Rating: 
Summary: Difficult to top
Review: I've read better fantasy but The Illearth War is five-star material nonetheless. This is the sequel to Lord Foul's Bane, in which Thomas Covenant first discovered the Land and assisted in the recovery of an important magical artifact. This time around he again gets transported from the "real world" to the Land but while Covenant is only a few weeks older, 40 years have passed in the Land and the struggle against Lord Foul has become desperate. Foul is about to march against the Lords, who simply aren't prepared for what's coming!The novel is slow to get going and most of the highlights come in the second half. The first half provides a lot of backstory and character development. We meet the important woman Elena, who develops a close relationship with Covenant (for good reason too, as you'll learn to your surprise later in the novel). Hile Troy, a military tactician who claims to also be from Covenant's world, leads the war effort and plays an even more central role in this book than Covenant. Lord Mhoram is a leading character this time around. Trell, the former loving gravelingas of Mithil Stonedown, is now a tragic and unpredictable character. The mysterious creature Amok holds a key to ancient and terrible power. The second half of the book is where the action really hits. Donaldson gives us three simultaneous plot lines to follow; each is exciting and keeps you turning the pages. My favorite plot line was the mission to Seareach but all three are excellent! Just as in the last book, scenes of battle and gore are depicted admirably. Settings are described in lavish detail but the prose never gets exceedingly verbose unlike some other fantasy out there (*cough* Wheel of Time *cough*). The ending ties things up nicely, yet leaves the big picture unresolved and hence leads perfectly into the sequel. Though still bitter from his experience as a leper, Covenant seems to have lightened up a bit. In fact in a couple parts of the book he actually feels genuinely happy, albeit briefly. Unfortunately, as in Lord Foul's Bane, most of the other characters aren't too unique and their personalities tend to be uniformly strong and heroic. Troy is an interesting one though. Overall, top notch fantasy and certainly not to be missed after reading Lord Foul's Bane!
Rating:
Summary: Dark, Deep, Complex, Epic Fantasy
Review: I've read this book, and this series, three times, with a span of twenty-some years between the first and second readings. 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. After "awakening" from his first trip to The Land, Thomas Covenant convinces himself that his first trip was all a coma-induced illusion. Suddenly, he is thrust back into the magic, wonder, and plight of The Land, with everyone counting on him to use the magic of his white gold wedding ring to defeat Lord Foul and his Illearth Stone. The problem remains that Covenant still doesn't believe any of this, and assumes, despite the apparent impossible reality of everything around him, that he is in a delirium-induced delusion. He is again faced with the dilemma of either accepting that The Land is real, which might mean he's insane, or ignoring its apparent reality and letting The Land and its people perish. Thomas Covenant reaches a compromise with himself: he accepts that he is living in an illusory world induced by a coma, but accepts that the best way to pass the time is to cooperate in the illusion. The seeming reality of his new world keeps enticing him into accepting its reality and surrendering his Unbelief, but he is obstinate. Oh, by the way, through all of this, Thomas Covenant remains cynical, depressed, self-centered, sarcastic, irritable, rude, and generally a pain in the ***. An interesting hero, indeed. The second book of the series 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 fun, easy read. This IS deep, major fantasy on an epic scale.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book
Review: If Lord Foul's Bane didn't convince you, you can't live without reading this trilogy, then this book will for sure! The most powerful ending to a book, i've ever read! Like other's have said, you'll dream about this one.
Rating:
Summary: Of course you'll read this
Review: If you've read Book One then you'll read this, no brainer. If you haven't go back and buy it; very thought-provoking, moving fantasy series.
Rating:
Summary: value of pain
Review: In our world, Thomas Covenant has been away from the Land for a month; in the Land 40 years have passed. In that time, Foul's gained strength, thanks to the Illearth Stone. Using it, he has wrecked destruction on the Land to the extend that the Lords demand Covenant's return. Elena has become High Lord- Elena, the child of his sin, who now loves him with a passion no daughter should feel, a love he can return. Yet, the nature of her birth has flawed her to the point of madness that will defy time and death in despeartion. Covenant does not want to believe in this world, yet he must find the eye of the paradox in which to stand or fall and take it down with him.
