4 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Thomas Covenant is back, with Linden Avery and her son, and just as tormented as ever, and supported by Giants and Haruchai that are just as stolid as ever. But now the Worm at World's End is loose, and it's coming for the Land.

Review
I’ve been reading the Thomas Covenant series for decades now – since not too many years after I first learned to love SFF, and the first Covenant books played a part in that love. I was considerably less enamored of the third ‘trilogy’ of the series than the first two, and the last book, Against All Things Ending really tried my patience. I suppose that’s part of why it’s taken me so long to get around to reading this capstone. I’m happy to say that the ending is much stronger, or my time away has made it so.

It’s been interesting to read Donaldson’s The Last Dark right after the first book in Daniel Abraham’s Kithamar trilogy. The latter, I began to dread picking up; it just didn’t appeal to me. The former, though twice the length, I stayed excited about all the way through – eager to go back to the world and characters every time, like you should be with a good book. It’s interesting in part because, though they’re both good, Abraham is probably the better writer – especially given Donaldson’s insistence on using esoteric terms that display his erudition (or, as others would say, showing off with big words). I love an esoteric word, and use some myself, but Donaldson takes it too far. It’s especially irksome, because he doesn’t always use them quite right. Mostly, but … if you’re going to go for the vocabulary prize, you have to do it properly. In any case, while Abraham is the better writer, Donaldson is a much better storyteller. Sure, his characters are anguished and dramatic, but I care about them.

Admittedly, this long book, while it went quickly, is too long. It drags in the last third as the characters deal with their perpetual angst, and the ending is on the thin side not only for a book this big, but for a series this big. It’s too easy a wrapup, and not only are some elements unexplained, some other key elements just don’t show up. The brief epilogue is not only structurally but emotionally an anticlimax. While the bulk of the book is a fitting end to the saga, the ending is a disappointment.

All that notwithstanding, why is this series not being made into a TV series? I’d think a complicated, problematic mostly anti-hero would work well.

I believe this is the final Thomas Covenant book. At the conclusion of the previous volume, the author had left a significant portion of the many conflicts established over the course of the series unresolved. So, this final volume had an ambitious amount of resolution required from the outset. The ending was a little bit underwhelming, and - in fact - I felt like there was a missing chapter there right at the end. Somewhat disappointing after all the time invested in the series.

Fantastic ending to a brilliant series.
As deep and complex and compelling as I've come to expect from Stephen R. Donaldson and his eclectic characters.
Love it.
Great finish. Only negative is that this is the final book in the series.

Well played Mr Donaldson.

Sadly, I'm of the overall opinion that the series should have ended with the Second Chronicles.

As a whole, the Last Chronicles has just been disappointing. There seemed to be more and more things pulled out of nowhere at the last minute to solve problems as the series progressed.

On a more minor note, this is the first time the Giants were annoying to me. Not the characters themselves, but the lack of them. Oh, there were many named giants, but they had about two and a half personalities between them. And their names, which were supposed to be distinctive, actually made them more difficult to tell apart. I guess you were trying to evoke the giants of the Search, instead I just wished I was spending time with them once again.

Sorry Stephen. The first two trilogies were awesome, as was the Gap Sequence (in fact, the Second Chronicles and the Gap books rank highly among my favourite books). These last four books just fell short.

I would write a detailed review here but it would be too spoilerish, but in fact Mark Kreighbaum reviewed it almost perfectly (with PROS & CONS) on Amazon here - http://www.amazon.com/review/R2KCT6ZUSOFAHO/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00C5R7446&nodeID=283155&store=books

While is it a worthy read (indeed a must for Covenant/Donaldson fans), it leaves a few loose ends and a few areas that could have been better.

I was left wanting a cleaner ending, one that made me almost cry (as some scenes in earlier books did) for the beauty of the Land - e.g. when he described the massacre of the Giants at the Grieve - heart-wrenching description of the demise and despair of the noble Giants. So it's not the ending I had hoped for; one that would keep me reading until dawn like with previous installments.

Anyway - read it and decide for yourselves, but the earlier trilogies were superior and more even.

Where do I go with this? I started the first Chronicles of Thomas Convenant probably over 20 years ago, and fell in love. I read through the three books, anxiously picking up the three of the second chronicles. What seemed many years later, Donaldson released the start of the third and final chronicles, and each time I have waited anxiously for the next book. That all ends with the release of this one. A great series has come to a close.

This is book four of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. It starts off right where book three had ended, though it has been quite some time since I read it, I thought I would be able to just pick up right where book four starts, but easily within the first few chapters, I realized I was having issues. I didn't remember characters doing/being certain things/places, and felt lost for quite a bit of the beginning here. Probably would have been good to go back and re-read the first three books, so everything would be clearer for me.

Either way, once I got started, and knew what was going on with whom, it became a bit easier. It seemed so much of this book dealt with internal personal issues for the main characters. I found myself getting a bit bored with what felt like lengthy descriptions of inner turmoils, that, quite frankly, made me skip/skim pages at a time. I understand that much of this inner turmoil is necessary to the story, but just seemed repetitive throughout the book. The ending I felt was a bit of a let-down, but honestly couldn't see a clearer way to end such a life-long series. Overall, even with some boring passages, it was a finish to some great characters.

I read this book slower and slower as I neared the end. I grew up with Thomas Covenant in the Land and I never want that story to end. Donaldson stays true to his characters and his vision seems inevitable, as if this was exactly where he's been going all along as he wrote for decades. I never expect to be so viscerally grabbed by a book, a cast of characters, a world, ever again, and am saddened that the ride is at long last over.

I originally embarked on the chronicles of Thomas Covenant many a year ago, and confess at that time almost feeling like I would never actually read the entire series. It is only in the past few months that I have managed to conquer the last chronicles of the series, while technically not the longest epic fantasy series, the manner of the dense prose makes one feel as if the series is the longest out.

Before I delve into the Last Dark I suspect it is useful to point out that I have not enjoyed the final chronicles as much as I wished I had. Where the earlier trilogies were an equal mix of harshness and originality, the last chronicles felt overburdened with conversation, and Foul's plot lacked the intrigue of his previous.

So what about the final, final book? Firstly the action is brilliant, it seemed like Donaldson saved all the violence and conflict for the end, which wasn't too bad. The plot still dragged at times, its not interesting when there is so much world ending going on to hear about our heroes wandering around (or being carried.)

Ultimately the conclusion was a satisfying one, however I felt a little let-down that there wasn't a stronger twist or something unexpected. Lord Foul didn't really have anything new, or any shocking revelations for TC, and because the secondary characters were somewhat undeveloped this quadrilogy there wasn't really much to attach to or feel tragedy about.

I guess in summary the last chronicles of Thomas Covenant are a huge achievement, while nowhere near the shocking brilliance of the earlier books, they are still something to be respected.