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The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #3
Against All Things Ending
Desperate for help to find her adopted son, Jeremiah, Linden Avery has resurrected Thomas Covenant in a cataclysmic exertion of Earthpower and wild magic. But the consequences of her efforts are more terrible than she could have imagined. Sorcery on that scale has awakened the Worm of the World's the ultimate end of all Time, and therefore of all life, has been set in motion. And on a more personal level, the results are no less extreme. The stress of reincarnation so many centuries after his death has fractured Covenant's mind. He cannot tell Linden where to find her son. And his leprosy has renewed its grip on him, inexorably killing his nerves. The Ranyhyn had tried to warn her. Now, plunged to depths of desperation and despair for which she is entirely unprepared, Linden seeks radical responses to the dilemmas she has created. Searching for Jeremiah, and accompanied only by a few friends and allies - some of them unwilling - she takes chances that threaten her sanity, forcing her to confront the Land's most fearsome secrets. Dreadful futures hinge on all of her choices, and she and her companions are driven beyond the limits of their endurance. Yet she still walks paths laid out for her by the Despiser, and his forces are ready ...
772 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
295 people are currently reading
3679 people want to read
About the author
Stephen R. Donaldson
134 books2,719 followersStephen Reeder Donaldson is an American fantasy, science fiction, and mystery novelist; in the United Kingdom he is usually called "Stephen Donaldson" (without the "R"). He has also written non-fiction under the pen name Reed Stephens.
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION:
Stephen R. Donaldson was born May 13, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, James, was a medical missionary and his mother, Ruth, a prosthetist (a person skilled in making or fitting prosthetic devices). Donaldson spent the years between the ages of 3 and 16 living in India, where his father was working as an orthopaedic surgeon. Donaldson earned his bachelor's degree from The College of Wooster and master's degree from Kent State University.
INSPIRATIONS:
Donaldson's work is heavily influenced by other fantasy authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Roger Zelazny, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and William Faulkner. The writers he most admires are Patricia A. McKillip, Steven Erikson, and Tim Powers.
It is believed that a speech his father made on leprosy (whilst working with lepers in India) led to Donaldson's creation of Thomas Covenant, the anti-hero of his most famous work (Thomas Covenant). The first book in that series, Lord Foul's Bane, received 47 rejections before a publisher agreed to publish it.
PROMINENT WORK:
Stephen Donaldson came to prominence in 1977 with the The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which is centred around a leper shunned by society and his trials and tribulations as his destiny unfolds. These books established Donaldson as one of the most important figures in modern fantasy fiction.
PERSONAL LIFE:
He currently resides in New Mexico.
THE GRADUAL INTERVIEW
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION:
Stephen R. Donaldson was born May 13, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, James, was a medical missionary and his mother, Ruth, a prosthetist (a person skilled in making or fitting prosthetic devices). Donaldson spent the years between the ages of 3 and 16 living in India, where his father was working as an orthopaedic surgeon. Donaldson earned his bachelor's degree from The College of Wooster and master's degree from Kent State University.
INSPIRATIONS:
Donaldson's work is heavily influenced by other fantasy authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Roger Zelazny, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and William Faulkner. The writers he most admires are Patricia A. McKillip, Steven Erikson, and Tim Powers.
It is believed that a speech his father made on leprosy (whilst working with lepers in India) led to Donaldson's creation of Thomas Covenant, the anti-hero of his most famous work (Thomas Covenant). The first book in that series, Lord Foul's Bane, received 47 rejections before a publisher agreed to publish it.
PROMINENT WORK:
Stephen Donaldson came to prominence in 1977 with the The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which is centred around a leper shunned by society and his trials and tribulations as his destiny unfolds. These books established Donaldson as one of the most important figures in modern fantasy fiction.
PERSONAL LIFE:
He currently resides in New Mexico.
THE GRADUAL INTERVIEW
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 315 reviews
March 30, 2011
Make no mistake: among all the Thomas Covenant books (of which this is the 9th, and one more to come ~2013), this is the most difficult to read. Not for the prose or style (which has been called, by various people, "Epic," "Operatic," and "too d***ed wordy,") nor for the vocabulary (even the most astute readers tend to keep their dictionaries handy when reading a Donaldson tome), but for the sheer emotional impact it will have on you.
The book is perfectly named. The ancient enemy of the Land, Lord Foul the Despiser, raged a physical war in the first Chronicles. In the Second chronicles, nature itself was mercilessly perverted in the form of the Sunbane, which destroyed the natural order of the seasons. In the Final Chronicles, the nature of time and space themselves are under attack, as Lord Foul attempts to end his eternal imprisonment by destroying reality itself.
In a fight to save the very fact of reality and existence, Thomas Covenant, Linden Avery, and their companions are forced to make extreme sacrifices. You will be horrified by the cost of fighting despair; but you will also exult in the victories gained.
With this addition, the Final Chronicles have finally surpassed the previous series, and rival Donaldson's GAP Cycle as his magnum opus. Now, all that's left is the final chapter ("The Last Dark," due out in 2013) and it will be complete.
The book is perfectly named. The ancient enemy of the Land, Lord Foul the Despiser, raged a physical war in the first Chronicles. In the Second chronicles, nature itself was mercilessly perverted in the form of the Sunbane, which destroyed the natural order of the seasons. In the Final Chronicles, the nature of time and space themselves are under attack, as Lord Foul attempts to end his eternal imprisonment by destroying reality itself.
In a fight to save the very fact of reality and existence, Thomas Covenant, Linden Avery, and their companions are forced to make extreme sacrifices. You will be horrified by the cost of fighting despair; but you will also exult in the victories gained.
With this addition, the Final Chronicles have finally surpassed the previous series, and rival Donaldson's GAP Cycle as his magnum opus. Now, all that's left is the final chapter ("The Last Dark," due out in 2013) and it will be complete.
March 22, 2015
Book 3 of 4 and what changed for me to take this to a 2? I will still read book 4 and so, I suspect, will anyone who reads this review as they are as committed to putting this series to rest as I am.
Firstly, for the first 1/2 it was very hard to get into and every time I set it down it was a couple of days and a sense of duty to pick it up again. The 2nd 1/2? I just wanted to get the torture over with and read as much as I could, but things DID improve towards the end, I have to admit, the last 4 chapters (~100/575 pages) give me hope that things will improve in book #4.
Secondly, I am just so fed up with Linden. I didn't like her in the second trilogy and she was a big reason for my never re-reading that trilogy (and not keeping it in my personal library) even though the Caamora at the Grieve is one of the best scenes ever. And I wasn't too excited about her in this last series but I am now pretty disgusted with the whole thing. I quite grasp that despair and despite drain and destroy. I can understand that self-doubt and fear create indecision and limbo. But GEEZ LOUISE, woman, get a freakin' grip, or better yet get therapy! I simply cannot see how this doctor who was able to make all kinds of decisions and come to some sort of terms with her past is such a pathetic lame duck in the Land. Castigating yourself, considering yourself unworthy or tainted, does not give you a free pass from action. Enough with the self-pity and woe-is-me schitck - just stop that whining! It's not all about you.
And could someone explain to me why Covenant thinks that his leprosy somehow defines him... still? I mean, really. Really? You would think that he would have dealt with some of his issues over the eons, but apparently not.
A depressing book, an annoying book, with a seriously unpalatable main character who has no real redeeming characteristics at this point except she is still alive and far more likable characters are dead.
Firstly, for the first 1/2 it was very hard to get into and every time I set it down it was a couple of days and a sense of duty to pick it up again. The 2nd 1/2? I just wanted to get the torture over with and read as much as I could, but things DID improve towards the end, I have to admit, the last 4 chapters (~100/575 pages) give me hope that things will improve in book #4.
Secondly, I am just so fed up with Linden. I didn't like her in the second trilogy and she was a big reason for my never re-reading that trilogy (and not keeping it in my personal library) even though the Caamora at the Grieve is one of the best scenes ever. And I wasn't too excited about her in this last series but I am now pretty disgusted with the whole thing. I quite grasp that despair and despite drain and destroy. I can understand that self-doubt and fear create indecision and limbo. But GEEZ LOUISE, woman, get a freakin' grip, or better yet get therapy! I simply cannot see how this doctor who was able to make all kinds of decisions and come to some sort of terms with her past is such a pathetic lame duck in the Land. Castigating yourself, considering yourself unworthy or tainted, does not give you a free pass from action. Enough with the self-pity and woe-is-me schitck - just stop that whining! It's not all about you.
And could someone explain to me why Covenant thinks that his leprosy somehow defines him... still? I mean, really. Really? You would think that he would have dealt with some of his issues over the eons, but apparently not.
A depressing book, an annoying book, with a seriously unpalatable main character who has no real redeeming characteristics at this point except she is still alive and far more likable characters are dead.
December 4, 2013
This book was an excruciatingly painful read and I'm a huge fan of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and a big fan of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I flipped through the last 100 pages of Against All Things Ending because I couldn't take it anymore (and I'm a very patient reader).
If the fact that nothing happens in the first 100 pages of this book doesn't tell you to stay away from it, then nothing will. Seriously, they stand around in Andelain and talk for 100 pages.
Some of the most appealing parts of the prior series were the flawed and sympathetic characters, whose actions of self-sacrifice for the Land or for Thomas Covenant came out of love for the Land, whether those actions succeeded or failed (and so often failed, which helped with the sense of despair Donaldson was creating).
Now we're left with flawed characters who don't show it through their actions, but by simple repeating of how pathetic they feel, ad nauseam, from their POV (and that POV is almost entirely Linden Avery).
I was hesitant to pick up this book after the reading the second book of the Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Now I'm sorry I did. I also know I won't be picking up the fourth and final book in the Final Chronicles. I don't think anything can save this train wreck.
If the fact that nothing happens in the first 100 pages of this book doesn't tell you to stay away from it, then nothing will. Seriously, they stand around in Andelain and talk for 100 pages.
Some of the most appealing parts of the prior series were the flawed and sympathetic characters, whose actions of self-sacrifice for the Land or for Thomas Covenant came out of love for the Land, whether those actions succeeded or failed (and so often failed, which helped with the sense of despair Donaldson was creating).
Now we're left with flawed characters who don't show it through their actions, but by simple repeating of how pathetic they feel, ad nauseam, from their POV (and that POV is almost entirely Linden Avery).
I was hesitant to pick up this book after the reading the second book of the Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Now I'm sorry I did. I also know I won't be picking up the fourth and final book in the Final Chronicles. I don't think anything can save this train wreck.
January 5, 2011
What an awful awful awful awful book. I read it because it's the latest in a series that should have ended after the second trilogy - we are way past the point of diminishing returns here. Mr. Donaldson has always favored deeply flawed characters who choose to wallow in self-loathing even if it takes every bit of strength and determination they can muster, but this time he has gone far too far. Linden Avery has become a pathetic joke; no one could possibly hate themselves as much as she does (she's become a cutter no less!) and still have the will to draw breath. Sad sad sad. In the first trilogy, and to a lesser degree the second, Mr. Donaldson gave us a fascinating world filled with totally intriguing supporting characters (who've earned this book its one lonely star), though the main characters of Covenant and Avery are merely tolerable. Now he is in the process of gratuitously destroying that world and making the main characters utterly intolerable. And he's painfully drawing that out in a pointless tetralogy - like stabbing the helpless reader to death with a dull pushpin...ouch...ow...ouch...please...stop...please.....
May 4, 2023
3.75/5
Much Much Much better than the previous book even though this was the epitome of a middle book. Linden while still seriously irritating is balanced by Thomas Covenant even though he was a shadow of his former self. The book is broken into four parts, the first being over 100 pages where nothing really moves forward and yet it was interesting. Parts 2 & 3 move things forward and show devastating consequences for our intrepid band. Part 4 mostly sets up the events for the final book. Donaldson pulls no punches here and I was glad and fully invested in this story for the first time.
Much Much Much better than the previous book even though this was the epitome of a middle book. Linden while still seriously irritating is balanced by Thomas Covenant even though he was a shadow of his former self. The book is broken into four parts, the first being over 100 pages where nothing really moves forward and yet it was interesting. Parts 2 & 3 move things forward and show devastating consequences for our intrepid band. Part 4 mostly sets up the events for the final book. Donaldson pulls no punches here and I was glad and fully invested in this story for the first time.