Books in this series can be considered shocking or appalling at times, yet they have a truth that is magical. In one's blackest moodes, it is easy to identify with Covenant and reach the eye of your own paradox- the pain you want to escape has value.
Rating:
Summary: complicated, but good
Review: in the illearth war, thomas covenant is summoned once again, to the Land, another world where he wields the item of the most power, yet is powerless to use it; a situation where he has left a world which shuns to one which adores him, yet he prefers the former and reviles the latter, and thus is given the moniker, thomas covenant, ur-lord and unbeliever. the illearth war is the second book in this series; the first being 'lord fouls bane.' and in this book, the climax in the war between good and evil is nearing fruition as both sides are marching to battle. however, the side of the good looks desperately overmatched, and only thomas covenant can save them.... but will he even try to? i have read this series twice; the first time nearly a decade ago when i was in my teens, and the second time more recently. when i read it the first time, i was totally confused as to what in the world was going on; i skimmed huge sections, continually thinking that this was way too complicated being much more use to simpler fantasy series such as the belgariad by david eddings. i finished it, but w/o much of a good opinion of the series. after the second time of reading, however, it has become one of my favorites (close to the dragonlance series by tracy hickman and margaret weiss). and moreover, the illearth war is my favorite book in the series. why the change of heart? i think it is because i grew to understand the protagonist and the reasonings behind his actions. thomas covenant is not as easy fellow to understand, and he is not an easily likable protagonist. at first you wonder why people even put up w/ him, but gradually you begin to see what is going on. i like this book best for the same reason that i enjoyed 'the empire strikes back' the best in that series. here the hero takes a fall and must go through a number of travails before finally understanding what is needed to succeed. and here thomas covenant and the Land drink their bitter cup of tea to the very bottom.
Rating:
Summary: Not a sophomore slump
Review: It's obvious that Donaldson was cutting his teeth, so to speak, while writing Lord Foul's Bane. To be certain, that book had periods of brilliance, such as the occurrences in Andelain, but all in all it was probably the weakest book in the series. (That doesn't mean it isn't good - just that the rest of the books are incredible.)
In The Illearth War Covenant is called back to the Land for a second time, and his image of a reluctant hero is burnished in our mind even more than it was in the previous book, for while he was being summoned he was also on the phone with his ex-wife, Joan. The woman who left him for fear of his leprosy, the woman with whom he was still in love, the woman who was telling him, right then, that she missed and needed him. So he protests his summoning vehemently, but to no avail. As the new High Lord Elena indicates, they have no knowledge of how to send a person back once a summons is complete.
The Council of Lords has some new faces on it. It's been forty years since Covenant has been to the Land, and seven years (seven "Land" years) remain until the fulfillment of Foul's ominous prophecy from Lord Foul's Bane. The Lords are desperate. While they regained the Staff of Law and found High Lord Kevin's Second Ward at the end of Lord Foul's Bane, they have learned very little. The language, they find, is difficult to penetrate, and they find themselves unequal to the task of mastering the lore. Due to their sense of overwhelming failure and inadequacy, and other baleful events, they make the decision to summon Covenant.
There is another addition to Revelstone: Hile Troy. He is a character from the "real world", someone who has read (or had read to him) Covenant's best selling novel. This is, perhaps, Donaldson's way of telling us that Covenant's experiences most definitely is not a dream (which Covenant is still convincing himself of). He's also blind, and unlike Covenant - who maintains fierce unbelief - Troy believes in the Land with a passion that precludes life.
