Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother
Review: To be frank, I found this trilogy so be the absolute worst book that I have ever read (it was an omnibus). The 'hero' spent most of his time whining, and making everyone else suffer along with him. The writing was well done, but the plot and characters were hopeless. Don't waste your time plowing through it...
Rating: 
Summary: Astonishing
Review: Reading "Lord Foul's Bane" is the literary equivalent of ordering a cheeseburger and getting a five-star meal. While having all the appearance of a standard, formulaic entry in the fantasy genre, the book actually is a literary masterpiece. It explores the big questions about the nature of reality, ethics, and the meaning of human life, but at the same time tells a gripping story with one of the most exciting endings I've ever read.The story, as you probably already know, goes like this: Thomas Covenant lives as a leper in our 'real' world. His community shuns him and his family has abandoned him. After being knocked unconscious in an accident, he awakes to find himself in "The Land", a fantasy universe where he appears to be the reincarnation of an ancient hero and the only person who can save the world from evil. What makes this book so different is that Donaldson dedicated great effort to making Covenant's reaction to the situation intensely believable. In fact, I would feel confident in saying that Thomas Covenant is the most thoroughly developed and convincing character that the fantasy genre has ever produced. Since "Lord Foul's Bane" is told entirely from the perspective of the protagonist, the reader gets to know all of his thought processes and view all of his struggles to reconcile his need for reality with the fantasy world that he sees around him. The other aspect where Donaldson surpasses almost all fantasy authors is descriptive writing. As part of his story, he makes it clear that "The Land" appears to Covenant as a much more pristine and beautiful environment than the real world. To back up this presentation, he provides some of the most wonderful word pictures of the landscape that I've ever read. Because of this, you can actually picture what the world looks like and comprehend why it has such a profound effect on the main character. Overall, I rank this series as being one of the great achievements in the fantasy genre, and would enthusiastically recommend it to anybody.
Rating:
Summary: Don¿t forget the glossary
Review: "Lord Foul's bane" is one of the best and most complex fantasies stories I've ever seen. It grips the reader from the traumatic beginning to the shocking end. Donaldson, no doubt, took the principles stablished by Tolkien to write the Unbeliever series, but he added so many unique dark elements, situations and characters that, while reading "Lord Foul's bane" it more than often didn't remind of Lord of the Rings. The first dark thing is that the main character, Thomas Covenant, is a leper. As it is, he proclaims himself an outcast, unclean, avoiding contact with other people and living in reclusion in his farm after being abandoned by his wife and little son. Yet, he refuses to accept his fate, and his mood towards life obviously isn't one of the better. Suddenly, summoned by forces he can't and won't understand, to The Land, his leprosy is cured and he is the carrier of an object (a white-gold ring) that is able to save the fate of The Land in the battle against Lord Foul the Despiser, even if he doesn't know how to use the magic contained in this object. The Land is an agrarian landscape and many of its elements will remind the reader of Tolkien's Middle-earth. But the relations and backgrounds of the various kinds of people inhabiting The Land are so complex and well-thought that it in itself is one of the best things in the book. In fact, there's much more about The Land than Donaldson will reveal in this first book. I guess this was done to better relate the reader to Thomas Covenant. All the reader knows about The Land is what other characters tell Covenant. This is a smart move, because Covenant the Unbeliever is far from what we would call "a sympathetic character" (the expression anti-hero comes to mind, but in fact Covenant is no kind of hero at all). Sour, bitter and angry are some of the adjectives that portrait Thomas Covenant. To keep his sanity he refuses to belileve his stay in The Land is more than a dream. Yet, as things keep happening in a fast pace and The Land is revealed to him, he cannot help but starting to care about The Land's inhabitants. The first 150 pages of the book are very dark and somewhat difficult to follow