It's funny cause it's true.

Remember Stephen Donaldson?

If you do, you've probably read his fantasy series, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Donaldson had a style of writing ...uniquely his own in that series, which showed what can happen to a man under the influence of thesauri. In a recent discussion of Donaldson in rec.arts.sf.written, Joel Baxter illustrated his style as follows:

"Some coffee, Mr. Covenant?"

"No!" he panted, glaring. The gelid liquid was anthraciously black, atramentous, nigrescent as his carious and macerated soul. "No," he groaned. "Do you hear? I will not!" Shaking, he fumbled for his empty mug, clawing at it with numb hands like blocks of rotted wood. Finally, gasping, he closed his fingers on the malefic vessel, upending it, then ramming it downward to the table again... violently stopping the irrefragable, ineluctable maw with intransigent formica. The sudden whipcrack sound threw a refulgent oriflamme of pain across his sight, and he closed his eyes with a febrile shudder. "No," he whispered. No more. No more.

"All righty then, I'll be right back with your check!"

It's funny because it's true.

Posted by Martin Wisse at 3:10AM PST [ | Permalink ]

Ik heb al die mens zijn boeken gelezen, vrees ik. Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, een en twee. Mordant's Need. En de hele Gap-serie. Als ik me niet vergis was mijn eerste hardcover ooit één van de Gap-boeken. Gekocht in een science fictionboekhandel in New York.