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greaydean's review
3.0
This is the 15th book by Stephen R. Donaldson that I have read.
It is filled with continual self loathing and self doubt, like all the others.
I do not need to read another of his books.
He creates a complicated world with many great characters, but by the time I was nearing the end, I just did not care anymore.
Oh, I'll be glad to never hear the words "puissance" or "percipience" again.
It is filled with continual self loathing and self doubt, like all the others.
I do not need to read another of his books.
He creates a complicated world with many great characters, but by the time I was nearing the end, I just did not care anymore.
Oh, I'll be glad to never hear the words "puissance" or "percipience" again.
mikehex's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
scheu's review against another edition
5.0
I remember clearly the spring of 1988. It was the end of my first school year in Alabama. We were taking some sort of standarized bubble-filler test that I'd completed very early, leaving me with Lord Foul's Bane and a lot of time to kill. That was the first time I recall burning through a book, being completely caught up in the vision of it. I plowed right through the first and second Covenant trilogies shortly after. Now I find myself in 2013, and the final page of Covenant's story has been read.
I expected to be much more emotional about things, although the events at the midpoint of The Last Dark brought tears to my eyes - tears of relief, tears of hope. These books are almost relentlessly dark (moreso in the absence of Giants) and a Donaldson reader takes whatever he or she can get. In the end I was very satisfied with the resolution of Thomas, Linden and Jeremiah's story. There was necessary growth and ultimately redemption as well.
I will always feel badly for readers who don't find these books to their tastes. Nothing I could say about the tenth book will make you go back. There is and will be a story here of substance and meaning, and those of us who took this journey together will hold this story, "our story", close to us.
I expected to be much more emotional about things, although the events at the midpoint of The Last Dark brought tears to my eyes - tears of relief, tears of hope. These books are almost relentlessly dark (moreso in the absence of Giants) and a Donaldson reader takes whatever he or she can get. In the end I was very satisfied with the resolution of Thomas, Linden and Jeremiah's story. There was necessary growth and ultimately redemption as well.
I will always feel badly for readers who don't find these books to their tastes. Nothing I could say about the tenth book will make you go back. There is and will be a story here of substance and meaning, and those of us who took this journey together will hold this story, "our story", close to us.
ianl1963's review against another edition
2.0
Hurrah. It is always disappointing to come to the end of a good boo. Meant book but sometimes freudian slips should be retained! So hurrah speaks volumes. Did I say verbiage, sorry it should be verbiage squared if not cubed. Here endeth my saga, if only I was a better person as a consequence.
steven_v's review against another edition
3.0
**Warning - very mild potential spoilers in this review , but nothing major**
This is the final installment of the final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. In many ways, I enjoyed it -- some parts were quite satisfying to read. There was some very good closure. And the writing, as always, was beautiful and enjoyable.
However, I think this book suffered from the fact that there were just too many bad guys to deal with. This problem was present all along -- from the very first book, in addition to Foul and his two remaining Ravers, you have Kastenessen the mad Elohim, the "skurj" lava monsters, Roger Covenant (Thomas' son), and (by proxy due to Raver possession and insanity) Joan Covenant. In later books Donaldson added the Bane under the Mountain, the Worm of the World's End, and the Sandgorgons. And by the end of book 3, only one of these had been dealt with. If he wanted to have this many villains, he should have whittled them down book by book until in the final book, only Roger and Foul (the two most relevant and significant evil characters) remained. Instead, nearly all of the enemies remained, which left the author very little space to deal appropriately with any of them. He only had dealt with two more by the end of Part I (the halfway point in the novel). This meant that he had to dispense with each of the remaining antagonists in literally 1 chapter at the very end -- 10 pages here, 12 pages there. It felt very rushed.
Donaldson also seems to have lost his sense of proportion in terms of scene length. We get something like 3x as many pages about fighting hordes of nameless Cavewights as there are pages about fighting Foul himself, or the Bane under the Mountain. There also seem to be a lot of pointless diversions. For example, at one point, a bunch of reinforcements arrive... but the hordes of Cavewights whittle them down and separate the party so that at the end, only the handful of main characters remain. What was the point of adding reinforcements 4 chapters ago if they were going to be removed 100 pages later? They did not experience any real character development, and they added nothing to the story except length. I would have preferred to have these sections deleted in favor of a weightier and more substantive confrontation between the main characters and Lord Foul.
Additionally, Donaldson punted on some things like the description of the Worm of the World's End. It is described as being preceded by wild thunderstorms and fog, and seeming to be a range of hills or mountains moving through the water, but clearly that is not the whole of the Worm, just a portion of it. We see it only for an instant, and then never again. Overall I found the Worm to be underwhelming -- both in terms of its description and its effects.
Also, Donaldson has a frustrating habit of putting characters up against clearly insurmountable odds that are so overwhelming there is no possible chance they can reasonably overcome them, and then saves them by having some unexpected help arrive at the last second. In the first couple of books this was usually Esmer and his Ur-Vile followers, whose time/space teleportation abilities explained it. But in later books this has turned out to be giants (twice), Haruchai, Insequent, Elohim, you name it. All is lost and beyond lost, and then bang! Giants show up from out of nowhere and save the day. All is lost again and then bang! An army of Haruchai or Ranyhyn or Ur-Viles show up to save the day. Now, to be fair none of these are completely out of the blue -- there is always a logical explanation why the saving party is in that place at that time. But it becomes a little ridiculous that it happens every single time, not to mention predictable. I started looking for it -- 1 skurj is enough to almost destroy the entire party, so they are attacked by dozens of them. They cannot possibly win. Okay, so who is going to show up out of nowhere to save the day this time? And so on.
