Rating: 
Summary: A fitting ending to a fantastic series.
Review: I'll keep my review short & sweet. I really liked this trilogy a lot and felt this book summed things up well. I enjoyed the fact that a number of characters from the past reappeared (Saltheart Foamfollower, Elena, etc) to tie things up. This book/series is different than other fantasy novels I've read because it has a lot of human emotion in it (despair) and also ties in the present day world with the fantasy world. In fact, even at the end of the series you are not quite sure whether the events actually occured to Thomas Covenent. My only complaint about the series is that, although the themes of despair and fear are important to the story the author spends too much time on them. I also got a little sick about hearing all the time how TC was a leper and why didn't everyone else understand that. This seemed to pop up every 10 pages or so. In any case, I recommend this book & the entire 1st Thomas Covenent trilogy wholeheartedly.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the rest
Review: I'm a great fan of Donaldson's. Even today, 23 years after this book's initial release, as I'm being spoiled by George R. R. Martin, I still look back on this book with amazement. There are chapters in this book, notably Lord Mhoram's Victory, that should receive a special place in a "Fantasy Hall of Fame", that should be used as templates in high fantasy writing seminars.I'd like to offer one argument to those who brand Donaldson as being too dark. Lord Foul was defeated by what? Laughter. Hardly a dreary weapon.
Rating:
Summary: A Dark and Magnificent Trilogy Ends, Except . . .
Review: I've read this book, and this series, twice, with a span of twenty-some years in between. When I first read it, I liked the characters, images, and story, but the language seemed deliberately over-complicated and intellectual. Now, after re-reading it, I think that I just wasn't ready for it the first time. Once more, Thomas Covenant is thrown back into The Land. Lord Foul seems to come back stronger when he recovers from each defeat. What also grows is Covenant's love of The Land and its people. This time, his leprosy is not healed by The Land, as it is under seige by Foul's magic. Covenant still holds on to his Unbelief in The Land for fear of giving in to delusion, but the distinction between accepting it as real versus playing along with an illusion is becoming decreasingly important, to Covenant, to the story, and to the reader. Covenant's character is growing as, through adversity, he emerges from the depression he fell into after his leprosy was diagnosed. Everything is at stake now, and Covenant must gain some control over the magic of his white gold ring. Oh, by the way, through all of this, Thomas Covenant remains cynical, depressed, sarcastic, irritable, rude, and generally a pain in the ..., although less so than in the first two books. Greory Peck, Robert Mitchum (a la "The Hanging Tree"), or Burt Lancaster could have played the part in a movie. An interesting hero, indeed. The third book of the series, which completes the first trilogy, continues the trends of characters that are deep and well-developed; complicated, intelligent, and extremely sophisticated writing (the exact opposite of Hemingway's stunning simplicity and not far off from Faulkner's esoteric and obtuse complexity); and a riveting story. What gets introduced is the dawning realization by Covenant that, whether the Land and its people are real or not, he is beginning to care about them. This is NOT a quick, easy read. This IS deep, major fantasy on an epic scale. For those of you that get hooked, a second trilogy was written. The first trilogy, however, can stand alone.
