From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: What I can't read
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:01:38 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	I read Donaldson's first book, woke up, started his second, quit
about 1/4 of the way thru and never resumed.  That was about 20 years ago.
I believe that we're supposed to understand that the Land is a valid
alternate reality and "it's a dream" is the protagonist's mistaken analysis
of his experience.  He is called the Unbeliever for a reason.  However, all
of this is small bheer compared to having the protagonist be a rapist.
THAT's what offended me most!

-----Original Message-----
From: Erica VD Ginter [mailto:eginter at klgai.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 3:21 PM
To: 'WSFA members'
Subject: [WSFA] What I can't read

Michael walsh write:
There are authors who are ever so popular that I just can't read,  I =
suspect just mentioning one of them here would cause gasps of disbelief =
amongst some of the folks on this list.

Now there's an interesting topic!

I despise Stephen Donaldson. I only read the first book of his "Thomas"
series, but any writer who will steal that much content wholesale, fail to
provide an allegedly intelligent protagonist with the sense and deductive
ability the Lady gave to opossums (and I apologize to opossums), and end the
book with the ultimate cop-out (It was all a dream!) doesn't deserve to be
published by a vanity press.

On a less livid note, I've tried in vain to read Gene Wolfe; I think I'm
missing a critical lit'ry allele. I also can't read anything longer than a
short story in present tense; it irritates me. The only use I can see for
present tense would be a stiry in which the protagonist has no memory and
therefore no concept of past and future, or as a device to avoid letting the
reader know that the viewpoint character dies at the end.

Erica