The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

In this first of the last four books in the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, Linden Avery is sent back to the Land when she is shot by Thomas Covenant's son Roger and Lord Foul takes her adopted son Jeremiah. She meets new characters from the races introduced in the previous books: Stonedowners, Haruchai, ur-viles, Ramen, etc who aid her in her quest.I read this when it first came out as I loved the first six books. I never finished the series though and decided to do so after reading Mr. Donaldson's new book Seventh Decimate. I remember now why I stopped now.I don't find Linden a compelling heroine. She dithers and then tends to just fly off in a direction despite advice to the contrary. The new characters are mostly too impressed by her stature from her previous stay in the Land to argue with her. They seem to be mostly ciphers representing their various races.Since we stay in parts of the Land already visited, there's no new worldbuilding so to speak. The plot starts out fine with Linden grappling with Joan's madness and Roger Covenant's ire before she is hurled back to the Land. Then the story bogs down. She travels and she dithers for most of the rest of the book. Not all that much happens to advance the story besides the quest to find the lost Staff of Law until the very last paragraph of the book. I admit, it's a great cliffhanger so I'll go on with the series, but in my honest opinion this book could have been compressed into a couple of chapters at the start of the next book.

If you are contemplating reading this book you probably have already read the preceding six chronicles and are intimately familiar with Donaldson's prolixity? Yet you have gotten this far and i would bid you to continue. I have not finished this book, yet Donaldson continues to make me laugh and cry. When i first started reading the Chronicles, i figured Donaldson has written himself in as Thomas Covenant. I've changed my mind and think Donaldson is the giant Foamfollower (maybe both?). What convinced me is how Donaldson cannot sacrifice words to abbreviate his tale. He makes me crazy sometimes. I speak to my Kindle, as though he were present, pleading with him to "get to the point." I also find myself wondering at the slowness of the characters at times, how agonizingly long it takes them to figure a thing out. The reader has long ago grasped what's going on. I sometimes think that Donaldson is not a master of suspense but a slave to it; that he has no control over his tether. BUT, something inside of me suspects this is all part of the genius of Stephen Donaldson. To me, his books are a remarkable slice of life; neither the wonder or tedium is edited out. If you have gotten this far in the Covenant Chronicles, I'd encourage you to stay the course. I have been disappointed and thrilled and am dreading being finished with the series, it will feel like a sort of death.

I read the original two series I am sure over 20 years ago and loved all the books. 5 star all the way. I say this because I am wondering, did my tastes in books change in 20 years or has Donaldson gotten very wordy and overly descriptive since I last read these books? I really don't remember him being so verbose in the original books. Oh, he was descriptive and let you know what the character were thinking but this book is ridiculous. Or am I just mis-remembering the earlier books?Another thing, do you have to explain the same basic concept of something or some event or some particular feeling, of a character over and over and over again? I got it after the first time. Why say it 5 more times? Does Linden Avery need to heal EVERY character she comes across? All the while explaining how this is beyond her and how she is pushing herself past her limits and how she can't fail at this. And why are there like 5 different healing items with supernatural powers?I fear that Donaldson has joined the groups of Authors like Robert Jordan and George Martin that have discovered if you write hundreds of pages of descriptive banter you don't ever have to advance the plot and continue your cash cow of a series at infinitum. Jordan was the king of this. He wrote 3 really good books and then another 6 were the plot didn't advance at all and nothing much ever happened but male bashing and pony tail tugging. While Martin at least is able to keep his books entertaining, has the plot moved forward more than an inch in his last two 900 page novels? Which of course we now have to wait 6+ years for in between. It is so obvious that at least fantasy writers have discovered that needlessly stretching their series out is the way to financial immortality.This book. Since Linden Avery has gotten to the land, which took FOR F....... EVER for her to get to. I think she has traveled maybe 15 or 20 miles. And we were with her as Donaldson literally described every agonizing step she took.Slight spoiler warning."I put my left foot forward. It hurt like no pain I felt before. I felt my knee twitch and buckle from lack of use. I was not use to being in the land and the exertions it put on my body. I would need the healing berries soon as I felt my strength drain from me from this slight effort of lifting my foot. Luckily my trusty blood guard was there to ease my transition. God I am so weak i thought. I will never be able to save the land. Pain seared my nerves as my foot touched the ground and I nearly fell to my knees. No! No, this was Lord Fouls doing and I must continue. My health sense has left me. Shaka Zulu needed healing and I have to travel up and through these mountains that never seem to end. I tell myself, one step at a time and struggle to lift my right foot. It hurt like no pain before. I felt my right knee twitch and buckle from lack of use. I was not............I am not kidding. This is what it felt like reading one section of the book. It seemed each step was chronicled in excruciating detail. It took like well over a hundred pages to travel maybe a mile and a half.Linden falling down and whimpering and feeling sorry for how inept she was with each step she took. Only stopping to heal another character every 25 pages or so. Saying how she was not up to it.I wil continue reading these books but I sure hope they get better.I gave it three stars but one star is for how I remember the earlier books.

