The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are told over three trilogies and a small novella containing a chapter that was removed from

Written by Stephen R Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are divided into three parts and tell the story of Thomas Covenant, a bitter divorcee with leprosy, and his involvement with the destiny of the mystical Land. The books are written with an emotional intensity and an eye for detail that does make them seem a little impenetrable at first, but once you have gotten into the flow of the story you soon begin to feel for the characters and to get swept along with the emotions raised.

One thing you soon realise is that Thomas Covenant is not an easy man to like. While he has been dealt a really bad hand in life, and his actions are understandable given his circumstances, you do get the urge at times to slap him in the face and give him a good shouting at!

Yes Thomas Covenant is a true anti-hero.

Please be warned that from here on I reveal spoilers that may impair your enjoyment if you have not read these books.

The First Chronicles

The Second Chronicles

The Last Chronicles

The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

Lord Foul’s Bane

The Illearth War

Gilden Fire

The Power That Preserves

Thomas covenant is a bitter man. A successful author¸ he lost his family when he was diagnosed with Hansen's disease – Leprosy; he also lost half the fingers on his left hand. Retreating to a remote farm he lives a secluded life shunned and hated by the inhabitants of the nearby town. In each of the books of the first trilogy he suffers a near death experience that appears to transfer him to another world where he finds his fate linked to the wild magic and the people of The Land.

One neat thing about the paperback editions I read was that the covers when opened out and placed next to each other formed a view of the Land, as seen from atop Kevin’s Seat, the watch tower where Kevin laid waste to the land, and where Covenant first arrived. Sadly later editions had rather plain and boring covers.

Lord Foul's Bane

Covenant is befriended by one of the people of Mithil Stonedown, a community where the people have mastered the lore of the earth and stone. He is told that his arrival is fulfilling a legend as he resembles one of the great high lords, Berek Half-hand, and the wedding band he still wears is made of the metal of wild magic – white gold. Covenant learns that when the Land was created an evil being, Lord Foul the Despiser, was trapped there by the creator and can not escape without breaking the arch of time and destroying the Land. The free people are lead by the Council of Lords at the fortress Revelstone, who dedicate themselves to protecting the Land and working with nature. During the last battle with Foul, Lord Kevin, now known as Land-waster, used the most powerful of magics, but instead of destroying Foul, he despoiled the Land. As a result now much of the old lore is lost. It is hoped that Covenant’s appearance signifies that Foul will be defeated once and for all.

It is at this time that Covenant is introduced to one of the Land’s secrets, his cut and injured body is daubed in a curative called ‘hurt-loam’, but rather than just cure his cuts and bruises the hurt-loam restores Covenant’s long lost sense of touch. This proves to be a costly recovery, as overcome by his restored feelings, Covenant rapes Lena, the young daughter of his host. To spare Covenant from the wrath of her husband Lena’s mother, Atiaran, escorts Covenant on his journey to Revelstone.

Taken before the council of lords, Covenant is recruited for a quest to retrieve the long thought lost, ‘Staff of Law’ from the depraved cavewight Drool Rockworm. The mission takes Covenant, a party of Lords and their ‘Bloodguard’, elite warriors of the Haruchai people who are pledged to the service and protection of the Lords, to the caverns of Mount Thunder and a confrontation with both Drool and the Despiser. Falling in battle Covenant secures the escape of his allies by tapping into the wild magic and waking the ‘fire-lions’, creatures of living fire and lava. Covenant awakes back in his own world, only minutes have passed for the weeks in the Land; was it just an hallucination?

The Illearth War

Summoned back to the Land by the council of Lords, Covenant is told that Foul is using the Illearth stone to pervert nature and to gather an army of evil and mutated creatures.

Many years have passed in the time of the Land and the Council of Lords is now headed by Elena, Covenant’s daughter from his rape of Lena. Also allied to the Lords is Hile Troy, blind from birth (he has no eyes) the magic of the Land has given him a replacement sense that more than compensates. Troy is also from Covenants world and is a superb strategist; a talent the Council hope will give them an advantage in the coming war.

The Illearth Stone has shifted the balance of power, and has even allowed one of Fouls Ravers, bodiless spirits, to posses one of the friendly giant folk something that was previously thought impossible. While Troy commands the Warward, the forces of the free people, against the Raver led army of Foul, it is up to Covenant to destroy the Stone and prevent Foul’s army from defeating the forces of the Lords. Things do not go well; Elena, driven both by a love for her father and a desire to destroy Foul, summons up the shade of Kevin Landwaster in an ill-fated attempt to gain power but in the process breaks the Law of Death, the Raver-Giant Kinslaughterer lives up to his name and kills the giants and Troy is forced to make a bargain that will change his life forever.

Covenant awakens in his home world his task unfinished and again unsure if it is just a nightmare or truly real.

Gilden Fire

This book should never have been. It is simply a chapter removed from the Illearth War as without Covenant’s presence it was thought that the question of whether the Land was real, or just a figment of Covenant’s imagination, would have been compromised. Silly really as by now you probably didn’t care whether it was a dream or not, and as parts of the story were from Hile Troy’s point of view, it seemed less likely that Covenant was dreaming anyway.

However this novelette, printed in very large type in an effort to bump up the page count, recounts Korik’s mission, something that we learn of in the Illearth War but stripped of all detail, and gain an insight into the Bloodguard and witness just how unprepared some of the Lords are for their duties. That this chapter should be told is for sure, but it should be within the main narrative and not as an over priced addition. I first read it after completing the Second Chronicles, as it was published after the publication of White Gold Wielder, probably to generate more revenue from the series rather than please the readers. I would recommend reading it between the Illearth War and the Power that Preserves, as the story will be more relevant.