February 24, 2011
Let’s start off with my recommendation anent Against All Things Ending: If you have read Stephen R. Donaldson and loathe him (and there are a few) then this book will not cure you of that malady. In fact it will probably solidify your animus against the author. If you’ve never read Donaldson but have heard of him and are curious, this is still not the book for you. Start with the original Chronicles, the Gap series or Mordant’s Need, all of which show off Donaldson’s talents at their best. If, like me, you think Donaldson is a brilliant and important writer than you’ll have to read this book despite its flaws.
And there are flaws; the greatest of which is length. A hundred, two hundred pages could have been shaved off easily without detracting from the emotional impacts of Linden’s and Covenant’s dilemmas and actions. The second thing that makes it difficult to persevere in reading is Linden Avery. Other reviews have mentioned how unlikeable she is and it’s true. You would have thought that after the end of the Second Chronicles, Linden’s self-image and self-confidence would be greater but here she’s even more selfish, terrified and willfully stupid. In Fatal Revenant, Linden tore Covenant’s spirit from the Arch of Time and reincarnated him so that he could save the Land while she focused on saving her son, Jeremiah, and in the process woke the Worm of the World’s End, precipitating armageddon. In Against All Things Ending, Linden’s obsession continues to extract a horrible price from everyone around her. Galt, who turns out to be Stave’s son, dies defending Jeremiah. Liand dies trying to bring Jeremiah out of his mental fugue. And Elena, the long-suffering daughter of Covenant and Lena, is sacrificed to She Who Must Not Be Named in one of the most shocking and emotionally disturbing scenes in the book. And her other companions suffer nearly as much - Haruchai, Swordmainnir and Ramen.
Covenant, at least, appears to have learned something from his experiences. He can still be frustratingly passive beyond all reason but he exhibits some remorse for his actions and their consequences and takes pains to minimize them.
But….
All that aside, my objections are to the surfeit of details and the feeling that Donaldson is beating me over the head with a large stick not to the story itself. Again the author proves a master at evoking strong emotional reactions to his characters, and pushing them to find the limits of their abilities. And he deals with “big questions” that interest me; e.g., the corruption of power, the use of violence, how the seeds of future despite are sown by present triumphs, and how – in light of that – can one act at all.
I also think that one of the reasons Linden pisses people off so much is that she’s so much like us; she’s not the perhaps-initially-doubtful-but-soon-confident heroine we’d like (and expect) to see. Consider, you wake up one day to find yourself in the Land (or some similar situation) and are told that you have the power to destroy or to save the world depending upon the choices you make. Would you confidently stride forward to wield the Staff of Law or your white-gold ring against Fangthane and obliterate all who stood in your way? Wouldn’t you be terrified and constantly questioning yourself? Wouldn’t you doubt the reality of your situation and do everything you could to pass the responsibility to someone else?
I’ll tap my fingers impatiently and grumble about publishing schedules incessantly but I’ll look forward to the release of the final volume - The Last Dark.
And there are flaws; the greatest of which is length. A hundred, two hundred pages could have been shaved off easily without detracting from the emotional impacts of Linden’s and Covenant’s dilemmas and actions. The second thing that makes it difficult to persevere in reading is Linden Avery. Other reviews have mentioned how unlikeable she is and it’s true. You would have thought that after the end of the Second Chronicles, Linden’s self-image and self-confidence would be greater but here she’s even more selfish, terrified and willfully stupid. In Fatal Revenant, Linden tore Covenant’s spirit from the Arch of Time and reincarnated him so that he could save the Land while she focused on saving her son, Jeremiah, and in the process woke the Worm of the World’s End, precipitating armageddon. In Against All Things Ending, Linden’s obsession continues to extract a horrible price from everyone around her. Galt, who turns out to be Stave’s son, dies defending Jeremiah. Liand dies trying to bring Jeremiah out of his mental fugue. And Elena, the long-suffering daughter of Covenant and Lena, is sacrificed to She Who Must Not Be Named in one of the most shocking and emotionally disturbing scenes in the book. And her other companions suffer nearly as much - Haruchai, Swordmainnir and Ramen.
Covenant, at least, appears to have learned something from his experiences. He can still be frustratingly passive beyond all reason but he exhibits some remorse for his actions and their consequences and takes pains to minimize them.
But….
All that aside, my objections are to the surfeit of details and the feeling that Donaldson is beating me over the head with a large stick not to the story itself. Again the author proves a master at evoking strong emotional reactions to his characters, and pushing them to find the limits of their abilities. And he deals with “big questions” that interest me; e.g., the corruption of power, the use of violence, how the seeds of future despite are sown by present triumphs, and how – in light of that – can one act at all.
I also think that one of the reasons Linden pisses people off so much is that she’s so much like us; she’s not the perhaps-initially-doubtful-but-soon-confident heroine we’d like (and expect) to see. Consider, you wake up one day to find yourself in the Land (or some similar situation) and are told that you have the power to destroy or to save the world depending upon the choices you make. Would you confidently stride forward to wield the Staff of Law or your white-gold ring against Fangthane and obliterate all who stood in your way? Wouldn’t you be terrified and constantly questioning yourself? Wouldn’t you doubt the reality of your situation and do everything you could to pass the responsibility to someone else?
I’ll tap my fingers impatiently and grumble about publishing schedules incessantly but I’ll look forward to the release of the final volume - The Last Dark.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 8, 2010Someone take the damned thesaurus away from Donaldson.
As much as I love his work, I hate to say it but I think he's peaked. Actually, I think he peaked with his Gap series. This new "Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" brings all the things I loved about the first two chronicles, but in a way that implies he was forced to write it.
I started reading "Lord Foul's Bane" when I was in 7th grade - pretty heady fare for someone of that age. The main character that the entire series is based on commits rape in the first 100 pages, and my first instinct was, "This is the *hero* of the series?!" Donaldson introduced me to the concept of an anti-hero and to the fact that the protagonist doesn't necessarily have to be a "good guy". For that alone, he's earned a spot on the "I'll give anything he writes a chance" shelf. But I'd be lying if I said I was sad that there's only one more book left in this series.
None of the characters feel like real people anymore. They seem to exist only to further the plot and are (to me, anyway) are written in such a way that I can't relate to them at all.
And for this final series, he's introduced not one, but TWO new races that have supposedly been around since the beginning of time, and just conveniently never mentioned. Feels too much like a deus ex machina or a retcon.
Either way, if you're a fan of Donaldon's work in general, or the Thomas Covenant series specifically, give this series a read, if only to get closure on the entire story.
As much as I love his work, I hate to say it but I think he's peaked. Actually, I think he peaked with his Gap series. This new "Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" brings all the things I loved about the first two chronicles, but in a way that implies he was forced to write it.
I started reading "Lord Foul's Bane" when I was in 7th grade - pretty heady fare for someone of that age. The main character that the entire series is based on commits rape in the first 100 pages, and my first instinct was, "This is the *hero* of the series?!" Donaldson introduced me to the concept of an anti-hero and to the fact that the protagonist doesn't necessarily have to be a "good guy". For that alone, he's earned a spot on the "I'll give anything he writes a chance" shelf. But I'd be lying if I said I was sad that there's only one more book left in this series.
None of the characters feel like real people anymore. They seem to exist only to further the plot and are (to me, anyway) are written in such a way that I can't relate to them at all.
And for this final series, he's introduced not one, but TWO new races that have supposedly been around since the beginning of time, and just conveniently never mentioned. Feels too much like a deus ex machina or a retcon.
Either way, if you're a fan of Donaldon's work in general, or the Thomas Covenant series specifically, give this series a read, if only to get closure on the entire story.
December 28, 2011
This is the penultimate book in the decade-spanning Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever, which is considered by a good many to be among the greatest fantasies ever written. The titular character, as you may know, is a bestselling-novelist, a divorcee, and a leper. And he's not on Earth anymore. But that's all books past. Given that this is book 9, you should know what you're getting in for with Donaldson's writing.
Since the first Chronicles, Donaldson has been working towards a great and more universal destruction of the Land (the faery world setting of the novel). In the Last Chronicles, which is comprised of The Runes of the Earth, Fatal Revenant, and the newest book, Against All Things Ending, Donaldson forwards his catastrophic mission, pitting the ever-swelling company of Linden Avery against an ever-swelling roll of malevolent forces that don't seem to care that the Earth is Ending.
So the good guys are against all things ending. Right.
The story begins right where the last one left out. Literally. And then, unfortunately, tarries there for over a hundred pages as the characters just talk, but cover little ground. It's an unfortunate characteristic of the later books that almost everyone is cagey, over-strained, and miserable (except Liand, and Anele, both of whom have almost no idea about what is going on). They talk too much, and complain about how the world is ending, but they seem awful slow to actually act.
That complaint aside, and I caution that it is a constant complaint through almost two thirds of the books, Donaldson works his magic of construction fantasy spaces unlike anything you've ever read. This is where he is genius; the fabrication of utterly unreal spaces that bend and enrapture you. You'll finally understand what the Giants mean when they say "The Joy is in the ears that hear." Or, in this case, they eyes that read. Throughout the book, Donaldson's host journey to incredible settings and vistas that, frankly, I haven't found anywhere else in the fantasy genre. That is a huge point in the book's favor, given the bloated, self-pitying conversation that pervades much of it. I would say, frankly, that it's a decent counterbalance.
But the balance is thrown off by the very introversion that made the first Chronicles endearing; the character's sense of self (especially Linden Avery's) is so god-damned important that it eclipses eveything else. Again, and again and again you'll find her repeating the same broken mantras about how hurt she is, or indecisive, or about how the things that are happening are unbelievable. It gets tiring, especially since we're not entirely sure why Covenant doesn't have his ring, and why he isn't acting. The paradoxical lock-in of the Humbled and other characters, excluding the Swordmainnir, is maddening at times, and at other times entirely unbelievable.
Covenant's presence in the book may be its saving grace. Given the nature of the series, he hasn't been entirely present for the last few books, but now that he's back, it's a waiting game as he is restored to himself slowly, becoming more interesting all the time. He is what makes the last half of the novel into the delight that it is--that part, apart from the others, is worthy of rereading. It's incredible, tense, and well written.
I wish I could say the same about the preceding three hundred pages.
But those environments are damn cool.
Against All Things Ending, which is the penultimate novel in the series I hold most dearly, is unfortunately a one-shot novel. Read through it on your way to The Last Dark, which may be an infuriating read when it finally releases. After the powerhouse that was Fatal Revenant, this book seems stretched, pulled beyond its limits of entertainment. If the last third wasn't so good, I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone. But I will and do recommend it to fans of the series, not only as a waypoint to the final book, but also for the settings, and for the corporeal outrage that is Thomas Covenant, who really is the Land's last hope.
Linden Avery is still too damn indecisive.
Since the first Chronicles, Donaldson has been working towards a great and more universal destruction of the Land (the faery world setting of the novel). In the Last Chronicles, which is comprised of The Runes of the Earth, Fatal Revenant, and the newest book, Against All Things Ending, Donaldson forwards his catastrophic mission, pitting the ever-swelling company of Linden Avery against an ever-swelling roll of malevolent forces that don't seem to care that the Earth is Ending.
So the good guys are against all things ending. Right.
The story begins right where the last one left out. Literally. And then, unfortunately, tarries there for over a hundred pages as the characters just talk, but cover little ground. It's an unfortunate characteristic of the later books that almost everyone is cagey, over-strained, and miserable (except Liand, and Anele, both of whom have almost no idea about what is going on). They talk too much, and complain about how the world is ending, but they seem awful slow to actually act.
That complaint aside, and I caution that it is a constant complaint through almost two thirds of the books, Donaldson works his magic of construction fantasy spaces unlike anything you've ever read. This is where he is genius; the fabrication of utterly unreal spaces that bend and enrapture you. You'll finally understand what the Giants mean when they say "The Joy is in the ears that hear." Or, in this case, they eyes that read. Throughout the book, Donaldson's host journey to incredible settings and vistas that, frankly, I haven't found anywhere else in the fantasy genre. That is a huge point in the book's favor, given the bloated, self-pitying conversation that pervades much of it. I would say, frankly, that it's a decent counterbalance.
