More of wot I have read…

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks

This was an interesting book and it is clear that the author has spent a lot of time researching his subject, unfortunately some of the extended passages detailing various psychiatric illnesses and treatments were too long, and frankly boring, for my tastes.


‘In the 1870s, two ambitious boys from different backgrounds, Jacques Rebiere and Thomas Midwinter, find themselves united by a determination to understand how the mind works and whether madness is the price we pay for being human.

As pioneering psychiatrists, their quest takes them from an English country lunatic asylum to the plains of Africa, the lecture rooms of Paris and the mountains of Austria and California. They are guided by Thomas’s devoted sister, Sonia, and by an ex-patient, Katharina, whose arrival exposes profound differences between them. As the concerns of the old century fade and the Fist world War divides Europe, the two friends are compelled to a tragic revision of all that they have loved and pursued.’



The Runes of the Earth by Stephen Donaldson

This is the first book in THE LAST CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT

It has been many years since I read the first and second trilogies and I remembered how I found the character’s human frailties frustrating. Well the author has continued this with this book and I again find myself almost shouting at the character to ‘get a grip’. Still this conflict of a damaged and worthless person from one world being thrust into another where they are powerful and can’t come to terms with it is what drives the story. It is a difficult read from that point of view, but I hope that is down to me not the author, as I like the basic premise.


‘Since their publication more than twenty years ago, the first six books in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant have sold more than 10 million copies and have been published around the world. Now, with The Runes of the Earth, Donaldson returns to the Land, and the story of Thomas Covenant.

Struck down with a deadly disease, Covenant is abandoned by his wife and son. Alone and despairing, he is drawn into the Land, where the earth itself brings healing. He is welcomed as the reincarnation of a legendary saviour, but cannot - will not - accept this magical world is real. But the Land itself is under threat, and only Covenant has the power to save it.

As Covenant battles to save the world he has come to love, he is killed: his death is both the ultimate sacrifice and his redemption.

Now comes the book every fantasy reader has been waiting for. It's ten years on, and Dr. Linden Avery had thought she would never see the Land, or Covenant, her beloved, again. But Lord Foul has stolen her adopted son, and there is more at risk than the life of the boy she adores: Lord Foul is unmaking the very laws of nature and if he is not stopped, he could destroy everything.

And though Linden believes Covenant dead, he keeps sending her messages: 'Find me', and 'You're the only one who can do this', and 'Remember that I'm dead'.

The Land is in turmoil, and Lord Foul has plans for them all...’