This is one tedious book to read. I don't remember any of Donaldson's books being this difficult. It's as if he wrote an 8 thousand word book and was told it needed to be 15 thousand words - and instead of adding substance to the story, he embellished what was already there. Rather than a passage saying "The horse was tired from the long ride," Donaldson writes "The horse's hooves radiated their agony, like the ancient rocks screamed of their bitter, agonizing knowledge of the Land's tyrannical past while, at the same time, crying over the Earthpower that has diminished like the sad sunlight on a rainy day." Geez, we get it - the horse was tired. Once you have read a few chapters, you will find yourself automatically skipping whole paragraphs just to get to the next "scene" so as to avoid all this drivel. The story itself is not bad, which is why it gets three stars, but the way it's written can wear you out quickly.

I own this in hardback, or should i say i used to...my wife needed a large book for a book folding project and asked if she could have it. As this is one of the best books i have ever read, it seemed fitting that one work of art should be turned into another, so I said yes, and then bought the kindle version, as I periodically re-read the books in the Thomas Covenant series.To the book...All the books in the series are excellent; they are gripping, moving, at times shocking, and depict a world, and characters, better realised than any others i have encountered in 50+ years of reading. If you have read the first and second chronicles, and are contemplating this book, then you will need no encouragement from me. If you have not, know that this is a marvelous book, but go read the preceding ones first - it may take you a bit of time, but you will be well rewarded, and much of what transpires in this book is underpinned by the earlier chronicles.When these books were first published, one of the quotes on their covers was "Comparable to Tolkien at his best". That quote is entirely justified, and damn, i would love to see what Peter Jackson could do with them.

I read the first two series a long time ago, at a guess when I was around 17. I read a lot of SF and fantasy in those days.The first series was really good. It was captivating, even if Covenant gets on your nerves (as I presume he's supposed to). The second series dragged on a bit, although it was nice to be back in that world.Now I'm older. I seem to have lost patience and am more depressed, cynical, bitter and twisted myself ( :-) ) so I don't find the characters' annoying behaviour as entertaining as perhaps I used to.Then I'm not really happy with the internal logic of the magic. In the Lord of the Rings Sauron puts a lot of his power into the ring. Then he loses the ring and becomes a puff of smoke. Over time he regains much of his strength and with the ring would become extra powerful. Ok, weird, but at least it's clear that destroying the ring would be bad (for him). And it can only be unmade in the same fire it was made. Ok, I'll trust Gandalf on that.Spoiler non-alert: none of the following happens.But what would happen if you were to stir a shard of the Illearth stone in some Earthblood and water from Lake Glimmermere with the Staff of Law? If it were to dissolve and the One Tree were watered with it, and a fruit were to drop from the tree and be consumed by the offspring of a Haruchai and Linden Avery, whilst in Andelain, what would happen to the Worm and the Arch of Time? I don't know—and I don't care.I'd read a few dozen pages and was thinking to myself, "that's odd! He hasn't used 'crepuscular' yet. And bang! There it was on the next page. So that's the same as always.In summary, If you liked the second series, I guess you'll like this one too.

Having read the original Thomas Covenant novels many years ago, I have only recently bought the last instalments to the series. However , they do not disappoint. Runes of the Earth has the same majesty and grandeur as the original novels, and us as enthralling and engaging as ever. I can highly recommend it to any fan of the fantasy genre.

I liked it! As I can see from other reviews opinions seem to be mixed. But I thought it was a great continuation of a series I have come to love. I love seeing how the land has changed over time & the consequences of actions at end of 2nd trilogy. I do not want to give any major spoilers though. If you loved first 6 books can not see why would hate this. That being said some might, I only read first two chronicles last year & have some straight to this one. So it may be that if series is older to you, it may be nostalgia would spoil it as things can be hard to live up to when return after so long. Yeah story would be by some considered too slow but pacing same as rest of series, same with Donaldson's writing style/language use. If you liked first time same here, if you had issues before you will have same issues. But I like seeing characters progress this way & their self doubt is what the series has always used for extensive monologues. The cliffhanger at end is harsh but as book2 out now, no worries there. I for one can not wait to continue. Liking where story is going so far, some nice surprises & satisfying read. Highly recommended!

I approached this book with trepidation. I love the first and second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and I could see no way that Stephen Donaldson could match his former achievements. I need not have worried.It is impossible to explain how Donaldson resolves the seeming finality of the ending of "White Gold Wielder " without giving away too much of the plot, so I shall just say that he certainly does manage this, and I did not feel that it was at all contrived in the way that it was done.The opening section covering Linden's life back in 'reality' following the death of Covenant is absolutely gripping. Even without Covenant beside her she is an excellent focus for the reader, at once sympathetic, and yet unsympathetic, although not the same way that Coevenant himself is.Without giving too much of the game away and spoiling the book, I would remind readers of the sense of difference between the land at the end of "The Power that Preserves" and at the start of "The Wounded Land " . Dondaldson pulls of a comparable tour de force in his depiction of the land as it is now, completely different again, and still totally convincing.The same feelings of desperation and urgency which he evoked so well in the past are evoked in this book as well. LIkewise, the idea of a quest is at its heart too, which always paid dividends in earlier novels. The ending is remarkable, but I shall say no more about it for fear of spoiling it.Its probably superfluous for me to say this, but I will anyway - do please read the othr six novels before embarking on this one.