But the balance is thrown off by the very introversion that made the first Chronicles endearing; the character's sense of self (especially Linden Avery's) is so god-damned important that it eclipses eveything else. Again, and again and again you'll find her repeating the same broken mantras about how hurt she is, or indecisive, or about how the things that are happening are unbelievable. It gets tiring, especially since we're not entirely sure why Covenant doesn't have his ring, and why he isn't acting. The paradoxical lock-in of the Humbled and other characters, excluding the Swordmainnir, is maddening at times, and at other times entirely unbelievable.
Covenant's presence in the book may be its saving grace. Given the nature of the series, he hasn't been entirely present for the last few books, but now that he's back, it's a waiting game as he is restored to himself slowly, becoming more interesting all the time. He is what makes the last half of the novel into the delight that it is--that part, apart from the others, is worthy of rereading. It's incredible, tense, and well written.
I wish I could say the same about the preceding three hundred pages.
But those environments are damn cool.
Against All Things Ending, which is the penultimate novel in the series I hold most dearly, is unfortunately a one-shot novel. Read through it on your way to The Last Dark, which may be an infuriating read when it finally releases. After the powerhouse that was Fatal Revenant, this book seems stretched, pulled beyond its limits of entertainment. If the last third wasn't so good, I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone. But I will and do recommend it to fans of the series, not only as a waypoint to the final book, but also for the settings, and for the corporeal outrage that is Thomas Covenant, who really is the Land's last hope.
Linden Avery is still too damn indecisive.
July 1, 2012
I sometimes wonder, have always wondered, why, in the middle of reading a book by Stephen R. Donaldson, that I am continuing to read. Especially with his 30+-year-old saga about Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. This is the 9th of what is purported to be 10 novels in the series, and from the start, back in the 70s, I've been struck by how dark they are; how, at each step along the way, Covenant, and you, as a reader, are beset with tragedies, large and small and a pervading sense of despair that anything will turn out OK. Yet on I read, page after page, book after book. Took him almost three years to get this out after the second book in these Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the "what's happened so far" section is about as long as any of the chapters.
I think what strikes the 'keep reading' chord in me is the texture of the world Donaldson creates; its totality. I forget things that have occurred almost on a page by page basis, but Donaldson will throw in a parenthetical phrase recalling an event or words spoken in the very first book, 30 years ago. The on-going story is remarkably connected, as if Donaldson knew from day one where it was going, even if we, as readers, are never quite sure, and keep reading, as a result.
Not recommended for everyone; not suitable to all tastes in literature, but short of death, nothing would ever stop me from picking up this series finale and heading back out to The Land to find out what's happening.
I think what strikes the 'keep reading' chord in me is the texture of the world Donaldson creates; its totality. I forget things that have occurred almost on a page by page basis, but Donaldson will throw in a parenthetical phrase recalling an event or words spoken in the very first book, 30 years ago. The on-going story is remarkably connected, as if Donaldson knew from day one where it was going, even if we, as readers, are never quite sure, and keep reading, as a result.
Not recommended for everyone; not suitable to all tastes in literature, but short of death, nothing would ever stop me from picking up this series finale and heading back out to The Land to find out what's happening.
March 25, 2019
9/10
As the final tetralogy approaches to its end, and the conclusion of the series, as well as an achievement that captivated millions of readers around the world for more than three decades, Stephen R. Donaldson brings his imagination one step closer towards its culmination, taking us in Against All Things Ending, the third of four instalments of the Last Chronicles, in a story of spectres, mysterious figures, Demondim-spawn, great horses, time-storms and malevolent beings, but also in an adventure of choice and consequence, love and futility, and Desecration and ruin; in a penultimate, epic novel.
Little time has passed since they reached the safety of Andelain, and the challenges they overcame; yet now, with the Worm of the World’s End to have been roused from its eternal slumber, awakening to continue once again consuming all life and sate its imponderable hunger, the last crisis of the Earth is approaching, promising an unprecedented holocaust that will wipe out the Land, its people, and the world entire – but Thomas Covenant, having spent accountable millennia among the essential strictures of creation, witnessing, understanding and serving the Arch of Time and travelling from the first dawn of the Earth to the farthest constellations, has become mortal again.
Confused by his compelled transubstantiation from the Arch to the world of the living, severing him from the illimitable vistas of Time and restoring him back to mortality, Covenant will start to remember his old life, and what if felt like to be alive.
Nevertheless, with his mortality – unable to contain the knowledge and power of accountable ages – to have left him a husk of his former self, expelling from his flesh and bones every intimation of eternity, and anchoring him with every breath of his forgotten heart to his corporeal body, when he tries to organize his thoughts, and grapple all that he had lost, Covenant will find himself slipping between the past and the present, lost in a maze of memories in the depths of Time.
Meanwhile, Linden Avery, having defied every caution for Jeremiah’s sake, breaking every promise she had ever made in one flagrant act and setting in motion the world’s ruin, has been standing paralysed in horror.
But, with the outcome of her despair that made her violate the bounds of Law to have left her in dismay, realizing the enormous cost of her failed choices both to her former lover and to the Earth itself, and unable to bear to look into the eyes her companions, when she’s left with no other recourse but to accept the Harrow’s bargain, and surrender her only instruments of power, Linden will find herself powerless on a quest into an abyss of ancient banes and arcane palaces, looking for her lost son and his salvation.
However, with their every step to have brought them in paths prepared by the Despiser’s machinations, seeing their actions and inactions, needs and desires become part of his malice, and bringing his designs closer and closer to their realization, when the toll for Jeremiah’s salvation grows more than they had ever imagined, and the monstrous beings of the Earth conjoin their strengths, Linden and Covenant will be faced with a difficult choice, forced by exigencies that will bring them before different trials – trials which, if they fail to endure them and confront their fears and sins, could cost them everything they have loved.
Following the storyline directly after the end of Fatal Revenant, having set up meticulously his imagination in the previous instalment and picking up once more the plot-threads from where they left off, Stephen R. Donaldson explores again the wonders of his world, taking us in Against All Things Ending back to Andelain, where the Hills – sustained by the mystic force of Loric’s krill – defend the heart of the Land’s loveliness, offering their untrammelled largesse, and withstanding against all odds; and to the Lost Deep, under Mount Thunder, where the Viles – eased by dreams and labours – had once made their demesne, creating supernal masterpieces full of beauty and wonder, and finding in their now abandoned habitation and loreworks the meaning of their life.
But also to the Lower Land, where the abused terrain has been laid waste by ancient battles and rapine, storms of theurgy and bitter despoilage, staining it with blood and magic across the millennia, and leaving it barren and lifeless; to Muirwin Delenoth, where inside the caldera thousand bones have been placed, making it the graveyard of a long-forgotten race, and the resting place of abhorrence; and lastly beyond the Shattered Hills, where once stood the promontory of Ridjeck Thome, Lord Foul’s former abode, from where the Despiser spread his malice through his wars and workings, and where now only the cruellest evils linger.
A third novel in which Donaldson, foreshadowing since the very beginning events and situations, revealing incrementally the magnitude of the challenges and increasing the stakes more and more, takes a pivotal step both for his characters and for his world, creating through the Land’s history, and the Earth’s, an epic story of profound introspection, shocking twists, and breathtaking scenes of action and imagery that leave you full of awe; stunned and heartbroken.
A penultimate instalment which, bringing at long last the dynamic duo back, showing the contradictions of Linden’s dismay and shame, fear and despair, and Covenant’s sorrow and regret, as well as the cost and consequences of their actions, plunges once more into the psychological and moral dilemmas of their personalities that he dealt similarly in the Second Chronicles – reminiscing the good old days – and delivering yet another cliffhanger that leaves their fate up in the air.
In sum, the Against All Things Ending is a hefty, but impressive book, with Stephen R. Donaldson – bringing back the beloved duo – taking a step closer towards the grand finale of the series, and the conclusion of Linden and Covenant’s journey, creating a story full of action and imagery that leaves you breathless.
*Ελληνική κριτική:
As the final tetralogy approaches to its end, and the conclusion of the series, as well as an achievement that captivated millions of readers around the world for more than three decades, Stephen R. Donaldson brings his imagination one step closer towards its culmination, taking us in Against All Things Ending, the third of four instalments of the Last Chronicles, in a story of spectres, mysterious figures, Demondim-spawn, great horses, time-storms and malevolent beings, but also in an adventure of choice and consequence, love and futility, and Desecration and ruin; in a penultimate, epic novel.
Little time has passed since they reached the safety of Andelain, and the challenges they overcame; yet now, with the Worm of the World’s End to have been roused from its eternal slumber, awakening to continue once again consuming all life and sate its imponderable hunger, the last crisis of the Earth is approaching, promising an unprecedented holocaust that will wipe out the Land, its people, and the world entire – but Thomas Covenant, having spent accountable millennia among the essential strictures of creation, witnessing, understanding and serving the Arch of Time and travelling from the first dawn of the Earth to the farthest constellations, has become mortal again.
Confused by his compelled transubstantiation from the Arch to the world of the living, severing him from the illimitable vistas of Time and restoring him back to mortality, Covenant will start to remember his old life, and what if felt like to be alive.
Nevertheless, with his mortality – unable to contain the knowledge and power of accountable ages – to have left him a husk of his former self, expelling from his flesh and bones every intimation of eternity, and anchoring him with every breath of his forgotten heart to his corporeal body, when he tries to organize his thoughts, and grapple all that he had lost, Covenant will find himself slipping between the past and the present, lost in a maze of memories in the depths of Time.
Meanwhile, Linden Avery, having defied every caution for Jeremiah’s sake, breaking every promise she had ever made in one flagrant act and setting in motion the world’s ruin, has been standing paralysed in horror.
But, with the outcome of her despair that made her violate the bounds of Law to have left her in dismay, realizing the enormous cost of her failed choices both to her former lover and to the Earth itself, and unable to bear to look into the eyes her companions, when she’s left with no other recourse but to accept the Harrow’s bargain, and surrender her only instruments of power, Linden will find herself powerless on a quest into an abyss of ancient banes and arcane palaces, looking for her lost son and his salvation.
However, with their every step to have brought them in paths prepared by the Despiser’s machinations, seeing their actions and inactions, needs and desires become part of his malice, and bringing his designs closer and closer to their realization, when the toll for Jeremiah’s salvation grows more than they had ever imagined, and the monstrous beings of the Earth conjoin their strengths, Linden and Covenant will be faced with a difficult choice, forced by exigencies that will bring them before different trials – trials which, if they fail to endure them and confront their fears and sins, could cost them everything they have loved.
Following the storyline directly after the end of Fatal Revenant, having set up meticulously his imagination in the previous instalment and picking up once more the plot-threads from where they left off, Stephen R. Donaldson explores again the wonders of his world, taking us in Against All Things Ending back to Andelain, where the Hills – sustained by the mystic force of Loric’s krill – defend the heart of the Land’s loveliness, offering their untrammelled largesse, and withstanding against all odds; and to the Lost Deep, under Mount Thunder, where the Viles – eased by dreams and labours – had once made their demesne, creating supernal masterpieces full of beauty and wonder, and finding in their now abandoned habitation and loreworks the meaning of their life.
But also to the Lower Land, where the abused terrain has been laid waste by ancient battles and rapine, storms of theurgy and bitter despoilage, staining it with blood and magic across the millennia, and leaving it barren and lifeless; to Muirwin Delenoth, where inside the caldera thousand bones have been placed, making it the graveyard of a long-forgotten race, and the resting place of abhorrence; and lastly beyond the Shattered Hills, where once stood the promontory of Ridjeck Thome, Lord Foul’s former abode, from where the Despiser spread his malice through his wars and workings, and where now only the cruellest evils linger.
A third novel in which Donaldson, foreshadowing since the very beginning events and situations, revealing incrementally the magnitude of the challenges and increasing the stakes more and more, takes a pivotal step both for his characters and for his world, creating through the Land’s history, and the Earth’s, an epic story of profound introspection, shocking twists, and breathtaking scenes of action and imagery that leave you full of awe; stunned and heartbroken.
