Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #227476 in Books
• Published on: 1980-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Customer Reviews

A book as poetic in characters as it is in Language.
Stephen Donaldson was brought impressive power to the page in his first chrinicles of Thomas Covenant. He surpasses himself with the second chronicles, maturing the story and characters allowing the reader to feel as infected as the land he describes. In the second Chronicles Thomas Covenant returns to the land in a dramatic blaze of fire summoned by his old enemy Lord Foul. He finds the land has changed int he time he has been away. The beutiful and healing land Donaldson created in the first set of books has been replaced with a warped and diseased place ruled by the Sun Bane nad controlled by the Clave. Both these are the work of Lord Foul who has corrupted everything that made the land a place to love and cherish. If you have ever wanted to know what it would be like if the bad guy won here is your chance to find out. This is the first of three books in the second chrinicles all of which are superbly written and gripping pieces of literature. A MUST READ!!

Disturbing
The original chronicles of Thomas Covenant was overall a fantastic piece of work; but was seriously flawed by a very poor and slow beginning (by beginning I mean the first 200+ pages).
The second chronicles suffer from no such flaw.
This first book takes everything Covenant loved about the land and removes it or; worse, corrupts it. As he himself says; the only way to hurt a man who has lost everything is to give him back something broken. Throughout the novel he and his companions suffer constantly, and through this Covenant becomes a more interesting and sympathetic character; a counterpoint to the ludicrous amounts of sickening evil about. The only criticism I have of the novel is the vaguely repeating format of Covenant and pals get into trouble;and they are saved at the last minute; which is a standard and perfectly acceptable way to produce tension, but after a while you do want for something else.
This is a minor gripe though. Go buy this book now. Tell 'em Ric sent you.

A Good Story Badly Written
I have read a fair bit of fantasy in my time (Eddings, Gemmell, Feist, Hobb, Martin, Jordan, Abercrombie, Erikson, Williamson...), and Thomas Covenant certainly stands out from the crowd.

The first chronicles were most enjoyable, showing Covenant, a loathsome brute for the most part, muddling along and somehow succeeding despite his best efforts.

This first instalment of the second chronicles continues with a story that hooked me in, but I was constantly jarred by some truly ludicrous uses of the English language. If you've read "Everything Is Illuminated" by Jonathon Safran Foer, you will understand what I'm getting at. It is as though Donaldson has written this with an eye on making it Literature rather than a story, and so feels compelled to drop in fancy words that do nothing to enhance the story itself.

My "favourite" example of this is when a valley has nystagmus after Covenant gets hit on the head. Nystagmus is a condition where the eyeball moves from side to side, causing blurriness. How the hell a valley can have an eyeball that moves side to side I do not know. Why not say his vision was blurred?

Such an original piece of story telling destroyed by delusions of fanciness. I shudder to think of what was removed by the book's editor...