Stephen R. Donaldson
Paperback | Pages: 1245 pages Rating: 4.01 | 3419 Users | 34 Reviews
Present Books Concering The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1-3 omnibus)
| Original Title: | The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant |
| ISBN: | 000647330X (ISBN13: 9780006473305) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1-3 omnibus, Thomas Covenant #4-6 |
| Characters: | Thomas Covenant |
Explanation Toward Books The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1-3 omnibus)
I enjoyed the Second Chronicles even more than I did the first, as the conceit of Foul's millennia-in-the-making plan to bleach the Land of its inherent Earthpower through the Sunbane—and administered through the banefire auspices of the Gibbon-Raver-led Clave—as a corruption stemming from Foul's original defeat by TC proved to be, for me, an effective, even enhancing twist to the series. Furthermore, in addition to the self-loathing and lacerating personality of the eternally-tormented and leprotic Covenant we get Dr. Linden Avery, a physician with her own baggage—stuffed to bursting with shards of jagged, broken glass and the acrid smell of burning lye—who carries a guilt for not having loved her parents sufficiently to redeem them and a burgeoning talent for taking possession of other's minds, that makes her—in the end—perhaps even more of a fascinating anti-hero than the star of the show. I had always loved the three Ravers, and they are put to excellent use throughout, especially in engendering within Covenant's veins the venom that perpetually threatens to unleash the Arch-shattering Wild Magic. We also get an entire ship's crew of Giants by the end of the first novel who will carry Avery and Covenant across the uncharted oceans in search of an answer to the brutally entrapping snare that Lord Foul has lain for his pair of gaoler's keys. While the entire concept of the Elohim was a bit too all-purpose-magic-pixie deus ex machina for me, Vain, the enigmatic gift of the inscrutable ur-Viles, rocks, as does the superb sidebar to Braithairealm, the desert city perilously near to the wasteland home of the Sand Gorgons, where the Giant's ship must put in for repairs, and which will bring the sinister intrigues of the city-state's ruler, the Gaddhi, and his sorcerous steward, the Kemper, down upon the traveller's heads. The merewives are nifty, the battle between Haruchai and Keeper on the Island of the One Tree tres cool; whilst the return to the Land in the third and closing book is top notch, especially the final showdown between Gibbon-Raver and Covenant, in which the juggernaut of natural force, Nom, will earn a measure of revenge for the heart-rending death of the noble Honninscrave. Everything after this clash is, in a way, almost anticlimactic; however, the journey into the bowels of Mount Thunder and the face-to-face with a supremely confident Lord Foul—who appears to have correctly anticipated his opponent's every move and calculated the perfectly coordinated response—and his two remaining Ravers, brings things to a close well enough. It certainly wasn't as lame a resolution as the Hey, ghosts, let's laugh at Foul and reduce him to a lil' baby! grasp at the straws that comprised the painfully unsatisfying conclusion to the First Chronicles. Avery makes the choice that that weird old man, the Creator, knew she had it in her to make; and, with Covenant dead and the good doctor on her way back to the real earth, she even takes the time to straighten the spine of the husband of the First and fashion a new Staff of Law, one that avoids the old ideological rigidities that doomed the Land to the leechcraft of the Sunbane from the imperfect original. Well written—in Donaldson's rich vocabulary that ofttimes threatens to tumble over into pretension or parody but never actually fails to recover its balance—and melding the author's fertile imagination and eastern-tinged fantasy memes into the inevitable questing journey that still contains enough originality to put it in that relatively unoccupied second tier of fantasy works below the topmost occupied by the two Big Fellas themselves.Identify Out Of Books The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1-3 omnibus)
| Title | : | The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1-3 omnibus) |
| Author | : | Stephen R. Donaldson |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 1245 pages |
| Published | : | 1994 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 1983) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Fiction. Epic Fantasy. Science Fiction Fantasy |
Rating Out Of Books The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1-3 omnibus)
Ratings: 4.01 From 3419 Users | 34 ReviewsWeigh Up Out Of Books The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1-3 omnibus)
Unnervingly good. I read this a long while back. Curiously the cover artwork sums up how l feel. A ship at sea. It looks just like our world, but it isn't, but then, which world is? Well, l guess that's how it was for Thomas Covenant. Also l was heartbroken when the second series finally ended. I guess that makes this a pretty good read. Outstanding details: the alchemical theme, the Masonic stuff. Above all, though, the Arch of Time was the most profound concept l walked away with. I wish lDidnt enjoy this as much as the first series but still a brilliant book.
Once I had read the first omnibus, I just had to read the second. Its as good if not better than the first.
Much the same as the first chronicles, incredibly gloomy and despairing novel, loosely based on the Tolkien template. Yes, a fairly riveting read. But how depressing...
The books were good, not quite reaching the standard of the first triology, but more understandable than the last set.
This series is an absolute brutal onslaught. Not brutal in that there's a tonne of blood and gore, but brutal in that it extracts a toll on the characters and on the reader, relentlessly, and refuses to give up. Every time the characters groan at the injustice of the world; at the next impasse they are impossibly thrust up against; I groan with them and feel my soul eroded just that tiny bit further. I feel despite growing within me as surely as Thomas Covenant himself must.Thesis and antithesis
Not as good as the first trilogy but still amazing!
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