A penultimate instalment which, bringing at long last the dynamic duo back, showing the contradictions of Linden’s dismay and shame, fear and despair, and Covenant’s sorrow and regret, as well as the cost and consequences of their actions, plunges once more into the psychological and moral dilemmas of their personalities that he dealt similarly in the Second Chronicles – reminiscing the good old days – and delivering yet another cliffhanger that leaves their fate up in the air.
In sum, the Against All Things Ending is a hefty, but impressive book, with Stephen R. Donaldson – bringing back the beloved duo – taking a step closer towards the grand finale of the series, and the conclusion of Linden and Covenant’s journey, creating a story full of action and imagery that leaves you breathless.
*Ελληνική κριτική:
January 11, 2012
Me, on previous book: "His stylistic quirks are... well, I can't say they're under control, but they're adequately curbed." You know, I think they *are* under control. Mostly. Donaldson does this thing where he starts a simile, nails one of its feet to the ground, and pushes it over backwards. "His hands made incomplete gestures like truncated supplications." NO THEY ACTUALLY *ARE* TRUNCATED SUPPLICATIONS. It drives me nuts. But then he also puts "may" where I want "might" and *that* drives me nuts, and I know it's just me -- the point is, Donaldson picks his words precisely and with care. He's aiming at effect, and most of the time, he gets me there. Occasionally he comes out with "surquedry" or "that dire fug" and I lose it, but -- fine, I'll say it. The bastard can write. Sometime in the past twenty years, he figured it out or I started paying attention. I won't swear which.
So this is the penultimate Covenant book, and things are really hotting up in the Land. Linden Avery has yanked Covenant back into mortal life, one of those things you're Really Not Supposed To Do (my caps), thus awakening the Worm of World's End (not my caps) and everybody has about a week left to finish their Christmas shopping. Thus, several mad races into and out of places after allies, power sources, and possible solutions.
I oversummarize, of course. We get: a couple of really very tense chase sequences; a couple of really very scary battle scenes; a lot of not-tense but *fraught* what-the-hell-do-we-do-now arguments... and it isn't cheap. By which I mean, this is not the third-hand fantasy gudge of "will he put aside his fear" (hint, the hero always puts aside his fear and finds magic in a giant burst of gosh-I-could-do-it-all-along). This isn't about fear, it's about doubt (and self-doubt) and trust. Linden Avery is a fuckup; she knows it; accidentally setting off Armageddon was a big hint in that direction. She has to keep moving anyway. The loops of second-guessing and fleeing/grabbing responsibility are what fucked-up people do. (They feel right to *me*, anyhow.) She *can* blast out magic in a giant burst of etc, and sometimes does, but she has to figure out what to *do* and what the cost will be. (Answer: usually irreparable.) Covenant isn't a deus ex machina either; he's just a person who has built some place to stand and trust. Their companions are, in various ways, broken and dealing with the same issues. All the plot threads reflect this, in various ways, and this is what good books are supposed to do. So I'm on board.
So this is the penultimate Covenant book, and things are really hotting up in the Land. Linden Avery has yanked Covenant back into mortal life, one of those things you're Really Not Supposed To Do (my caps), thus awakening the Worm of World's End (not my caps) and everybody has about a week left to finish their Christmas shopping. Thus, several mad races into and out of places after allies, power sources, and possible solutions.
I oversummarize, of course. We get: a couple of really very tense chase sequences; a couple of really very scary battle scenes; a lot of not-tense but *fraught* what-the-hell-do-we-do-now arguments... and it isn't cheap. By which I mean, this is not the third-hand fantasy gudge of "will he put aside his fear" (hint, the hero always puts aside his fear and finds magic in a giant burst of gosh-I-could-do-it-all-along). This isn't about fear, it's about doubt (and self-doubt) and trust. Linden Avery is a fuckup; she knows it; accidentally setting off Armageddon was a big hint in that direction. She has to keep moving anyway. The loops of second-guessing and fleeing/grabbing responsibility are what fucked-up people do. (They feel right to *me*, anyhow.) She *can* blast out magic in a giant burst of etc, and sometimes does, but she has to figure out what to *do* and what the cost will be. (Answer: usually irreparable.) Covenant isn't a deus ex machina either; he's just a person who has built some place to stand and trust. Their companions are, in various ways, broken and dealing with the same issues. All the plot threads reflect this, in various ways, and this is what good books are supposed to do. So I'm on board.
January 14, 2011
Donaldson's always been a peculiar writer, often reaching for obscure words when a simple one would be better. Sometimes his choices are risible and draw too much attention to his attempts at craft; at other times they are spot on and refreshing.
He's also not shy of flaunting the advice most modern fantasy writers get about pace and starting with action. Pace is decidely lacking from the first part of the book. I think there were about 143 pages of Linden Avery standing in a glade in Andelain trying to make up her mind what to do next. Imagine an unestablished author sending that to an agent!
There is, however, something magical and engaging about The Chronicles. Despite my criticisms, I couldn't stop going back and reading more. Yes, it's rife with fantasy-speak, too much introspection and frustrating pages of circular dialogue; but the themes of futility and despair, with their correlatives of a mystical self-surrender worthy of Jean Pierre de Caussade and enthralling.
The plot - when broken down and set apart from all the rambling - is incredible simple: a few show-piece encounters with various nasties. The real story is that unfolding within Linden Avery herself. Over-cooked at times, yes, but compelling nonetheless.
In spite of Linden's descent into despair, this story never quite reaches the emotional intensity of Morn Hyland in The Gap Series. There is something distancing the reader from the emotion, and I don't think I'd be the first person to suggest it's the language. Linden may be a doctor, and Covenant may be a novelist, but unless the reader is a lexicographer they're unlikely to get drawn into the characters; and even if they were, we all know people don't really talk like this or think like this (particulalrly when fleeing for their lives before some hideous bane).
What I do like, however, is Donaldson's willingness to go against the increasingly homogenised grain of modern fantasy. He takes a different approach, plums the depths of psychology at the expense of pace, and risks failure. To a large extent, in my reading, he succeeds. His was a world I wanted to keep returning to, and in spite of my observations above, I'm now forced to consider why that is, and whether or not the current trend in fantasy could learn something here.
He's also not shy of flaunting the advice most modern fantasy writers get about pace and starting with action. Pace is decidely lacking from the first part of the book. I think there were about 143 pages of Linden Avery standing in a glade in Andelain trying to make up her mind what to do next. Imagine an unestablished author sending that to an agent!
There is, however, something magical and engaging about The Chronicles. Despite my criticisms, I couldn't stop going back and reading more. Yes, it's rife with fantasy-speak, too much introspection and frustrating pages of circular dialogue; but the themes of futility and despair, with their correlatives of a mystical self-surrender worthy of Jean Pierre de Caussade and enthralling.
The plot - when broken down and set apart from all the rambling - is incredible simple: a few show-piece encounters with various nasties. The real story is that unfolding within Linden Avery herself. Over-cooked at times, yes, but compelling nonetheless.
In spite of Linden's descent into despair, this story never quite reaches the emotional intensity of Morn Hyland in The Gap Series. There is something distancing the reader from the emotion, and I don't think I'd be the first person to suggest it's the language. Linden may be a doctor, and Covenant may be a novelist, but unless the reader is a lexicographer they're unlikely to get drawn into the characters; and even if they were, we all know people don't really talk like this or think like this (particulalrly when fleeing for their lives before some hideous bane).
What I do like, however, is Donaldson's willingness to go against the increasingly homogenised grain of modern fantasy. He takes a different approach, plums the depths of psychology at the expense of pace, and risks failure. To a large extent, in my reading, he succeeds. His was a world I wanted to keep returning to, and in spite of my observations above, I'm now forced to consider why that is, and whether or not the current trend in fantasy could learn something here.
October 9, 2010
The final Thomas Covenant series is improving as it goes. That isn't to say that the first two books weren't good, but Donaldson had to spend time early on setting up all the chess pieces and introducing the context, and now the narrative moves along more briskly. This book, not surprisingly, is about choices and consequences. It opens with Linden confronting the consequences of her actions; the resurrection of Thomas Covenant and the awakening of the Worm. Throughout the book, characters make decisions to act (and in a couple of cases, not to act), and the results are felt. People are profoundly altered, some suffer, some die, like any good SRD book really :).
All the things people love/hate are present; characters who wrestle with their demons, a high prose style that will have you scrambling for your thesaurus, and the existence on a level above the surface narrative of metaphor and metacontent. Often something happens and you may not think much of it, but then you realize that of the half dozen different ways Donaldson could have achieved his plot development he chose one in particular. It's a reason I hesitate to review this at all, after only one reading, since I feel there is a lot I am still missing. But I just wanted to throw something up without spoilers to encourage people that this book will be worth your time.
Only caveat, I wouldn't suggest tackling this prior to having read the first eight books (or at least the previous five). I imagine one could still enjoy it, but most people I think would be confused and would wonder what we all see in it. Apart from that, I highly recommend this book and now must hope nothing bad happens to our author in the next three years so I can see how it will all end.
All the things people love/hate are present; characters who wrestle with their demons, a high prose style that will have you scrambling for your thesaurus, and the existence on a level above the surface narrative of metaphor and metacontent. Often something happens and you may not think much of it, but then you realize that of the half dozen different ways Donaldson could have achieved his plot development he chose one in particular. It's a reason I hesitate to review this at all, after only one reading, since I feel there is a lot I am still missing. But I just wanted to throw something up without spoilers to encourage people that this book will be worth your time.
Only caveat, I wouldn't suggest tackling this prior to having read the first eight books (or at least the previous five). I imagine one could still enjoy it, but most people I think would be confused and would wonder what we all see in it. Apart from that, I highly recommend this book and now must hope nothing bad happens to our author in the next three years so I can see how it will all end.
June 17, 2013
I re-read this, the third book of "The Last Chronicle of Thomas Covenant", and the ninth Covenant book overall, in anticipation of the tenth, and final Covenant book, "The Last Dark", to be released in October, 2013. This is the unabridged audio version, read by Tim Gerard Reynolds (not Scott Brick, Donaldson's usual narrator).
Having read all the previous books in this series over the last year or so, I am struck by how incredibly precise and wonderfully detailed Donaldson has been throughout. Events and seemingly minor characters in the first books reemerge in fascinating ways throughout the long saga, up to and including this penultimate book. This is complex, detailed and amazing epic fantasy. Should book 10 hold up to the promises of the earlier volumes, this series will likely eclipse Tolkien as my favorite work of high fantasy fiction.
A word on the narrator - Reynolds is a talented storyteller, but it is rather unfair to compare him to Scott Brick, narrator of five earlier books. Brick has created the definitive, though incomplete, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant on audio - hopefully he will get the opportunity to complete the entire series one day.
Now, just waiting for October, 2013 to arrive...
Having read all the previous books in this series over the last year or so, I am struck by how incredibly precise and wonderfully detailed Donaldson has been throughout. Events and seemingly minor characters in the first books reemerge in fascinating ways throughout the long saga, up to and including this penultimate book. This is complex, detailed and amazing epic fantasy. Should book 10 hold up to the promises of the earlier volumes, this series will likely eclipse Tolkien as my favorite work of high fantasy fiction.
A word on the narrator - Reynolds is a talented storyteller, but it is rather unfair to compare him to Scott Brick, narrator of five earlier books. Brick has created the definitive, though incomplete, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant on audio - hopefully he will get the opportunity to complete the entire series one day.
Now, just waiting for October, 2013 to arrive...
May 23, 2011
Recently I had written that this series had avoided the typical lows that can happen over a series. Well, this series still has avoided typical low as it simply crashed! My previous reviews had consistently given previous books in this series three to five stars. In this book nothing happens for the first 150 pages. Well, ok, one thing happens as one new character(the Ardent) is introduced. Then over the next couple of hundred pages the slowest escape sequence ever takes place (Yes one very interesting choice by Tommy C occurs). This is all followed up by a mess of time travel/distortion that feels like the author using any means to tie up loose ends.
This book does remind me that Tommy C. is a much more compelling figure than Linden (cutting? really? really? gotta be kidding me!).
The story telling, lore, and cultures developed in the first two chronicles simply dissolves in this book. This chronicle will be four books and I hope a remarkable turn around takes place to give this series a fitting end.