The Power That Preserves

Summoned back to the Land, Covenant finds that seven years have passed since the failure of his last mission. Times are fraught, the Land is gripped by an unnatural winter (through Foul’s use of the Illearth Stone and the Staff of Law, unbeknownst to the Council who thought it lost during the Illearth War), the Bloodguard Vow has been sundered and the Haruchai have scattered, the Giants have been exterminated (bar one as we shall see), the proud Ranyhyn (uber-horses that consent to serve the Council in a way that paralleled the Bloodguard) and their Ramen attendants are being hunted by Foul’s forces and the Earthpower is weakening resulting in the fall of the mighty forests. Revelstone is under siege and the Council are preparing to perform the Ritual of Desecration, the same ritual that Kevin Land-waster used previously, in a desperate hope to overcome Foul once and for all.

Allied with the last of the giants, a friend from his previous visits, Covenant undertakes a mission of absolution which takes them across the wastes and into Fouls fortress itself. Covenant finally confronts Foul, destroying both the Staff of Law and the Illearth Stone, and redeems both the Land and himself while diminishing Foul.

This is a fitting end to the First Chronicles and leaves you in no doubt that the Land and Covenant’s actions had been real.

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

The Wounded Land

The One Tree

White Gold Wielder

The second trilogy comprises a single visit to the Land¸ one which changes the lives of Thomas Covenant and his new companion for ever.

The Wounded Land

Years have passed and Covenant, redeemed by the trials of the First Chronicles, has returned to writing and is now at peace with himself. Pulled back to the Land, Covenant is first surprised to find his doctor, Linden Avery, has been drawn with him, and then shocked to see the wreck that the Land has become. Centuries have passed since the fall of Foul, but in that time Foul has managed to infiltrate the Earthpower itself, perverting it and bringing ruin and waste where once there was life. Foul’s chief weapon is the Sunbane, manifest as a coloured corona to the sun, each dawn the Sunbane changes, bringing suns of Desert, Fertility, Rain or Pestilence.

Avery is lost to find herself in a strange world, and can only watch as Covenant is shocked by the degree of perversion that Foul has worked on the once beautiful Land. With each discovery Covenant is further enraged; the free people have lost their knowledge of the lore of stone and wood and have been taught that to access the Earthpower requires payment in blood. Where man once worked in harmony with Nature, now Nature bleeds man to work the simplest of tasks.

Covenant and Avery journey across the Land finding that only the hills of Andelain, once the most beautiful and peaceful areas of the Land, remain free of the Sunbane, protected by the forestal Caer Caveral who Covenant once knew as Hile Troy. At Revelstone they find the Council has also been perverted and now the free people are ruled by the Raver possessed Clave, who’s Rede of bloodletting and Banefire have usurped the old lore. Along the way Covenant and Avery are joined by Vain, a product of the ur-viles (spawn of the Demondim and usually allied to Foul), who seems destined for something big. At Revelstone Vain defies analysis, though a group of Waynhim (good Demondim spawn and opposites of ur-viles) is shocked by what they see, and seems to be operating to his own agenda; pilfering the metal bands that were the last remains of the Staff of Law, he places one on an ankle and the other on his opposite wrist.

At the end of the book Covenant and party meet up with the Search, an expedition of Giants, seeking their cousins who had settled in the Land centuries ago, and who Covenant knows were slaughtered by Foul’s minions. By now the reader is used to Covenant waking up in his own world, so imagine the shock when this book ends with Covenant and Avery sailing away from the Land with the Giants to search for a means to save the Land.

The One Tree

An odd one this, it tells the story of Covenant and company’s voyages, and interactions with various peoples in the countries outside of the Land. A lot happens but a lot doesn’t happen at the same time. What we do get are a number of mini-adventures and narrow squeaks that culminate with a quest to find the One Tree, the source of the original Staff of Law. At the site of the One Tree we discover that the tree itself is part of the giant serpent that encircles the universe (Jormugandr anyone?) and the act of trying to remove a ‘branch’ results in Covenant ‘visiting’ his own world to see his estranged family in danger and Vain getting one of his arms petrified.

At the end of this book the Search heads back towards the Land accompanied by a sandgorgan, originally summoned to cause their demise, and Findail of the Elohim (living embodiments of Earthpower), and more mysteries than before they left.

White Gold Wielder

Returning to the Land, Covenant and company take on the forces of Foul’s perversion. At Revelstone Clave is destroyed and his Banefire doused. Vain and Findail come into their joint destiny, merging to form a new Staff of Law. Covenant once more confronts Foul, this time giving his life to become one with the wild magic and finally, at least as far as we can tell, defeat the Despiser. With Covenant dead, Avery takes up the white gold and with the powers of wild magic, the new Staff of Law and her innate powers destroys the Sunbane and finally is returned to her, and our, world. All the hanging plots are, largely, resolved and we leave the Land to begin its, implied, restoration.

Of course this was the end as we knew it…

The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

After his death at the end of White Gold Wielder we could be forgiven for assuming that Covenant’s story was complete, however Stephen Donaldson is now working on what he describes as the third and final Chronicles. The first book has now been published, but I have not read it yet, so can not at this time post a review.

The Runes of the Earth

Fatal Revenant

Shall Pass Utterly

The Last Dark