I read the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant when I was in High School. It was a profound and very interesting work. Even to my young eyes it was clear that Stephen liked to write with a Dictionary and Thesaurus close at hand, as the books were full of words like Elohim and Adumbrate and Loins. Streams of waters, were always rills. Large rocks were always megaliths. Nights were always Stygian. And so on and so forth. Reading these books was a vocabulary lesson as well as a heart wrenching story of loss and despair. And I loved every verbose,…