Appendix N vs Appendix N

This was lost in my "Drafts" folder for about a year, and revived due to a post on Bebergal's book by a Redditor. So here ya go:

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I'm not a "student" of Appendix N, per se, although I had an inadvertent exposure to many of the books during my itinerant reading of youth: Lest Darkness Fall, Hiero's Journey, the Pellucidar stories, Lovecraft, Derleth, Tolkien (of course), and Wellman (via his non-Appendix N "Silver John" books). Mostly I didn’t ‘know’ these were Appendix N books, and although I bought the 1st Edition Dungeon Masters Guide new, I never took the deep dive into the Appendices. The books were just good stories, and thematic to what I was reading at the time.

More recently, I've explored Lieber, plus recent listens to authors such as Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith via audiobooks on long drives. I recently listened my way through Princess of Mars as a work accompaniment.

In 2020, I saw a link to a collection of short stories by Appendix N writers, touted as a survey of writers influential on Dungeons & Dragons. There was a limited hardcover run, so, intrigued, I sprung for it, and shared the info to a couple of social media sites. I was surprised to get comments along the lines of "Why did he steal the title from the Appendix N book?" "Who does he think he is?"

Surprisingly, books can share titles, or have similar titles... Who knew? 

So yes, two similarly-titled books. One is a collection of stories, and the second, a collection of essays reviewing the eponymous stories and novels. So I bought both. 

Appendix N fail - Thomas Covenant.

I recently found the Thomas Covenant trilogy at Goodwill, and since I had never read the books, picked them up.

The trilogy is regarded as influential in the fantasy genre, particularly for its archetypal anti-hero, or unlikable, unwilling hero in the form of Thomas Covenant. He is a depressive, divorced author suffering from leprosy, who is periodically torn from the modern world and tossed into the fantasy world of "The Land." Disoriented, full of doubt, and self-loathing (hence his nickname, 'The Unbeliever'), he is mistaken as a reincarnated hero from a past conflict.

And I can't get through these books.

Slogged through Lord Foul's Bane, and am currently about halfway through The Illearth War. Hile Troy and his small force are approaching Doom's Retreat for what is, at best, a delaying action. And Covenant is tagging after High Lord Elena in search of the Seventh Ward, a power that the Lords are not prepared to wield.

Gawd, these books are interminable reads.

I understand that Covenant is meant to be an unlikable character, and was prepared for that (I've read/enjoyed plenty of other anti-hero centered novels). But I find the writing turgid and melodramatic, and none of the 'good guys' to be engaging or sympathetic. I suspect that I need more context on Donaldson's influence or subtext, but so far this experience has moved far into the territory of books I "should" read, rather than I "want" to read.

Apropos, io9 just posted this article on the Rule of 50 for when to abandon a read.

So I'm setting Tom aside for a more attractive and relevant read. Perhaps I'll return to the trilogy, to skim through the rest of Illearth, and take on The Power That Preserves another time.

(Similarly, I've often joked that Harvard Lampoon's 'Bored of the Rings,' which pares down the LOTR trilogy into a single volume, while somehow not apparently losing any significant content, is the length that the original trilogy 'should' have been.)

Any similar observations, experiences or context?

Gotta love Goodwill

Making up some Appendix N negligence for about $6.