Many readers interpret Troy's character as what Covenant *should* be. If Hile Troy had a white gold ring, his passion, his love for the land (for it allowed him to see again - and besides, everyone, even the readers, fall in love with the Land) would lead him directly to a confrontation to Foul. Unfortunately, not understanding the dilemmas of power, he would likely experience a resounding defeat. What people don't understand about Covenant, and Troy's character is supposed to help them understand this, is that Covenant's stubborn unbelief exists for a reason. In Lord Foul's Bane, Donaldson meticulously discussed the rigors of leprosy, what it meant to be a leper, what it meant to *survive* as a leper. And though bitter and angry at life and everything around him - or perhaps because of his bitterness - Covenant made the decision to live. And living entails never, ever letting your guard drop for one second. Because if you do, you can bump into something, not realize that you're bleeding internally, and die of hemorrhaging; gangrene can set in; and much more. So Covenant's unbelief, while incredibly frustrating, is completely understandable. He needs to believe that the Land isn't real, because if he gives in to it, then when he wakes up from his dream (for it may be a dream), his guard may drop, and he could die.
So it's unfortunate that people don't recognize Troy for what he is, and see him for exactly the opposite of what Donaldson intended.
Other reviewers have said this is the best book in the series. I love this book, as it introduces some extremely intriguing relationships and concepts (Elena and Amok, the latter of which is the key to High Lord Kevin's Seventh Ward - talk about heightened anticipation), and the devastating fear that Foul has mastered the Illearth Stone to such a degree that he can cut chips off of it and give it to his servants (Ravers).
The battle of Garrotting Deep (yes, similar in placement and scope to the epic Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers) shows that Donaldson, like Tolkien before him, can write both of beauty and of beauty's absence in the heart of darkness of war. He is quite adept at handling battle scenes.
Many second books suffer from the so-called sophomore slump. Not this one. I don't think Donaldson is capable of writing such a book, as The One Tree (the second book in The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) is arguably the most intriguing of the series, and within that book in particular are the seeds for the Last Chronicles, which everyone - and I mean everyone - should read.
Rating: 
Summary: Haiku Review
Review: Leprosy within
And out the lead character.
Keep the kids away.
Rating:
Summary: Dark Fantasy and War
Review: Make no mistake--the Illearth War is indeed about just that. It is dark and grim and grisly, but for all of that (perhaps because of that) the moments of heroism shine all the more brightly. On Covenant's second trip to the Land, we find that he has been actively summoned by the Revelstone Lords to help them fight off a new menace: the "Ravers," three ancient spirits of evil (with Hebrew demon-names) who have gotten their claws on the Illearth Stone unearthed by Drool Rockworm in the first installment. The Ravers are wreaking havoc on the Land, and the Lords have nowhere to turn but the Unbeliever. Several scenes from the novel are chilling and horrifying--most notably the Seareach chapters, but including the March as well. On the other hand, Mhoram's Victory is so poignant and well-written that it can leave me choked up for hours. Too, this is the first time we see another human from "Earth" in the Land--Hile Troy, who in our world was a blind (indeed, eyeless) genius strategic planner for the Defense Department. Here, he has his 'sight,' and uses his gifts and training in the service of Revelstone. A number of chapters are told from Troy's point-of-view, which takes us for the first time out of the shell of Covenant himself and gives us another glance at the Land--further legitimizing it; it's not just a potential dream of Covenant's anymore. For my money, this is the best "Fantasy War" novel I've read. George Martin's series owes much to the tone and scope set here--though to be fair, Donaldson owes as much to Tolkien.
Rating:
Summary: Short-lived victory
Review: O how I rejoiced when the ur-lord finally did something right at the conclusion of Lord Foul's Bane!! And the wonder of circumstance upon awakening from this 'dream'. Ah, but it was short lived as I quickly rushed to pick up this, the next in the series. It is in every way equal to the first volume, except that despair is doled out in somewhat smaller portions. Be advised, the Unbeliever is no less reluctant throughout this volume but we encounter a character or two who bring some hope and light to the ever rainy existence of Thomas Covenant. As noted by several of the other reviewers, you'll have to READ this book to get anything out of it or to truly enjoy the final volume.
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