Simply put: I rarely, ever, ever, quit on a book. Almost stopped reading this one and skimmed much of it while not missing a thing. sigh.
This book does remind me that Tommy C. is a much more compelling figure than Linden (cutting? really? really? gotta be kidding me!).
The story telling, lore, and cultures developed in the first two chronicles simply dissolves in this book. This chronicle will be four books and I hope a remarkable turn around takes place to give this series a fitting end.
Simply put: I rarely, ever, ever, quit on a book. Almost stopped reading this one and skimmed much of it while not missing a thing. sigh.
March 20, 2020
Hard work, but a proper page-turner - watching the threads of a seemingly chaotic story coming slowly together was genuinely fascinating. Could have done without the All Women Want To Be Loved Really monster, but a small whinge against an epic backdrop. And good to see Covenant himself convincingly reinvented, but remaining as anguished and driven as ever. And the ending!!
August 1, 2022
4,25 stars - English Ebook
Review follows later.
Review follows later.
January 19, 2012
I wholeheartedly agree with another reviewer here on GoodReads: Will someone pleaaaaase take the thesaurus away from mr. Donaldson!
I'm good at reading english, even if my active producing of this language is plain horrible. My vocabulary is very large and divers for a non-native speaker. But these books are just impossible to read without a dictionary. Well, let's be grateful he keeps repeating the dictionary words and it is a long book :-)
I listened to this book while working. The audioquality is OK, what I didn't like is that it was another narrator than for the other 8 books. With a totally different accent. Please don't do that! Characters in a book get a lot of their personality from the narrators voiceacting and changing this is disconcerting.
The Good:
This is an intense book. Starts awfully slow (and I mean SLOW) but when it at last gets going, it is one big rollercoaster. Donaldson does it again: He knows how to get us interested in a story in which you sometime are really really really annoyed with the main character.
How many times I'd loved to grab Linden Avery in her collar and shake some sense in her.
He does that too in the earlier books. Tomas Convenant is a real ass in the first one. Detestable. And while he gets better in the next books, he annoys the hell out of me. But this makes the main characters so incredibly realistic/believable.
Just imagine: you are transported from this world to a fantasyworld, with strange beings and people who insist you are going to save them all. Would you just step up and say, right, let's start cracking?
No. Well I wouldn't. I would doubt and unbelieve ;-) and doubt some more. Myself and everybody else.
In fantasy, this aspect of human psychology is highly underlighted. Real people doubt. Most of them derrive their strenght from doubt. Or fail. We all just fail, all the time, on some level. Failure may lead to great things. Because of failure and doubt we strive to be better, but really... we strive to 'not be in charge and be responsible for ending the world'.
Well, the world is ending, in this book. Absolutely. Just not in one big flash (what a short book it would have been). Linden is totally believable, annoying as she is, filled to the brim with crippling doubt and rage and, yes, despair. Whatever she's done, everything leads her to more despair. She strives to be better and just can't. This is very refreshing.
I love the character of Covenant, what he's become. Reading his parts is a joy. I missed him :-)
The adage "Joy is in the eyes of the beholder' is absolutely true. This book is rutheless on its characters. I've secretly and silently cursed the heavens blue after reading some parts of the book. I've cried and laughed. Stephen Donaldson hasn't lost his touch of creating wonderfull enthralling worlds that take youre breath away. He introduces new vista's he's never visited before.
When the book gets going, I really loved it.
The Bad.
Now that's the thing. When the book gets going. It doesn't for at least one third of the (very large) book. Said third is sloooooooow. Boring boring boring and slow. Some parts of it are necessary for background on later developments, some are good for character building and Lindens slow spiral into despair and rage. But most of it is unnecessary wordiness. Not A Good Thing.
Later in the book there's another "gosh let's have endless slow discussions and do nothing' part. This is what made me give this book a 3 star instead of 4. The actionparts really deserve a 4,5 star, but not the book as a whole.
BTW: I loved having to use a dictionary, whatever I said in the start of this review. It's refreshing ;-) Donaldson has gone far from his crude use of language in his Gap and less so in his Mordant books.
I'm good at reading english, even if my active producing of this language is plain horrible. My vocabulary is very large and divers for a non-native speaker. But these books are just impossible to read without a dictionary. Well, let's be grateful he keeps repeating the dictionary words and it is a long book :-)
I listened to this book while working. The audioquality is OK, what I didn't like is that it was another narrator than for the other 8 books. With a totally different accent. Please don't do that! Characters in a book get a lot of their personality from the narrators voiceacting and changing this is disconcerting.
The Good:
This is an intense book. Starts awfully slow (and I mean SLOW) but when it at last gets going, it is one big rollercoaster. Donaldson does it again: He knows how to get us interested in a story in which you sometime are really really really annoyed with the main character.
How many times I'd loved to grab Linden Avery in her collar and shake some sense in her.
He does that too in the earlier books. Tomas Convenant is a real ass in the first one. Detestable. And while he gets better in the next books, he annoys the hell out of me. But this makes the main characters so incredibly realistic/believable.
Just imagine: you are transported from this world to a fantasyworld, with strange beings and people who insist you are going to save them all. Would you just step up and say, right, let's start cracking?
No. Well I wouldn't. I would doubt and unbelieve ;-) and doubt some more. Myself and everybody else.
In fantasy, this aspect of human psychology is highly underlighted. Real people doubt. Most of them derrive their strenght from doubt. Or fail. We all just fail, all the time, on some level. Failure may lead to great things. Because of failure and doubt we strive to be better, but really... we strive to 'not be in charge and be responsible for ending the world'.
Well, the world is ending, in this book. Absolutely. Just not in one big flash (what a short book it would have been). Linden is totally believable, annoying as she is, filled to the brim with crippling doubt and rage and, yes, despair. Whatever she's done, everything leads her to more despair. She strives to be better and just can't. This is very refreshing.
I love the character of Covenant, what he's become. Reading his parts is a joy. I missed him :-)
The adage "Joy is in the eyes of the beholder' is absolutely true. This book is rutheless on its characters. I've secretly and silently cursed the heavens blue after reading some parts of the book. I've cried and laughed. Stephen Donaldson hasn't lost his touch of creating wonderfull enthralling worlds that take youre breath away. He introduces new vista's he's never visited before.
When the book gets going, I really loved it.
The Bad.
Now that's the thing. When the book gets going. It doesn't for at least one third of the (very large) book. Said third is sloooooooow. Boring boring boring and slow. Some parts of it are necessary for background on later developments, some are good for character building and Lindens slow spiral into despair and rage. But most of it is unnecessary wordiness. Not A Good Thing.
Later in the book there's another "gosh let's have endless slow discussions and do nothing' part. This is what made me give this book a 3 star instead of 4. The actionparts really deserve a 4,5 star, but not the book as a whole.
BTW: I loved having to use a dictionary, whatever I said in the start of this review. It's refreshing ;-) Donaldson has gone far from his crude use of language in his Gap and less so in his Mordant books.
December 23, 2023
Got through it this time, somewhat more successfully than in the past.
Also, this narrator that mispronounces Covenant’s name, he’s actually the narrator of the Riyria books, which I adore. Still, dude, it’s KUH-vin-int
July 2022 — I tried to go back and reread this, I really did. And I did listen to all the words on the audiobook. I found the narrator much more tolerable this time, but that may be because I’ve grown so much more irritated by Scott Brick’s voice in the other books.
But this book just goes on F O R E V E R, and not not not in a good way. See the review I wrote nine years ago, below.
All this, just to finally read that last book. I have no faith that I’m going to enjoy that book, none at all. Ugh.
November 2013 — Man, I cannot tell you how little I care about this book. I mean, I want to read it – I need to read it. This is book nine of a series that my dad and I started reading when I was a teenager, so I feel a great personal need to read all the books of the series. But it's too much. Too many characters, too many things going on, too much stuff ... and not in an epic, feel-good kind of way where I'm waiting for everything to come together in the end but in a wait-what-who's-that-what's-going-on-now-? way.
I remember loving the first three books when I was a kid. I very specifically remember riding the lawnmower and reading the second book in the series at the same time that I had to mow the lawn. These were the first books that I realized had a smell to them, had a feeling to them. Only real book readers will know what I'm talking about.
Looking back now, I realize that some of the names are pretty silly. The main antagonist's name is Lord Foul, the Despiser. Now in this book there is a character suddenly shows up that shows that Donaldson did not read the Harry Potter books: he calls her She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Really Stephen R Donaldson? Really?
And seriously, I just don't care. I want everybody to go read the first three books so we can talk about them. I'd love for some of you to read the second three books; they're worth reading. I can't recommend these last four books. Well, the first book was okay. The second book was tolerable. This book is ... ugh ... 32 hours of wasted time listening. And of course I'm going to get the next one – the last one – and I hope (against hope) that I don't feel cheated by this whole experience. I have a feeling I'm going to be disappointed, but I'll give it a chance.
One other note, and this deals with the narrator: Scott Brick narrated the first and second books, but there is a different narrator for this one. I don't know his name, but he's given Scottish accents to the giants and he cannot pronounce "covenant" correctly (Covenant being the last name of one of the main characters, so he says it often): he says kah-vin-int when it should be kuh-vin-int, and it made me cringe every time. I don't particularly like Scott Brick, but this guy made me miss him
Also, this narrator that mispronounces Covenant’s name, he’s actually the narrator of the Riyria books, which I adore. Still, dude, it’s KUH-vin-int
July 2022 — I tried to go back and reread this, I really did. And I did listen to all the words on the audiobook. I found the narrator much more tolerable this time, but that may be because I’ve grown so much more irritated by Scott Brick’s voice in the other books.
But this book just goes on F O R E V E R, and not not not in a good way. See the review I wrote nine years ago, below.
All this, just to finally read that last book. I have no faith that I’m going to enjoy that book, none at all. Ugh.
November 2013 — Man, I cannot tell you how little I care about this book. I mean, I want to read it – I need to read it. This is book nine of a series that my dad and I started reading when I was a teenager, so I feel a great personal need to read all the books of the series. But it's too much. Too many characters, too many things going on, too much stuff ... and not in an epic, feel-good kind of way where I'm waiting for everything to come together in the end but in a wait-what-who's-that-what's-going-on-now-? way.
I remember loving the first three books when I was a kid. I very specifically remember riding the lawnmower and reading the second book in the series at the same time that I had to mow the lawn. These were the first books that I realized had a smell to them, had a feeling to them. Only real book readers will know what I'm talking about.
Looking back now, I realize that some of the names are pretty silly. The main antagonist's name is Lord Foul, the Despiser. Now in this book there is a character suddenly shows up that shows that Donaldson did not read the Harry Potter books: he calls her She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Really Stephen R Donaldson? Really?
And seriously, I just don't care. I want everybody to go read the first three books so we can talk about them. I'd love for some of you to read the second three books; they're worth reading. I can't recommend these last four books. Well, the first book was okay. The second book was tolerable. This book is ... ugh ... 32 hours of wasted time listening. And of course I'm going to get the next one – the last one – and I hope (against hope) that I don't feel cheated by this whole experience. I have a feeling I'm going to be disappointed, but I'll give it a chance.
One other note, and this deals with the narrator: Scott Brick narrated the first and second books, but there is a different narrator for this one. I don't know his name, but he's given Scottish accents to the giants and he cannot pronounce "covenant" correctly (Covenant being the last name of one of the main characters, so he says it often): he says kah-vin-int when it should be kuh-vin-int, and it made me cringe every time. I don't particularly like Scott Brick, but this guy made me miss him
July 9, 2020
This review is for all ten books in the series. My re-read of the first six books was colored through the lens of nostalgia. The first two trilogies affected me a great deal as a youth—I read them at some point during high school. When I saw that Donaldson had completed the story arc with The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a four-book tetralogy, I decided to return to the originals and read them all in sequence.
I regret the decision, but now at least I’ve completed them. I do believe that because the first series in particular is so unique, Donaldson deserved to be given the chance to resolve the story. The ending brought many strands together with a feeling of near-completion, but unfortunately his style ruined the last four books for me.
