one of them doing unspeakable things to the other. (Gladly, I no longer remember what those things were.)

After that, I was pretty much through with Donaldson; but the books have been sitting on my shelves unread for probably twenty years. Enough’s enough. I might keep the original Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but I can’t imagine reading any of the others.

Robert B. Parker: The Spenser novels, of course. I’ve read most of these two or three times, but I’ve not touched them in ages. Parker’s got a real talent, but the books are spotty, and I’m simply done with them.

Michael Moorcock: Moorcock was another favorite of my high school and college years. I’ve always enjoyed the sense that a book I’m reading is part of something bigger, that there’s secret knowledge out there just waiting for me to find the book that contains it, that there’s a fabulous world out there to discover. Moorcock has an amazing knack for fostering this: every one of his books is filled with obscure little references to the other books. Certain odd characters recur, sometimes with slight name changes, from book to book—or seem to recur, as their personalities often differ greatly. Names or plot elements from other books are briefly mentioned here and there. Certain themes are constant.

And yet, eventually I discovered that the apparent unity of Moorcock’s books, the greater world into which they all fit, was really so much smoke and mirrors. The unity was all surface; and more than that, the whole thing was drenched with a cynicism about people and about the whole genre of heroic fantasy that poisoned my enjoyment.

So, around twenty years ago I got rid of my entire collection of Moorcock’s books. And then, around ten years ago his books started coming out in omnibus editions. There were a fair number I hadn’t read, and some that I’d like better than most, and I was curious to see whether my opinion had changed. My thoughts were mixed. Some were better than I’d remembered; some were worse; but in general, no. They’ve been sitting on the shelf waiting to go for a long time.

I’ve since learned that he dislikes Tolkien. Figures.

For what it’s worth, though, I still love Frazetta’s cover for The Silver Warriors.

That’s three more grocery bags full….