The Illearth War: 2 (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, #3)

by Stephen R. Donaldson

“The Thomas Covenant saga . . . will certainly find a place on the small list of true classics in its specialized field.”—The Washington Post Book World

After scant days in his “real” world, Thomas Covenant finds himself again summoned to the Land. There, forty bitter years have passed, while Lord Foul, immortal enemy of the Land, moves to fulfill his prophecy of doom.

The Council of Lords find their spells useless, now that Foul the Despiser holds the Illearth Stone, ancient source of evil power. At last High Lord Elena turns in desperation to Covenant and the legendary white gold magic of his ring. . . .

• ISBN10: 0345348664
• ISBN13: 9780345348661
• Publish Date: 12 October 1987 (first published 1 October 1977)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 23 November 2015
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Ballantine Books Inc.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 544
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780345348661

Reviews

[charlton]

This was the first book that introduced me to fantasy writing.
I was a teenager and a whole new world had become open.
Thomas Covenant had to see a doctor on a regular basis,until he accidently found somewhere he could live.

I thought this was an excellent book and would recommend it to everyone.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

After a long period of waiting for something to happen, I finally find myself liking a book in this trilogy. It took until the middle of the book, granted, but then I flew right through it. The pace picked up, the characters gained interest. It was good, but I'm sad that it was so long coming. However, saying that, I must emphasize again that Donaldson's style is a much vaguer, slower-paced style than I prefer to start with, so those who like that type of writing style will have probably liked this book from the beginning.

Donaldson leaves a lot unexplained, right from the beginning. A great deal of the start of the book leaves the reader following Covenant around in a short of delusional stupor, and later the reader will see glimpses into certain perspectives that are truly irrelevant to the story - or, if they are relevant, Donaldson did not clearly explain how.

I made a note to myself after about the first hundred pages pending an incident: "Given any sort of logic, we'd never see Triock again, but even though many of Donaldson's side-exploits seem to be pointless and end in people dying, people don't seem to die. But they still seem pointless." A little harsh, perhaps, but it remains true. It's said that "if you don't see the corpse, they are not dead," and that prove true of several characters in the trilogy, so many that it was becoming predictable, and a bit disappointing. I think perhaps that the point was that Covenant's ghosts were coming back to haunt him, but I'm not certain.

Ultimately, I didn't love the trilogy, but nor can I say I hated it. Much of my opinion on the book, I am consciously aware, has to do with my preference in books, and not the shortcomings of the writer. He has many fans, and has them for a reason.

((Cross-posted on my blog: The Literary Phoenix.))