The first six books affected me powerfully. They were the first fantasy novel that I had read that treated the reader like an adult (much more so than Lord of the Rings). It’s adult in several ways. First, the language. Donaldson uses advanced vocabulary unsparingly that requires most readers to keep a dictionary (app) handy. He doesn’t dumb it down for “young adults” or even for adults for that matter. He challenges you to use your brain, and as a child who joined Mensa and was constantly solving puzzles and playing complex games like Dungeons & Dragons, I ate up the challenge. I felt more mature reading it.
The second most obvious quality that struck me as different from all the other fantasy novels that I had read, is that the main character was radically unsympathetic. Antiheroes were not unknown to me at the time—I had read quite a bit of Michael Moorcock by this point, including Elric of Melnibone and the Cornelius Chronicles. But your typical anti-hero has redeeming qualities that are appealing to read even while they behave in “anti” ways. For example, they are usually charismatic. Or clever. Or unafraid. Whatever causes them to commit questionable acts, we enjoy reading their exploits, and they end up saving the day even if only for selfish reasons. Well, here’s where Donaldson parts ways the most dramatically. The main character is not only a bad person, but he is an unlikeable person. Thomas Covenant is irritable and difficult and unfunny. He is furious at the world because it treated him harshly. He’s bony and angular and diseased and anti-cuddly. He’s a cactus of a person. And on top of that, he commits a despicable act that makes him seem unredeemable. It happens in the first novel, Lord Foul’s Bane, and I don’t consider it a spoiler because I think anyone who goes into reading it should know about it in advance. It’s a central conundrum of much of the series, how do we as the reader respond to it and how do we feel about the author’s treatment of the topic. Thomas Covenant is sucked into the fantasy world known only as The Land, and he believes it is only a grand hallucination of some sort. He feels he’s gone insane. Enraged by his lack of control over himself and his situation (which is particularly acute for him because he has leprosy and his only real-world survival method is to remain in complete control of his interactions with his environment), he takes it out on a friendly young woman trying to help him by raping her.
This act brings up the ethical question of whether cruelty in a dream is real. Covenant believes (at that time) that The Land is a dream of some sort although it’s certainly not a typical dream. But if we are willing to accept that premise then how do we feel about violence toward a dream figure? How do we feel about rape in a story, if we want to look at it metafictionally? Over the course of the series, Donaldson touches on how the assault act psychologically harms the rapist. Covenant later can’t forgive himself and carries his own self-hatred with him for many years. He frequently seeks to atone for this action that he regrets. Yes, his victim suffers from the event but in what I would describe as stereotypical ways. The focus was never on her point of view. Which isn’t to say Donaldson dismisses it, but it’s not really his strong suit. He’s clearly an Existentialist of sorts, and we as a reader come to realize that whether the world is a grand hallucination or another actual dimension doesn’t matter—Covenant is defined by his choices. From a Buddhist perspective, all of existence is a dream. All is nothingness. And yet within this nothingness, our choices still matter. The act of rape degrades the actor as well as injures the victim. A contemporary feminist critique of the storyline might analyze the events from a different perspective. While personal agency and “responsibility” are not attributes to be utterly dismissed, the decentralized and abstract self is part of a social environment. And in fact, it is society/culture/civilization that permits rape to occur. Yes, we can and should punish criminal acts, but it’s our political and cultural environment that allows it to exist, and what is required to change is not “interior” but is instead social. This brings up what could be seen as a weakness of The Chronicles and Donaldson’s treatment of rape and other issues. In the world of The Land, it’s relatively devoid of politics. There is no political economy—no Capitalism to turn people, time, and materials into products. Society is relatively egalitarian between men and women with almost no patriarchy. Struggles tend to be either between evil and good—the forces of Lord Foul (the force of “despite” or despair) versus everyone else (who mean well but may unwittingly help Foul); or the struggles are between “races.” The entire story struck me as not quite racist but racialist. Tending to give each racial group common attributes in contrast with others. He’s somewhat essentialist in his creation of races. The Hurachai, the Ramen, the Giants, the Stonedowners, the Demondimspawn, the Elohim, etc. While there is disagreement between certain members of each group, Donaldson tends to emphasize similarities. At times, for example, I became uncomfortable that all the Hurachai were inscrutable, unemotional martial artists of supreme skill (and unifying telepathic abilities). It struck me as an Asian stereotype—like they were all Bruce Lee clones.
The violent sexual assault, an incestuous relationship (which isn’t portrayed as healthy but also isn’t utterly condemned), and lastly the focus on morality throughout the Chronicles are the other additional elements that made the series a truly adult story that never coddles the reader. We must wrestle with our own responses rather than simply accept the story as it is. Many readers may even just quit reading it and that is certainly a valid response. Or, just as Donaldson positions Covenant as the only man who can save The Land due to his possession of a white gold ring (the wedding band from his ex-wife) which gives him tremendous, dangerous magical powers…are we stuck with the book because it’s hard to put down? Because we grow to care about The Land too? More than we care about Covenant?
In the first two trilogies, Donaldson exhibits a dramatic writing style that walks a tightrope between grand and grandiose that is not balanced by any humor. Either you accept that emotions and dangers are always turned up to 11 or you become put off by the style, and he comes across as melodramatic and bombastic. For me, it worked (mostly) through the first two trilogies. When you get to book seven, he goes off the rails.
The last four books struck me as a parody of his own style. In book nine, the word “god” is repeated 131 times. Hell gets 140 mentions. Damn gets 73. The word “mien” (you know, instead of “expression”) gets 9 mentions in book nine and 25 in book ten. Book ten finds “hell” repeated 181 times, “god” 168 times, “innominate” gets 5 mentions and “We are Giants” is spoken 14 times. Not to mention “We are Haruchai” or “We are Ramen.” Heavy handed much? Throughout the final four, Donaldson dedicates a tremendous volume of dialogue toward justifying and rationalizing the plot. He seems to complexify things in order to create barriers and challenges to raise the stakes but then feels the need to put a lot of effort into explaining them. Too many unnecessary details parsed…much like theology.
Covenant and the other main character, Linden Avery, who joins us in the second trilogy, are always plagued by self-doubt. But by book eight, the self-doubt becomes unbearable. It may authentically represent a struggle that most of us face but for fuck’s sake I don’t want to read about characters constantly doubting themselves. It’s beyond tedious. And the romance between Covenant and Linden is not epic, it’s cloying and saccharineBoth of them struggle with power and feel unworthy of it. They feel that if they accept too much power then they become dangerous. They fear responsibility and must overcome their fear of using power in order to succeed. This strikes me as a thematic concern out-of-date with our times. It feels like a meaningless abstract Existential crisis. “I have so much power I’m afraid to use it.” I keep coming back to the fact that our current struggles are about the “everyperson” being faced with a deficit of power. Corrupt figures like Trump and McConnell have no qualms about using their power. They have no inner struggle. The rest of us humanity are oppressed. So who could possibly relate to this premise of having too much power and being afraid to use it? It seems like an irrelevant out-of-date intellectual debate occurring repeatedly throughout the story.
How does Donaldson reflect on religion in The Chronicles? In general, I’d say ambiguously. I did a little research and found an interview with Donaldson where he talks about being raised as a Fundamentalist Christian and so he understands that mindset well. He said that aspects of that way of thinking remain with him, and he considers himself a “missionary for literature.” Personally, I find Biblical symbolism to be rather pompous in literature, but at the same time I find blasphemy to be generally amusing and entertaining. When fiction uses Biblical stories in some fashion to simply retell the myth (let’s say Aslan in the Narnia Chronicles is Christ returned to save humanity) then I call that proselytizing and indoctrination. But what about when the story falls somewhere in between praise and blasphemy? Thomas Covenant is a Christ figure. He’s resurrected several times in various ways. He actually has leprosy and is healed (periodically) of his condition. Christ is described as curing leprosy. His very name—Covenant: a binding religious commitment to the gospel. And he’s called “The Unbeliever” due to his refusal to believe The Land is real. A facile interpretation might pose that this unlikeable rapist asshole is a representation of “atheism,” and he doesn’t become tolerable and accept his role until he admits The Land is important—even if he never quite knows if it is real. It may all be in his head, but he becomes a better person when he cares about it and acts based upon that. Christians might call this “faith.” I would quibble that Covenant never really becomes likeable. He sacrifices and risks himself repeatedly, but I never found myself on his side. I was on the side of The Land and the supporting characters pulled in his wake.
The religious symbolism is profligate throughout. Lord Foul is our Satan. The Creator is God, Donaldson makes the Creator generally weak and ineffectual although he’s responsible for setting Covenant and Linden Avery on their paths into The Land. The Creator is a fairly clear embodiment of the aspect of Christian story that has Jesus crying, “Why have you forsaken me?” The Creator sets the ball rolling then poof—he gone. The Land is a fallen paradise, with much beauty yet corrupted by evil and plagued by toxins. There were actually times when the themes struck me as almost, vaguely environmental. The poisonous “Sunbane” that inflicts the land is like global warming. The Sunbane is fed by cruelty although they are tricked into believing they are doing it for the good of humanity. Much like we work to buy houses, clothes, electronics, and so on to give our families comfortable lives. And yet all that comfort comes at a price for our species. Humans were seduced into chopping down great swathes of the “One Forest” which subsequently allowed Lord Foul’s forces to increase their strength. There is no technology anywhere in the land, only magic and physical prowess, and so that which “pollutes” the land is driven by our Satan figure. These implications are never stated directly, but they begin to chip away at the too-obvious metaphor of Covenant “saving” humanity. The battle in his soul to avoid despair is what permits him to act and attempt to save the natural world. There is one particular scene that problematizes a simple Christian view of the story. Covenant returns to the “real world” and stumbles into a Christian revival service under a tent. Due to his leprosy, the church rejects him as diseased and literally throws him out. He finds no solace from the Earthly church, only eventually by returning to the fantasy realm and overcoming self-doubt does he find purpose. In the end, Covenant’s covenant is not religious, but it’s a commitment to action in pursuit of Good. His quest is Existential not religious. The Biblical elements seemed to me more stylistic attributes. The framework for a morality play that is about love and friendship and self-sacrifice and overcoming despair for the good of others.
I will comment briefly on the ending in a spoiler tag.
In total, The Chronicles is a groundbreaking series that confronts us with a plethora of moral questions. The adventure story that goes along with it was compelling through the first six books at least, but fell apart for me in the last four. It’s not completely true that I regret reading them all. The OCD in me is pleased to know how Donaldson wanted it all to end.
I regret the decision, but now at least I’ve completed them. I do believe that because the first series in particular is so unique, Donaldson deserved to be given the chance to resolve the story. The ending brought many strands together with a feeling of near-completion, but unfortunately his style ruined the last four books for me.
The first six books affected me powerfully. They were the first fantasy novel that I had read that treated the reader like an adult (much more so than Lord of the Rings). It’s adult in several ways. First, the language. Donaldson uses advanced vocabulary unsparingly that requires most readers to keep a dictionary (app) handy. He doesn’t dumb it down for “young adults” or even for adults for that matter. He challenges you to use your brain, and as a child who joined Mensa and was constantly solving puzzles and playing complex games like Dungeons & Dragons, I ate up the challenge. I felt more mature reading it.
The second most obvious quality that struck me as different from all the other fantasy novels that I had read, is that the main character was radically unsympathetic. Antiheroes were not unknown to me at the time—I had read quite a bit of Michael Moorcock by this point, including Elric of Melnibone and the Cornelius Chronicles. But your typical anti-hero has redeeming qualities that are appealing to read even while they behave in “anti” ways. For example, they are usually charismatic. Or clever. Or unafraid. Whatever causes them to commit questionable acts, we enjoy reading their exploits, and they end up saving the day even if only for selfish reasons. Well, here’s where Donaldson parts ways the most dramatically. The main character is not only a bad person, but he is an unlikeable person. Thomas Covenant is irritable and difficult and unfunny. He is furious at the world because it treated him harshly. He’s bony and angular and diseased and anti-cuddly. He’s a cactus of a person. And on top of that, he commits a despicable act that makes him seem unredeemable. It happens in the first novel, Lord Foul’s Bane, and I don’t consider it a spoiler because I think anyone who goes into reading it should know about it in advance. It’s a central conundrum of much of the series, how do we as the reader respond to it and how do we feel about the author’s treatment of the topic. Thomas Covenant is sucked into the fantasy world known only as The Land, and he believes it is only a grand hallucination of some sort. He feels he’s gone insane. Enraged by his lack of control over himself and his situation (which is particularly acute for him because he has leprosy and his only real-world survival method is to remain in complete control of his interactions with his environment), he takes it out on a friendly young woman trying to help him by raping her.
