• .

  • A boring read, too difficult to slog through.

  • When I realized I was slogging through another 6 or 7 page long expository narration by another long-winded character, I had to just put down and abandon Runes of the Earth. In the Land, nobody seems capable of giving a short or succinct answer, and that's the problem. The book collapses under the w ... Continue

    When I realized I was slogging through another 6 or 7 page long expository narration by another long-winded character, I had to just put down and abandon Runes of the Earth. In the Land, nobody seems capable of giving a short or succinct answer, and that's the problem. The book collapses under the weight of the world that has been previously created and the lore that has come before. It's all much too verbose and ultimately unreadable for me. Normally I relish a book that is smartly written and uses words that force me to expand my own vocabulary, but it seems like Donaldson consulted a thesaurus to find a bigger, more complicated and not-well-known term for just about everything. Lengthy descriptions of everything, even the most mundane and seemingly meaningless details. I loved the original Thomas Covenant books in my youth, and was excited when I cam across this continuation. But I just couldn't get through it. If the characters or the story had been more compelling, I'm sure I would continue but at just over 200 pages in, I don't find myself caring enough to continue.

    

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• ― Cuzzin Todd said on Oct 21, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

The triumphant return of the New York Times-bestselling, critically acclaimed fantasy series that has become a modern classic.

Since their publication more than two decades ago, the initial six books in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series have sold more than 6 million copies and have been published in ten countries around the world. Now, starting with The Runes of the Earth, Stephen R. Donaldson returns with a quartet of new Covenant novels that are certain to satisfy his millions of fans, and attract countless new followers.

In the original series, a man-living in our world and in our time-is mysteriously struck down with a disease long since believed to have been eradicated. He becomes a pariah in his small town and is abandoned by his wife who departs with their infant son. Alone and despairing, Thomas Covenant falls and, while unconscious, is transported to a fantastic world in which a battle for the soul of the land is being waged. Christened "The Unbeliever"-for he is convinced the world is only an illusion, a dream-he finds himself slowly forced to accept the role that seems to be his destiny: savior of the Land.

At the end of the sixth book, Covenant is killed, both in the real world and in the Land, as his companion, Linden Avery, looks on in horror. His death is both the ultimate sacrifice-and his redemption.

At the opening of The Runes of Earth, ten years have passed. Linden Avery comes home one day to find her child building images of the Land with blocks, and senses a terrible foreboding. She had thought that she would never again be summoned to the Land-nor ever again see her beloved Thomas Covenant. But in the Land, evil is unmaking the very laws of nature. . . .

• Scott BrickThe Chronicles of Thomas CovenantHardcoverFantasyAudioFictionOwnedunread