When I heard this series was out, I worried that, because of how long it had been since the last two Chronicles, Donaldson might have lost his touch. I have seen it happen to other favorite writers. The first two books convinced me that this was not the case -- he seemed to have hit is stride right from the start, and they were wonderful. The last two books, however, have made me re-evaluate. They are good, but they are not up to the standard of the original six, nor even of the first two in this series. The writing is still excellent; the characterization is good. But Donaldson seems to have lost his impeccable sense of timing, and of how to proportion his scenes. He doesn't seem to be able to figure out in these last two novels, just exactly which scenes were important enough to expand, and which ones were chaff and needed to be cut. But most of all he doesn't seem to have been able to decide on a single villain, instead having an "ensemble cast" of villains, and this was probably the biggest problem of the series, and especially this final volume.
Overall this is an enjoyable, but flawed, novel, and my view is that this series would probably have been better ended with White Gold Wielder.
This is the final installment of the final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. In many ways, I enjoyed it -- some parts were quite satisfying to read. There was some very good closure. And the writing, as always, was beautiful and enjoyable.
However, I think this book suffered from the fact that there were just too many bad guys to deal with. This problem was present all along -- from the very first book, in addition to Foul and his two remaining Ravers, you have Kastenessen the mad Elohim, the "skurj" lava monsters, Roger Covenant (Thomas' son), and (by proxy due to Raver possession and insanity) Joan Covenant. In later books Donaldson added the Bane under the Mountain, the Worm of the World's End, and the Sandgorgons. And by the end of book 3, only one of these had been dealt with. If he wanted to have this many villains, he should have whittled them down book by book until in the final book, only Roger and Foul (the two most relevant and significant evil characters) remained. Instead, nearly all of the enemies remained, which left the author very little space to deal appropriately with any of them. He only had dealt with two more by the end of Part I (the halfway point in the novel). This meant that he had to dispense with each of the remaining antagonists in literally 1 chapter at the very end -- 10 pages here, 12 pages there. It felt very rushed.
Donaldson also seems to have lost his sense of proportion in terms of scene length. We get something like 3x as many pages about fighting hordes of nameless Cavewights as there are pages about fighting Foul himself, or the Bane under the Mountain. There also seem to be a lot of pointless diversions. For example, at one point, a bunch of reinforcements arrive... but the hordes of Cavewights whittle them down and separate the party so that at the end, only the handful of main characters remain. What was the point of adding reinforcements 4 chapters ago if they were going to be removed 100 pages later? They did not experience any real character development, and they added nothing to the story except length. I would have preferred to have these sections deleted in favor of a weightier and more substantive confrontation between the main characters and Lord Foul.
Additionally, Donaldson punted on some things like the description of the Worm of the World's End. It is described as being preceded by wild thunderstorms and fog, and seeming to be a range of hills or mountains moving through the water, but clearly that is not the whole of the Worm, just a portion of it. We see it only for an instant, and then never again. Overall I found the Worm to be underwhelming -- both in terms of its description and its effects.
Also, Donaldson has a frustrating habit of putting characters up against clearly insurmountable odds that are so overwhelming there is no possible chance they can reasonably overcome them, and then saves them by having some unexpected help arrive at the last second. In the first couple of books this was usually Esmer and his Ur-Vile followers, whose time/space teleportation abilities explained it. But in later books this has turned out to be giants (twice), Haruchai, Insequent, Elohim, you name it. All is lost and beyond lost, and then bang! Giants show up from out of nowhere and save the day. All is lost again and then bang! An army of Haruchai or Ranyhyn or Ur-Viles show up to save the day. Now, to be fair none of these are completely out of the blue -- there is always a logical explanation why the saving party is in that place at that time. But it becomes a little ridiculous that it happens every single time, not to mention predictable. I started looking for it -- 1 skurj is enough to almost destroy the entire party, so they are attacked by dozens of them. They cannot possibly win. Okay, so who is going to show up out of nowhere to save the day this time? And so on.
When I heard this series was out, I worried that, because of how long it had been since the last two Chronicles, Donaldson might have lost his touch. I have seen it happen to other favorite writers. The first two books convinced me that this was not the case -- he seemed to have hit is stride right from the start, and they were wonderful. The last two books, however, have made me re-evaluate. They are good, but they are not up to the standard of the original six, nor even of the first two in this series. The writing is still excellent; the characterization is good. But Donaldson seems to have lost his impeccable sense of timing, and of how to proportion his scenes. He doesn't seem to be able to figure out in these last two novels, just exactly which scenes were important enough to expand, and which ones were chaff and needed to be cut. But most of all he doesn't seem to have been able to decide on a single villain, instead having an "ensemble cast" of villains, and this was probably the biggest problem of the series, and especially this final volume.
Overall this is an enjoyable, but flawed, novel, and my view is that this series would probably have been better ended with White Gold Wielder.
makraemer's review against another edition
3.0
I loved the first two trilogies, and, although I enjoyed being taken back to this world and these characters, these last set of books do not hold up to what came before. I also found the final sequence of events to be underwhelming and anti-climatic.