if you don't pay close attention. When this happens, don't forget to consult the glossary at the end of the book, it will be always very helpful. If the glossary isn't help enough, there are a couple of sites in the internet that will reveal the secrets of The Land, but that could spoil some of the fun. Past the first chapters, there's no way not to like the complexity and dark beauty of The Land and the characters in the book. One final note about Donaldson's writing style. His vocabulary and phrasal construction are at times so unusefully complex that it makes the readers role their eyes. You'll have to get used to his style and forgive some maneirisms of a first-time writer. In the end, my frank opinion is that The Unbeliever series surely is one of the best fantasy series ever. Grade 8.8/10
Rating:
Summary: well worth the effort, good start to a great series
Review: Lord Foul's Bane is the first book in The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. As Donaldson's first book, it suffers from some clunky or over-done writing in patches, but generally his complex writing style suits the series, and he refines his writing in subsequent books. (But you'll still want to have a dictionary handy, as he uses a large, sometimes-obscure vocabulary.) As for the rest, the book--and the entire series--is a challenging read, but definitely worth the effort. Thomas Covenant is not an easy man to deal with, and is often a frustrating character, but he is compelling. It took me a while to 'get' him, but then, particularly in the subsequent books, I became more sympathetic to him; his struggle to remain true to himself through the trilogy's many ethical and moral twists is some powerful stuff. Also powerful is the description of the Land (I found myself feeling saddened and deprived at living in a concrete-covered world) and the many themes and philosopical questions it raises. This is not trite sword and sorcery fare, but a book about ideas. There is a lot of suffering and bad, wrong things happen. However, beneath the despair and doom and gloom are some truly compassionate, tolerant, and humane ideas. However, here is a stumbling block: Lord Foul's Bane, though it is autonomous in terms of a plot diagram, is not really a stand-alone novel; the entire trilogy is necessary for the full effect. The other two books (The Illearth War and The Power that Preserves) are needed to communicate the full scope of the work's ideas and themes. In all, if you can get past the dark stuff, Lord Foul's Bane and the rest of the trilogy express a compelling moral vision. It's an intellectually and emotionally intense reading experience that requires some serious thought on the part of its readers. Overall a powerful, worthwile reading experience. As a post-script, re: Donaldson and Tolkien and the oft-employed dismissal of the former based on his supposed 'rip-off' of the latter: Donaldson and Tolkien have different writerly concerns, and, if one considers that Donaldson is deliberately creating inverses of common fantasy devices (the young hero is here the bitter Covenant, etc.), his use of familiar staples (a fire mountain in the east, a ring, a demi-corporeal evil being, etc.) is a valid literary device that draws attention to other, deliberate departures from the fantasy norm.
Rating:
Summary: One thing begs mentioning.....
Review: I have no idea of the ages of the people who have reviewed these marvellous books before me, but I just finished the entire First Chronicles for the third time since originally reading them (and to a degree that many readers can relate to, *lived* them) in 1979, two years after their creation. What no one seems to realise is that the first 15 or so publishings had severely different (and far superior) artwork on the covers. Lord Foul's Bane bore an illustration of High Lord Prothall working a spell to diminish the Word of Warning that blocked the party searching for Drool and the Staff of Law, with Mhoram, Covenant, Quaan, and two archers at the ready. The Illearth War's cover portrayed Lord Mhoram beseeching Forestal Caerroil Wildwood for passage through Garroting Deep, while The Power That Preserves had the best artwork yet: Covenant on his knees struggling with the emerald specter of Elena for the Staff of Law, with impaled and screaming Foamfollower and Bannor held in stasis by the ill might Elena possessed. I was very fortunate to have recovered publishings of these books in their original artwork that more aptly portray the scenes and characters in the books. Not the boring, same-ish "Covenant-as-mighty-hero" lame covers available now...
Rating:
Summary: You Are Mine!
