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Summary: Thomas Covenant returns to find a dead land
Review: 4000 years later, Covenant and Dr Linden Avery returns to the Land, a place of former health and magic. Stephen R Donaldson proves his genius once more as he paints a darker, more grim need. White gold and the power of Wild Magic is rendered ineffectual and Thomas Covenant finds his magic and rage is not enough to heal the Land. The return of Despite and the danger of the Ritual of Desecration proves Covenant's past victory over Lord Foul shallow and ultimately self defeating because Covenant himself caused the destruction of the Staff of Law and led High Lord Elena to break the Law of Death. In a fundamental sense, Covenant is responsible for the current state of the Land. The war against Despite and Desecration rages on and Covenant must find the wisdom to overcome Lord Foul's venom. This book is a stunning return for the Reader because the Land is so fundamentally changed. An excellent book. Donaldson is a genius.
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Summary: No words can explain this brilliant book
Review: After reading the first three books of the Thomas Covenant series, I could not wait to get the next three. I have just finished this book and there is no way I can explain the emotions that you feal while reading it. You care for all the characters, even when Covenant speaks to the 'ghosts' of his old friends. I felt everything that covenant felt and cried at some points. I was shocked to find the land I knew gone. All those who knew him had died, the Ramen and Ranyhyn had fled south,so that no one knew the land before it was corrupted by lord foul (again) and the lords, earthpower and legends of covenant had been replaced by lies. The only thing the people survive on is their blood...
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Summary: What's another word for Thesaurus?
Review: Apparently Donaldson made an important discovery between the writing of his first and second Thomas Covenant trilogies: The existence of Roget's. I consider myself of at least average intelligence, but Donaldson managed to use a staggering number of obscure words whose meaning I either had to look up in the dictionary, guess at, or ignore. Far from adding to the book, his style comes across as affected - a criticism I wouldn't have applied to the first trilogy.
Technique aside, the plot of this book simply couldn't hold my attention. The ingredients were there--a vastly different Land, an impossible voyage, so-called wild magic, even a love interest--but they seem to be nothing more than a re-hash of the previous trilogy. It's unusual for me to say this, but once having started this new series, I do not believe I'll read the next volume.
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Summary: Back to the Land
Review: Covenant comes across much less obnoxious in this series, although he is still often paralyzed into immobility by his out-of-control emotions. The Land has vastly changed, which gives this series a fresh feel. The introduction of Linden Avery, another emotional basket-case, adds a nice dimension. I would like to read a book that helps me decipher all Donaldson's religios symbolism.
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Summary: disturbingly good
Review: D. shows how inventive he truly is. something truly bad has happened to the land. something called the sunbane is destroying the land. this time there is real trouble finding allies in a land of suspicion and aggression. the people of the Land themselves are no longer allies, but mostly hostile. the second chronicles are very different from the first. the Land is descriped differently, the concept and the environment very different. D. goes more into describing battles on a man-to-man basis, and shows that he masters that very well.
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Summary: disturbingly good
Review: D. shows how inventive he truly is. something truly bad has happened to the land. something called the sunbane is destroying the land. this time there is real trouble finding allies in a land of suspicion and aggression. the people of the Land themselves are no longer allies, but mostly hostile. the second chronicles are very different from the first. the Land is descriped differently, the concept and the environment very different. D. goes more into describing battles on a man-to-man basis, and shows that he masters that very well.
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Summary: Tolkien for Adults
Review: Don't let this characterization fool you: I find the world of Hobbits fascinating and wonderful fare, but Donaldson manages to combine the harsh reality of flawed adulthood with the magic of fantasy. The damned of the Chronicles are truly damned, brought down by their own desires rather than some simplistic evil orientation. The heroes struggle both for righteousness and with themselves. Yet for all the dark ambiguity, the beauty of The Land makes you ache to see it and agonize for its pain. This is grownup stuff, escapism that never totally leaves our world behind. The introduction of Linden Avery opens another compelling view of a most seductive place. Unlike Covenant, whose struggles to justify and continue his existence wound himself and all who care for him, Avery is a link to our world who soldiers on with her mission of mercy. She doesn't let the shock of her arrival in The Land destroy her role of healing, yet the Second Chronicles is very much the story of how she finds personal peace as well as purpose with practicing her profession in a very sick world. It's hard to believe that this saga could sustain a second trilogy, especially with volumes of this length -- but it does. If your bookshelf has a place for mature fantasy, make room for the Second Chronicles.
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Summary: Good start to a darker fantasy series
Review: Donaldson starts out his new series by allowing hints of the Land to leak out into the real world. Then he transports Covenant and Linden Avery to the Land. Only this time, the Land is sick. I won't say how or why, but the result is a very good, mildly depressing dark fantasy. Covenant is more accepting of the existence of the Land in this book, but Linden is thrown into confusion by it.
This series is more her story than Covenant's. As Covenant was ill physically when he first entered the Land, Linden's wounds are on the inside, and she struggles with them throughout the trilogy. There's a lot of symbolism and allegory one can read into these books. Or one can just enjoy them as a story of a small group of people trying to restore a Land that once held joy, but is now the kind of place where a man would have to sacrifice his own family to feed a village. Good fantasy in a well-developed world.
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Summary: Haiku Review
Review: Everything is too
Much: leprosy and decay.
Not the first series.
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Summary: Very different from the first series, just as great
Review: First off, if you haven't read the first Thomas Covenant trilogy (Lord Foul's Bane, The Illearth War, and The Power that Preserves), I reccomend you do that first. Mainly, it's an amazing an tremendous work. Also, you'll get a lot of background that is necessary to appreciate the second trilogy, and it's hard to really feel Covenant's sense of loss and despair at the despoiling of the Land without having seen it when it was beautiful. The Second Trilogy of Thomas Covenant is very different thematically from the first. The question of dream vs. reality is disposed of almost immediately in The Wounded Land (and arguably it was just a plot trick in the first trilogy anyway, so we could comfortably both despise and sympathise with Thomas Covenant). All that the Council represents has been shattered and the strength of their convictions must now be restored by Thomas Covenant and a few friends. He must come to terms with what he has lost, who he is, and what the Land truly meant to him. Linden Avery, his new companion from the real world who is drawn in when Covenant is summoned, is herself a flawed character - but she is a product of events she could not control. In a reverse of the original trilogy, the story of her anguish, the truth she must come to terms with, and her role in the fate of the Land is drawn out slowly, over the course of all three books. This second trilogy is more personal than the first. In the first trilogy Thomas Covenant is profoundly influnced by the Land and all the people around him, and must reconcile their strength with his own anguish, eventually confronting his own failings to earn redemption; in the second everything the Land was, is lost. Linden and Covenant must personally struggle to restore it despite their own weakness and imperfection, with the help of a group of wandering Giants, the always loyal but subtly changed Bloodguard, and two natives of the Land. Wheras in the first book we know Covenant has a latent power which if he could only discover and unleash, he could defeat Foul, in the Wounded Land Covenant's power is growing out of control and any release could shatter the Arch of Time and give Foul victory - effectively rendering Covenant's White Gold powerless. Everyone must make tremendous sacrifices in their struggle to see the land restored, and the final resolution in White Gold Wielder is amazing, thrilling, tremendously moving, and ultimately incredibly satisfying - making these books arguably the greatest work of fantasy literature ever written, eclipsing even the remarkable works of Tolkien for depth and power.
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