Rating: 
Summary: So should I continue
Review: If you've read the first two novels in this series and believed them to be wonderful then by all means continue reading the series. I for one, believe that the books are predictable and not worth the effort. If you continue to read in the hopes that Covenant will discover his power and live happily ever after, don't! I kept reading in these hopes and lost.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most powerful visions in Fantasy literature today
Review: It would seem a monumental task for any writer to match andeven surpass the earlier two volumes in the "Chronicles of ThomasCovenant" trilogy, but this Donaldson has done with his typical flair and touch. This is, quite simply, one of the finest culminating chapters in any fantasy trilogy, with sufficient action to attract even the most hard-headed sword and sorcery buff, enough character development and plot intricacies to entrance the most demanding reader, and enough tragedy, drama, and yes...even hope, to live on in the minds and hearts of those who enter Donaldson's "Land" for years to come. Focusing on the final battle between Lord Foul and Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, "The Power That Preserves", like it's preceding volumes, is often stylistically and thematically dark and brooding, yet with a subtle beauty and love of craft unseen in many fantasy authors today. Donaldson is, quite simply, the Heir Apparent to the Fantasy/Science Fiction throne. END
Rating: 
Summary: The last - thankfully - in a painfully unreadable series
Review: Of the three books in this series, this was the most difficult for me to force my way through. I agree with what a lot of the other reviewers say - Thomas Covenant is a great anti-hero. This whole series is filled with fantastic philosophical insight leading one to think about matters of life and death, futility and hopefulness, and whether it is all worth it. In that respect, this series is close to being great, classic literature. It just doesn't make it, though, on two counts. One, the characters aren't quite compelling enough to really get one to react to them intellectually, morally, emotionally, etc., even though it is quite exciting that a writer would make the lead character (Covenant) a leper. Secondly, and this is my biggest problem with the series, is that it is simply very poorly written. I read it in high school, I read it in college, I read it in seminary when I was 30. I really wanted to give the series a chance, since my friends liked it so much, and I felt it deserved an attempt at different growth stages in my life. But I never enjoyed reading it, and I won't try anymore. It's not disappointing in the way of a popular mass-market book, because one doesn't expect anything from one of those except unintelligent and hollow entertainment and escapism. Donaldson created a world of amazing creativity and depth, laden with cool places and people and cultures, all quite well thought out - more so than the vast majority of fantasy-lands. The disappointment comes because a book about a leper facing his life, futility, hopelessness, narcissism, and general lack of compassion or interest in himself or anyone else could have been a deep, meaningful exploration forcing one to pause and take stock of one's own life and society (the goal of all true literature). Covenant the character could have been a brilliant (and not cliché) anti-hero. Donaldson has given us something that could have been that, but he fails to give it to us, and one is left feeling like the sickly parent who has spent the week's food money on snake-oil and finally realized what it really is - a bottle with an empty promise. Unfortunately, the story is simply not written in a compelling way. I didn't care about the characters, the dialogue felt unreal, the prose drones on and on, and I never felt bad setting the book down. In fact I really forced my way to the end of the third book, simply as an act of self-will to see if I could do it. Please note that I am *not* some doofus who thinks a book without constant action is boring - I love Joyce, German writing, Wagner operas and Philip Glass music, so it's not that I can't appreciate long, slow movement. I do like it to be compelling, though. In terms of importance in the fantasy genre, this is a must-have series because it is a foundational, common-knowledge series that all fantasy buffs should be familiar with. So I give it one star, but I tell you to read it anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Imposing despair
Review: Once again, Thomas Covenant returns to the Land. Once again, he struggles with his unbelief, with his conviction that he cannot both believe and survive. He is a leper. When ur-Lord Covenant returns to the Land, he finds that it is palled under the shroud of decay and ill health. Has it come to this, has his unbelief doomed the land he both loves so deeply and at the same instant denies? Can his sheer hate for Lord Foul awaken the latent power of his white-gold ring? These trials surface within "The Power that Preserves". I cannot stress it enough, this trilogy of novels, "The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever", is one of the pinnacles of fantasy writing. Donaldson has both a mastery of style and voice matched by few authors. His vivid characters grip you and draw you into the Land. They almost force you to feel deep emotion about them. Whether that emotion is love, hate, or in the case of the Unbeliever, sheer frustrated anger tainted with unrelenting sympathy for those in his path, you cannot help but be moved. This series will remain a benchmark against which I judge other novels, and other realities. You owe it to yourself to read this trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Joy is in the ears that hear
Review: Once again, tortured antihero Thomas Covenant is drawn to the magical Land, kicking and screaming all the way. Trapped in his wish-fulfilment hallucination, poor Tom confronts the end result of his inability to act: without his wild magic, the Land has become a desolate wasteland, where the survivors' only hope is the Unbeliever's ring. Covenant's inability to take sides and believe has brought the Land itself to a leper's desperate state, miserably awaiting death. There is almost nothing left to fight for, and the lesson of Hile Troy's whole-hearted acceptance of the Land's need is plain. Even the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower has become a killer, haplessly treading the path of despite Lord Foul has decreed. Happy endings don't happen to lepers; they also have nothing left to lose. Only a twisted and corroded key could unlock this puzzle, and the racked body and mind of Thomas Covenant has been forged into such a key by the merciless author. Would you die to save your dreams? Be true; you need not fail.
Rating:
Summary: Stop here
Review: Read this book after books one and two of the series but stop here, the next three in the series are disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Haiku Review
Review: Retribution and
Promises colide and drive
Final book in set.
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