Review: What if you were whisked away to another world? This is the premise of a thousand fantasy yarns out there, but think about it for a second: Why is it that all those protagonists have little trouble with the transition? Right now you're sitting in front of your computer reading this, what if when you turned around you were temporarily blinded and began to hear voices? You'd think that you were crazy, wouldn't you? Now, what if you had a terminal disease and when this worldshift happened, you were magically cured? Well then you'd KNOW you were crazy. Right? What would you do? This is the crux of Thomas Covenant. Thomas, a leper, is having a very a tough time in the real world. I'm not giving away anything that isn't in the first chapter, but as the book starts his wife has taken their kid and divorced him, nobody wants to have anything to do with him, and he is having to fight with despair at every turn. When crossing the street he faints--or something--and finds himself in THE LAND. Thomas is quite sure dismay has sent him around the bend, he's gone nuts, and he makes the decision not to believe his own senses. He is, as the title suggests, The Unbeliever. Our Protagonist is a very dark character indeed. Admit it, you'd have a similar reaction, wouldn't you? Since Covenant doesn't believe in The Land, does his actions there have any consequences? He commits some very dark acts at the beginning of his time in the land, then spends the next thousand or so pages regretting it. Enough said. What pulls this trilogy off, though, is not Mr. Unbeliever, but The Land and the people in it. SRD does quite an amazing job of creating a beautiful world full of magic and heroism and its own ancient history. Donaldson is one of the few fantasy writers fit to be mentioned in the same league as J.R.R. Tolkein, someone who he obviously studied and, I suspect, worked hard not to imitate. If that's the case then he succeeded, for The Land and its peoples are as wonderful as Middle-Earth while having almost nothing in common with them. And this is the central conflict of the book, something that is guaranteed to grab you and hold on to you: because pretty soon, YOU are rooting for The Land, you care about it more than Covenant does, and you keep waiting for Thomas to come up with a better answer for his unbelief.
I don't want to go into detail on story, but SRD is quite aware that you've read Lord of the Rings and he works hard to make this interesting and something you won't expect. Again, it is dark. Covenant is at constant war with his unbelief even as those around him fight to protect him and protect The Land. I guarantee this: If you can get over the darkness of it (Lord Foul is quite aptly named, and there are plenty of foul deeds in the trilogy), you will read and reread these books with fervor. I'll never forget the thrill I had reading The Power That Preserves. Now that Donaldson has announced that he's writing the final books in this series after some 30-odd years, I'm going to be picking this up again. "The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" will probably not be out before 2005, but it is currently being written. ____________________
The second trilogy doesn't reach the heights of the first, and downright clunks in the middle, but I still recommend it.
Reviews for each of the books:
Lord Foul's Bane: A
The Illearth War: A+
The Power That Preserves: A+
The Wounded Land: A The One Tree: C
White Gold Weilder: A Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: unbeliev-able
Review: one summer i read a lot of fantasy. this not being my genre, it was getting pretty dull. can i really read another fantasy book, i asked myself, picking up D. i could. D's fantasy books were very refreshing. at last i was spared of these stereotypical fantasy characters, and plots. covenant is an anti-hero in the true sense of the word (an anti-hero is someone who possesses the OPPOSITE qualities of a hero, e.g., cowardice instead of courage, not simply someone just lacking the quality). for once psychology gets important. the descriptions of the land and creatures are good, but the best part is the descriptions of events. D. got a different way of building a plot, i never know where he's heading, and his endings are always original in a way. tired of the grumpy dwarf, the evil dragon, the stupid troll, and all the stereotypes but still have a liking to fantasy? D's the man.
Rating: 
Summary: First step is the hardest
Review: This entire series is absolutely fantastic. But the first book is the hardest to get through. After the first book, Donaldson seems to have refined his craft and the journey is much easier. I fell in love with this world and wished it could be true.
Rating:
Summary: One of the very best fantasies out there
Review: There are probably as many readers who loath "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" as there are who love it. I fall into that second category, and I love it to death -- literally: I've worn out two mass market paperback copies of each volume of the first trilogy. The story has a fascinating premise and is wonderfully told. It satisfies the fantasy writer's priority to convince the reader that a more fantastic world exists outside of our own. And it continues to enthrall and impress with successive readings. Enthusiastically recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written.
Review: Before this review begins I would like to warn readers that something very strange happens in the beginning.Keep on reading ,eventually you figure that he wasn't in his right mind when he did that.
Donaldson is extremely detailed,he adds legengs,languages(I love it when authors make a language),he has great character detail,and includes a vast profusion of new creatures.Thomas Covenant is such a good character.I wanted to yell at him when he made mistakes.The Land is an unforgetable place,particularly the Plains of Ra.
Thomas Covenant has a very unhappy life in the beginning.He has just gotten leprosy,and his wife has divorced with him due to that fact.But as soon as he is hit by a police car he is transported to a completely different world.The inhabitants of the Land believe him to be their long lost hero Berek Halfhand,wielder of the White Gold.Covenant,a Giant named Saltheart Foamfollower,and a good deal of others embark on a quest to retrieve the Staff of Law from the Cavewight ,Drool,servant of Lord Foul.
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