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Summary
Summary
The long-awaited sequel to The Runes of the Earth and Fatal Revenant returns readers to the Land-and unravels some of the mysteries haunting Covenant and Linden Avery.
Thomas Covenant is alive again, restored to his mortal body by the unimaginable combined force of his own white gold ring, Linden Avery's Staff of Law, and the ancient dagger called High Loric's krill. His resurrection is Linden's defiant act of love, despite warnings from mortals and immortals that unleashing this much power would destroy the world. She brought his spirit back from its prison in the Arch of Time, and revived his slain body, so that Covenant lies whole on the cool grass, and the world seems at peace. But the truth is inescapable: The thunderclap of power has awakened the Worm of the World's End, and all of them, and the Land itself, are forfeit to its devouring. If they have any chance to save the Land, it will come from unlikely sources- including the mysterious boy Jeremiah, Linden's adopted son, whose secrets are only beginning to come to light.
Author Notes
Stephen Donaldson, 1947 - Novelist Stephen Donaldson was born on May 13, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio to James R. Donaldson, a medical missionary, and Mary Ruth Reeder, a prosthetist. His father was an orthopedic surgeon that worked with lepers in India. He lived in India between the ages of three to sixteen and while listening to one of his father's lectures on leprosy, he conceived the legendary Thomas Covenant. Donaldson attended the College of Wooster, Ohio and graduated in 1968. Afterwards, he spent two years being a conscientious objector doing hospital work in Akron and then attended Kent University where he received an M.A. in English.
Donaldson's publishing debut was with "Lord Foul's Bane" (1977), which was the first book in the fantasy trilogy entitled The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. It was named best novel of the year by the British Fantasy Society and received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, in 1979. He followed with the sequel series The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, also set in The Land, starting with "Daughter of Regals," and then the Mordant's Need series with "The Mirror of Her Dreams" and "A Man Rides Through." Donaldson is also the author of the Gap Into series of science fiction adventure that began with "The Real Story" and followed with "Forbidden Knowledge," "A Dark and Hungry God Arises," and "Chaos and Order."
In addition to the awards he received for his first novel/series, Donaldson has also received the Balrog Fantasy Award for Best Novel for "The Wounded Land" in 1981 and for "The One Tree" in 1983, the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Novel for "The One Tree" in 1983, the Balrog Fantasy Award for Best Collection for "Daughter of Regals and Other Tales" in 1985, and the Science Fiction Book Club Award for Best Book of the Year for "The Mirror of Her Dreams" in 1988 and "A Man Rides Through" in 1989. He also received The College of Wooster Distinguished Alumni Award in 1989, the WIN/WIN Popular Fiction Readers Choice Award for Favorite Fantasy Author in 1991, the Atlanta Fantasy Fair Award for Outstanding Achievement in 1992 and the President's Award, The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts in 1997.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The unreservedly emo penultimate installment in the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (after 2007's Fatal Revenant) follows Linden Avery as she struggles to rescue her adopted son, Jeremiah, from the Despiser and forestall the Worm at the World's End, which she awoke by yanking her love, Covenant, free of the Arch of Time. While an introductory plot summary does yeoman service bringing new readers up to speed, it may be hard for them to keep so many characters straight-or care about them-when most of their development took place in previous volumes published decades ago. The focus is on Linden rather than Covenant, whose passive and distracted presence mostly gives others something to react to, but that won't matter to Covenant's large and loyal following, for whom Donaldson delivers all the self-loathing, despair, guilt, pain, and stubborn determination they could ask for. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Daggers and wizards, time travel, leprosyfor fans of fantasy, there's much to like in Donaldson's latest installment in the multivolume Thomas Covenant epic series of yore.When last we saw Thomas, way back in 1983, he was, to put it gently, deadand not, in the words of the necromancer of The Princess Bride, merely "mostly dead." The intervening three decades have served him well, for the saintly Thomaswho "had turned his back on scorn and punishment long before Lord Foul had slain him"is back courtesy of some kindly magic on the part of lissome Linden Avery, in tandem with the white gold ring (in fantasy, it seems, it's always the ring) he bears and a few othersoupons of sorcery. He has a quest before him, natch, for the bad guys are plotting, yet again, to subjugate the otherwise idyllic realms of humankind and replace them with some grim Ragnarok. Having already toured hither and yon, "toward the Sunbirth Sea" and into the land of the Elohim, "cryptic beings of pure Earthpower who appear to understand and perhaps control the destiny of the Earth," Thomas is understandably tired, but he knows the call of duty when he sees it. As befits the genreand this is respectable genre fiction, if likely to appeal largely to those who have already followed the series or embraced fantasy lock, stock and pestleDonaldson trades capably in ersatz Icelandic saga, with shades of Tolkien throughout. Alas, this is much talkier than Tolkien, though, who favored explication in the doing, not in the describing. No harm there, save that a few hundred pages in, the reader may wish a salutary sip of the waters of Middle Earth as a palate cleanser.If the likes of Cirrus Kindwind, the Lost Deep and She Who Must Not Be Named, and lines such as "Through the bane's ferocity, she smelled the acrid pulse of unnatural blood,"are your bag (or Baggins), well, then this is just your book.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The third volume of the concluding tetralogy of Thomas Covenant maintains the high standards of the first two volumes. Covenant's spirit has been released from the Arch of Time, and his body is intact. But for this to happen, Linden Avery has had to assemble so much magical power that she is in danger of waking the Worm of the World's End. The Worm is a classic apocalyptic beast, but it is highly credible that he could destroy the Land, all in it, and perhaps parts of an earth that is closer to the Land than we may have thought. The only hope of survival is for Linden and Thomas to assemble all their possible and not-so-possible allies, including Linden's adopted son, Jeremiah, who may live up to the biblical implications of his given name and be a harbinger of disaster rather than hope. Donaldson remains a romantic who believes in lovers who will risk all for each other. He is also a writer of extraordinary power and imagination, whose Land certainly has flavors of Middle Earth but has now stood for two generations as a major fantasy creation in its own right.--Green, Roland Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Thomas Covenant has returned from the dead, raised to his own body by the love of Dr. Linden Avery through the use of the Staff of Law, the white gold ring, and an ancient dagger known as High Lord Loric's krill. But in the Land where he was once healthy and whole, Covenant suffers a reoccurrence of his earthly disease, leprosy. In addition, his return has freed the Worm of the World's End, threatening both the Land and the Earth with destruction. The penultimate novel in Donaldson's final series involving this character opens the Land to a new level of danger and intrigue as Avery, now the Chosen, must struggle to save her adopted son while coping with the consequences of her questionable action in bringing Covenant back to life. VERDICT Donaldson's fan base will enjoy the further adventures of these familiar characters; expect demand. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.