This act brings up the ethical question of whether cruelty in a dream is real. Covenant believes (at that time) that The Land is a dream of some sort although it’s certainly not a typical dream. But if we are willing to accept that premise then how do we feel about violence toward a dream figure? How do we feel about rape in a story, if we want to look at it metafictionally? Over the course of the series, Donaldson touches on how the assault act psychologically harms the rapist. Covenant later can’t forgive himself and carries his own self-hatred with him for many years. He frequently seeks to atone for this action that he regrets. Yes, his victim suffers from the event but in what I would describe as stereotypical ways. The focus was never on her point of view. Which isn’t to say Donaldson dismisses it, but it’s not really his strong suit. He’s clearly an Existentialist of sorts, and we as a reader come to realize that whether the world is a grand hallucination or another actual dimension doesn’t matter—Covenant is defined by his choices. From a Buddhist perspective, all of existence is a dream. All is nothingness. And yet within this nothingness, our choices still matter. The act of rape degrades the actor as well as injures the victim. A contemporary feminist critique of the storyline might analyze the events from a different perspective. While personal agency and “responsibility” are not attributes to be utterly dismissed, the decentralized and abstract self is part of a social environment. And in fact, it is society/culture/civilization that permits rape to occur. Yes, we can and should punish criminal acts, but it’s our political and cultural environment that allows it to exist, and what is required to change is not “interior” but is instead social. This brings up what could be seen as a weakness of The Chronicles and Donaldson’s treatment of rape and other issues. In the world of The Land, it’s relatively devoid of politics. There is no political economy—no Capitalism to turn people, time, and materials into products. Society is relatively egalitarian between men and women with almost no patriarchy. Struggles tend to be either between evil and good—the forces of Lord Foul (the force of “despite” or despair) versus everyone else (who mean well but may unwittingly help Foul); or the struggles are between “races.” The entire story struck me as not quite racist but racialist. Tending to give each racial group common attributes in contrast with others. He’s somewhat essentialist in his creation of races. The Hurachai, the Ramen, the Giants, the Stonedowners, the Demondimspawn, the Elohim, etc. While there is disagreement between certain members of each group, Donaldson tends to emphasize similarities. At times, for example, I became uncomfortable that all the Hurachai were inscrutable, unemotional martial artists of supreme skill (and unifying telepathic abilities). It struck me as an Asian stereotype—like they were all Bruce Lee clones.
The violent sexual assault, an incestuous relationship (which isn’t portrayed as healthy but also isn’t utterly condemned), and lastly the focus on morality throughout the Chronicles are the other additional elements that made the series a truly adult story that never coddles the reader. We must wrestle with our own responses rather than simply accept the story as it is. Many readers may even just quit reading it and that is certainly a valid response. Or, just as Donaldson positions Covenant as the only man who can save The Land due to his possession of a white gold ring (the wedding band from his ex-wife) which gives him tremendous, dangerous magical powers…are we stuck with the book because it’s hard to put down? Because we grow to care about The Land too? More than we care about Covenant?
In the first two trilogies, Donaldson exhibits a dramatic writing style that walks a tightrope between grand and grandiose that is not balanced by any humor. Either you accept that emotions and dangers are always turned up to 11 or you become put off by the style, and he comes across as melodramatic and bombastic. For me, it worked (mostly) through the first two trilogies. When you get to book seven, he goes off the rails.
The last four books struck me as a parody of his own style. In book nine, the word “god” is repeated 131 times. Hell gets 140 mentions. Damn gets 73. The word “mien” (you know, instead of “expression”) gets 9 mentions in book nine and 25 in book ten. Book ten finds “hell” repeated 181 times, “god” 168 times, “innominate” gets 5 mentions and “We are Giants” is spoken 14 times. Not to mention “We are Haruchai” or “We are Ramen.” Heavy handed much? Throughout the final four, Donaldson dedicates a tremendous volume of dialogue toward justifying and rationalizing the plot. He seems to complexify things in order to create barriers and challenges to raise the stakes but then feels the need to put a lot of effort into explaining them. Too many unnecessary details parsed…much like theology.
Covenant and the other main character, Linden Avery, who joins us in the second trilogy, are always plagued by self-doubt. But by book eight, the self-doubt becomes unbearable. It may authentically represent a struggle that most of us face but for fuck’s sake I don’t want to read about characters constantly doubting themselves. It’s beyond tedious. And the romance between Covenant and Linden is not epic, it’s cloying and saccharineBoth of them struggle with power and feel unworthy of it. They feel that if they accept too much power then they become dangerous. They fear responsibility and must overcome their fear of using power in order to succeed. This strikes me as a thematic concern out-of-date with our times. It feels like a meaningless abstract Existential crisis. “I have so much power I’m afraid to use it.” I keep coming back to the fact that our current struggles are about the “everyperson” being faced with a deficit of power. Corrupt figures like Trump and McConnell have no qualms about using their power. They have no inner struggle. The rest of us humanity are oppressed. So who could possibly relate to this premise of having too much power and being afraid to use it? It seems like an irrelevant out-of-date intellectual debate occurring repeatedly throughout the story.
How does Donaldson reflect on religion in The Chronicles? In general, I’d say ambiguously. I did a little research and found an interview with Donaldson where he talks about being raised as a Fundamentalist Christian and so he understands that mindset well. He said that aspects of that way of thinking remain with him, and he considers himself a “missionary for literature.” Personally, I find Biblical symbolism to be rather pompous in literature, but at the same time I find blasphemy to be generally amusing and entertaining. When fiction uses Biblical stories in some fashion to simply retell the myth (let’s say Aslan in the Narnia Chronicles is Christ returned to save humanity) then I call that proselytizing and indoctrination. But what about when the story falls somewhere in between praise and blasphemy? Thomas Covenant is a Christ figure. He’s resurrected several times in various ways. He actually has leprosy and is healed (periodically) of his condition. Christ is described as curing leprosy. His very name—Covenant: a binding religious commitment to the gospel. And he’s called “The Unbeliever” due to his refusal to believe The Land is real. A facile interpretation might pose that this unlikeable rapist asshole is a representation of “atheism,” and he doesn’t become tolerable and accept his role until he admits The Land is important—even if he never quite knows if it is real. It may all be in his head, but he becomes a better person when he cares about it and acts based upon that. Christians might call this “faith.” I would quibble that Covenant never really becomes likeable. He sacrifices and risks himself repeatedly, but I never found myself on his side. I was on the side of The Land and the supporting characters pulled in his wake.
The religious symbolism is profligate throughout. Lord Foul is our Satan. The Creator is God, Donaldson makes the Creator generally weak and ineffectual although he’s responsible for setting Covenant and Linden Avery on their paths into The Land. The Creator is a fairly clear embodiment of the aspect of Christian story that has Jesus crying, “Why have you forsaken me?” The Creator sets the ball rolling then poof—he gone. The Land is a fallen paradise, with much beauty yet corrupted by evil and plagued by toxins. There were actually times when the themes struck me as almost, vaguely environmental. The poisonous “Sunbane” that inflicts the land is like global warming. The Sunbane is fed by cruelty although they are tricked into believing they are doing it for the good of humanity. Much like we work to buy houses, clothes, electronics, and so on to give our families comfortable lives. And yet all that comfort comes at a price for our species. Humans were seduced into chopping down great swathes of the “One Forest” which subsequently allowed Lord Foul’s forces to increase their strength. There is no technology anywhere in the land, only magic and physical prowess, and so that which “pollutes” the land is driven by our Satan figure. These implications are never stated directly, but they begin to chip away at the too-obvious metaphor of Covenant “saving” humanity. The battle in his soul to avoid despair is what permits him to act and attempt to save the natural world. There is one particular scene that problematizes a simple Christian view of the story. Covenant returns to the “real world” and stumbles into a Christian revival service under a tent. Due to his leprosy, the church rejects him as diseased and literally throws him out. He finds no solace from the Earthly church, only eventually by returning to the fantasy realm and overcoming self-doubt does he find purpose. In the end, Covenant’s covenant is not religious, but it’s a commitment to action in pursuit of Good. His quest is Existential not religious. The Biblical elements seemed to me more stylistic attributes. The framework for a morality play that is about love and friendship and self-sacrifice and overcoming despair for the good of others.
I will comment briefly on the ending in a spoiler tag.
In total, The Chronicles is a groundbreaking series that confronts us with a plethora of moral questions. The adventure story that goes along with it was compelling through the first six books at least, but fell apart for me in the last four. It’s not completely true that I regret reading them all. The OCD in me is pleased to know how Donaldson wanted it all to end.
November 5, 2010
A co-worker saw that I was reading this book and asked if I would recommend it. I thought for a bit and replied: "I would not read this book, nor its two predecessors. But I would read the first two Trilogies in the series." I found the ending of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant to be wholly satisfying. I was extremely disappointed to have that lovely ending entirely unraveled in The Runes of the Earth.
I have the unfortunate uncontrolled need to finish a story regardless of how much I dislike it. Otherwise, I would not have bought this book nor its predecessor. Instead, I had to suffer yet again through Linden Avery's constant whining. Yes, she did that in the Second Chronicles, but here it seems much worse. It's as if Stephen R. Donaldson has some specific image of her state of mind and wants to beat you over the head with it ad nauseum until you get it. There were several times that I wanted to scream: "Enough already! you've said that 300 times now! Get on with the story!"
Donaldson's writing also doesn't seem as tight as the first two Chronicles. I found myself often thinking: "why did they do that? that doesn't make sense." or "Why didn't they ask W about W, Y, and Z?"
And, as usual, make sure you have a dictionary, since Donaldson continues to find some joy in throwing in dozens of obscure Old English words into his prose.
That said, there were nuggets of enjoyable reading. Always when the Giants are involved, and often with Stave & the Masters, as well as the Ramen. The Insequients are an intriguing addition to Land lore, though I wondered if it was too much. Often I would struggle to remember who a mentioned character was and why they were significant. After 33 years and into 9 books, it's getting hard to keep all the characters/races/events in mind.
I found the plot interesting after it finally got moving after a too-long stay in Andelain, with a few large surprises. I can only hope that the last book will reduce Linden's musings and improve on the 1st & 2nd Chronicles.
I have the unfortunate uncontrolled need to finish a story regardless of how much I dislike it. Otherwise, I would not have bought this book nor its predecessor. Instead, I had to suffer yet again through Linden Avery's constant whining. Yes, she did that in the Second Chronicles, but here it seems much worse. It's as if Stephen R. Donaldson has some specific image of her state of mind and wants to beat you over the head with it ad nauseum until you get it. There were several times that I wanted to scream: "Enough already! you've said that 300 times now! Get on with the story!"
Donaldson's writing also doesn't seem as tight as the first two Chronicles. I found myself often thinking: "why did they do that? that doesn't make sense." or "Why didn't they ask W about W, Y, and Z?"
And, as usual, make sure you have a dictionary, since Donaldson continues to find some joy in throwing in dozens of obscure Old English words into his prose.
That said, there were nuggets of enjoyable reading. Always when the Giants are involved, and often with Stave & the Masters, as well as the Ramen. The Insequients are an intriguing addition to Land lore, though I wondered if it was too much. Often I would struggle to remember who a mentioned character was and why they were significant. After 33 years and into 9 books, it's getting hard to keep all the characters/races/events in mind.
I found the plot interesting after it finally got moving after a too-long stay in Andelain, with a few large surprises. I can only hope that the last book will reduce Linden's musings and improve on the 1st & 2nd Chronicles.
November 5, 2010
The third (of four) books of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and the ninth (of ten) book in the series. The last book ended with Linden Avery and her Giantish companions entering the last bastion of health in the otherworldy Land, the Hills of Andelain. The novel ends with most of those characters dead or missing, and the world about to end (no spoiler, it's in the title).
Four fifths of the book takes Linden on a walking tour through various attractions in the Land, feeling sorry for herself, as she first tries to find her missing son, Jeremiah, and the consequences of that search.
