Dedication
This blog is dedicated to Stephen R. Donaldson, who created Thomas Covenant, one of the great heroes of modern fantasy. Holding a sharp blade in his half hand, missing two fingers, and usually with only water to help smoothen its action, he raises shaving to an act of heroism. To confound readers and the characters who are dependent on him, Covenant would chose the most inconvenient times to insist on shearing off his beard.
“I had conceived the ambition to write a fantasy novel about a “real” character who rejected the fantasy experience (no doubt partly in an attempt to answer my own questions about why fantasy matters); and it occurred to me one day that if I wanted my character to have any true substance, he would have to be someone with very personal reasons to prefer fantasy (a leper, in this case)—someone for whom integrity is more important than convenience or easy gratification. And, of course, integrity is a journey. We don’t simply have it. First, we have to discover it. Then we have to earn it.”—SRD