Sample conversation:
Giants: You rock, Linden!
Linden: No, I suck.
The Humbled: We don't trust you, but you rock.
Linden: You really think I suck.
Stave, her friendly Haruchai: You rock so much.
Linden: Actually, I suck.
Ex-Lover: You rock!
Linden: If you really loved me, you would think I rocked and rolled! You think I suck!
Waynhim and Ur-Viles: Y'kdjk R'klkdlk! (translation: You rock!)
Linden: Thanks for telling me I suck.
Linden: Guys, I have an announcement: I suck.
Everyone: Yay Linden! Can she rock more? She cannot! She rocks 110%!
The book finally picks up at the last few chapters once the large group is diminished by many deaths and finally by splitting in two.
The Covenant series has been blasted in the past for its talky nature and anti-heroes who drone on endlessly about their flaws. While the first trilogy managed to mix that with plenty of action and fantastic imagery, the later volumes, as they grew heavier, were weighed down ever more by endless self-examination.
The stakes couldn't be higher in Against All Things Ending, with a cliffhanger that echoes the final line of Arthur C. Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God". I'll be tuning in for the next book, three years from now, but for those who haven't been reading each book as it comes out, waiting for the series to be complete may be your best option.
Four fifths of the book takes Linden on a walking tour through various attractions in the Land, feeling sorry for herself, as she first tries to find her missing son, Jeremiah, and the consequences of that search.
Sample conversation:
Giants: You rock, Linden!
Linden: No, I suck.
The Humbled: We don't trust you, but you rock.
Linden: You really think I suck.
Stave, her friendly Haruchai: You rock so much.
Linden: Actually, I suck.
Ex-Lover: You rock!
Linden: If you really loved me, you would think I rocked and rolled! You think I suck!
Waynhim and Ur-Viles: Y'kdjk R'klkdlk! (translation: You rock!)
Linden: Thanks for telling me I suck.
Linden: Guys, I have an announcement: I suck.
Everyone: Yay Linden! Can she rock more? She cannot! She rocks 110%!
The book finally picks up at the last few chapters once the large group is diminished by many deaths and finally by splitting in two.
The Covenant series has been blasted in the past for its talky nature and anti-heroes who drone on endlessly about their flaws. While the first trilogy managed to mix that with plenty of action and fantastic imagery, the later volumes, as they grew heavier, were weighed down ever more by endless self-examination.
The stakes couldn't be higher in Against All Things Ending, with a cliffhanger that echoes the final line of Arthur C. Clarke's "Nine Billion Names of God". I'll be tuning in for the next book, three years from now, but for those who haven't been reading each book as it comes out, waiting for the series to be complete may be your best option.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2011
It's quite clear that Donaldson no longer has the same verve or enthusiasm for his characters or creation that fuelled the original Thomas Covenant chronicles. I personally find the focus on Linden extremely frustrating as she is such an obnoxious and dislikeable character that I'd rather she fell into the nearest Fall to be lost forever than make us put up with her for another second.
This book feels like it's wrapping up loose ends before the climatic finale, and as such Donaldson decides to axe some rather significant characters, whether they appear in some form in the final book is yet to be seen and I wouldn't put that past the Author. The tempo as a whole though suffers, as while each previous chronicle was 3 books, for some reason the final one has been made into 4, and it just feels like 1 book too far.
I really believe that introducing time travel as a theme was a massive mistake, it's such a significant dues ex machina and so convoluted that it tears apart the fabric and mythos that was previously created, leaving all the previous happenings of the land barren and shallow in its stead.
Joy is in the ears that hear, but everything about Donaldson's latest creation is meagre and weak compared to the beautiful tales that preceded it.
This book feels like it's wrapping up loose ends before the climatic finale, and as such Donaldson decides to axe some rather significant characters, whether they appear in some form in the final book is yet to be seen and I wouldn't put that past the Author. The tempo as a whole though suffers, as while each previous chronicle was 3 books, for some reason the final one has been made into 4, and it just feels like 1 book too far.
I really believe that introducing time travel as a theme was a massive mistake, it's such a significant dues ex machina and so convoluted that it tears apart the fabric and mythos that was previously created, leaving all the previous happenings of the land barren and shallow in its stead.
Joy is in the ears that hear, but everything about Donaldson's latest creation is meagre and weak compared to the beautiful tales that preceded it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 19, 2019
Stephen R. Donaldson's chronicles of Thomas Covenant are easily as good as anything J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis concocted. Epic fantasy with good and evil, flawed heroes, megalomaniac despoilers, a believable Land where all kinds of fantastic creatures live that array themselves on the side of good and evil. And like the children in the Narnia books, Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever and Linden Avery the Chosen are of this world. How they get to the Land isn't through a wardrobe but by coma. So of course at first Thomas Covenant doesn't believe he's in a real land; to him it's a dream. Until it isn't. His leprosy doesn't go away.
In this tome, the penultimate in the series, Linden has awoken the Worm of the World's end by using the Staff of Law to resurrect Thomas Covenant from death to help her find her son Jeremiah who has been taken by Lord Foul. Well, that's against all laws, so clearly she's a pariah at least among some of the Land's inhabitants. Since she wants to take the blame for everything bad that happens, she diminishes the choices others make.
Donaldson's vocabulary is massive. His tales are massive. And the fantasy is extraordinarily rich.
In this tome, the penultimate in the series, Linden has awoken the Worm of the World's end by using the Staff of Law to resurrect Thomas Covenant from death to help her find her son Jeremiah who has been taken by Lord Foul. Well, that's against all laws, so clearly she's a pariah at least among some of the Land's inhabitants. Since she wants to take the blame for everything bad that happens, she diminishes the choices others make.
Donaldson's vocabulary is massive. His tales are massive. And the fantasy is extraordinarily rich.
December 31, 2010
Five stars with caveats, five stars for giving me what I wanted.
If you have chosen to read this book, you have already read eight other Thomas Covenant novels. (If not, put that book down.) You know what sort of story you're getting into. This series is so far away from regular epic fantasy at this point. The quest hardly matters. The differences between the Land and our world fade. Even Covenant's leprosy has become an afterthought. These are the chronicles of Linden Avery, and her pain is the central part of the story; these are the chronicles of her retinue of Giants, Haruchai and men, and their struggle with the choices they have made.
My biggest issue with AATE is the pace of the book. It took me weeks to make any headway at the beginning. A hundred pages pass basically in argument and conversation. The early Covenant novels may have been more action-oriented, but SRD isn't telling the same story now. Judgement is coming, and those characters left at the end will have to come to terms with all of their actions, going back to the very beginning.
I eagerly await 2013.
If you have chosen to read this book, you have already read eight other Thomas Covenant novels. (If not, put that book down.) You know what sort of story you're getting into. This series is so far away from regular epic fantasy at this point. The quest hardly matters. The differences between the Land and our world fade. Even Covenant's leprosy has become an afterthought. These are the chronicles of Linden Avery, and her pain is the central part of the story; these are the chronicles of her retinue of Giants, Haruchai and men, and their struggle with the choices they have made.
My biggest issue with AATE is the pace of the book. It took me weeks to make any headway at the beginning. A hundred pages pass basically in argument and conversation. The early Covenant novels may have been more action-oriented, but SRD isn't telling the same story now. Judgement is coming, and those characters left at the end will have to come to terms with all of their actions, going back to the very beginning.
I eagerly await 2013.
November 25, 2010
I really wanted to like this book, but it was a chore to get through. There's not much redeeming here (character or story-wise). The first two trilogies in the Covenant series were dark, yes, but they had these fantastic settings and amazing moments that counterbalanced all the negativity. Not so here, just one torment for the characters (and the reader) after another.
Donaldson is known for his anti-heroes and one of the hardest for me to accept has been Linden Avery. Hard to see why anyone would want to be around this woman for more than about 5 minutes... full of self-pity, introspection and doubt. I guess that's part of everyone's nature but she wears it around like a great, gloomy overcoat.
The pace of this was horribly slow until about the last 4 or 5 chapters. I didn't realize this was part three of a four part series until then. To be honest, I was sorely disappointed... I was hoping for an end but then find out there's another gloomy book I'll have to trudge through! And it probably won't be out for another couple years!
Donaldson is known for his anti-heroes and one of the hardest for me to accept has been Linden Avery. Hard to see why anyone would want to be around this woman for more than about 5 minutes... full of self-pity, introspection and doubt. I guess that's part of everyone's nature but she wears it around like a great, gloomy overcoat.
The pace of this was horribly slow until about the last 4 or 5 chapters. I didn't realize this was part three of a four part series until then. To be honest, I was sorely disappointed... I was hoping for an end but then find out there's another gloomy book I'll have to trudge through! And it probably won't be out for another couple years!
August 28, 2016
I grew up on Thomas Covenant. I snuck the original books out of my brother's room when i was in middle school, and from there on out was a fan of fiction/fantasy/role playing. Granted, i was too young to understand most of it, but it was the coolest thing ever. ...that was 30 years ago. 30 years later, Stephen R. Donaldson has finally presented us the last of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. The first two books in this final trilogy were long-winded and painful, but this one is the crown jewel of long winded and painful.
We are forced to spend FAR too much time inside of linden avery's mind, where you are forced to endure repetition ad nauseam, and FAR too much time listening to TC spouting nonsense (that after my brain melted from boredom, actually started making sense). 3 days in, i'm not even a fraction of the way through, and i'm doubting at this point i can finish it. i'm so brain-dead by this book that i don't even want to finish this review...
We begged and begged for him to continue writing after the second chronicles. If only we knew then what we know now...
We are forced to spend FAR too much time inside of linden avery's mind, where you are forced to endure repetition ad nauseam, and FAR too much time listening to TC spouting nonsense (that after my brain melted from boredom, actually started making sense). 3 days in, i'm not even a fraction of the way through, and i'm doubting at this point i can finish it. i'm so brain-dead by this book that i don't even want to finish this review...
We begged and begged for him to continue writing after the second chronicles. If only we knew then what we know now...
March 13, 2011
Despite the fact that Donaldson is one of my favorite authors and has greatly influenced me, I felt this book did not need to be written. Most of the book was far too static and did not move at all, in ways that the previous books did not. I believe I counted four major sections of the book where the action took place. In the first section, for instance, the major scene involving Covenant (I'm avoiding spoilers here), the characters there literally did not move from that spot for more than a hundred pages! I found myself yelling "Get on with it already!" far too many times. Despite that, there are lots of good characters and plenty of Donaldson writing, and I will be picking up the fourth installment when it comes out. I also think, at some point, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant turned into the The Chronicles of Linden Avery, a character who it just not as compelling as Covenant.
March 9, 2012
These books are so good that I find myself getting very impatient whilst waiting for the next book in the series to be written and published. In every way they live up to the first and second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the style, pace and plot twists are every bit as good. The characters are masterfully developed and as we have come to expect from Donaldson, many of them will shift and change in their allegiances and their hero/antihero status as the story progresses, making us feel warmer and cooler towards them by turns. I have a funny feeling that when I finally get the last book in this series that it will in one fell swoop both settle my curiosity as to what happens at the end and also create a huge void in my life because I know that there are no more to come.
November 5, 2014
To strive against all things ending was simple vanity, valiant and futile.
This book is Donaldson's crowning glory in the Covenant saga (so far, I have yet to read The Last Dark). It his most vile and horrific, yet his most tender and optimistic TC book. The losses suffered are as shocking and unexpected as the victories and gains won. At this point, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant surpasses the previous two trilogies in scope, tragedy, and intimacy. Against All Things Ending is less episodic than FR and much less daunting than TRotE, and equally as epic.
Where will the final book of this magnificent saga take the reader? Can it fullfil the epic promise of AATE? Only one to find out...
This book is Donaldson's crowning glory in the Covenant saga (so far, I have yet to read The Last Dark). It his most vile and horrific, yet his most tender and optimistic TC book. The losses suffered are as shocking and unexpected as the victories and gains won. At this point, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant surpasses the previous two trilogies in scope, tragedy, and intimacy. Against All Things Ending is less episodic than FR and much less daunting than TRotE, and equally as epic.
Where will the final book of this magnificent saga take the reader? Can it fullfil the epic promise of AATE? Only one to find out...
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