Fatal Revenant: The Last Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant (GOLLANCZ S.F.) [Paperback]

Judging from the reviews, the consensus seems to be negative about the Last Chronicles. As a big fan of the previous Covenant books, I can't say I agree though. This series is really starting to stack up. Runes of the Earth was good, not a perfect book by any means, but a decent intro to the new series. Fatal Revenant is much better, it really goes up a notch. I'd rate it up with the top 2 or 3 Covenant books.

I like what Donaldson has decided to do with this series - he's revisiting the characters & storylines of the first two trilogies, and then adding some new elements. He's not trying to write a whole new saga - which is good, as this is going to be the last one. It may be nostalgia, but to me, it seems the right thing to do.

I'd also say that there's a greater emotional core to this series, something that was missing from the 2nd chronicles. Fatal Revenant has more of the intensity of the first books. You actually feel for Linden this time - enemies arrayed against her, desperately unsure of what to do, her son's life hanging in the balance and Covenant beyond reach. In the 2nd Chronicles I think she was a fairly bland addition to be honest. This time her character is starting to fill the hole left by Covenant's departure.

There's also a couple of great set pieces in the book too - the confrontation under Melenkurion Skyweir half way through, the sequence with the Mahdoubt aferwards, the ending in Andelain, all must be among the best things Donaldson has written to date.

As with all Donaldson books (Covenant novels especially) the usual elements are at work - verbose / archaic (lets face it, pretentious) language, angst-ridden characters, complicated plots and lots of characters. Its funny that some of the negative reviews focus on these kinds of thing - every single Covenant book drips with this stuff! you either like it or you don't!!

Anyway, if you managed to get through this review, and you're a Covenant fan, then I'd recommend this book, forget the naysayers! Bring on book 3!

I was eager to read the second volume of The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Though a vast introduction, The Runes of the Earth, with its cliffhanger ending, left fans begging for more. Hence, I couldn't wait to return to the Land once more, and see where Fatal Revenant would take this tale.

The sequel begins right where The Runes of the Earth ended. But if you are hoping for a happy reunion between Linden and Thomas Covenant and her son Jeremiah, you are obviously not familiar with Stephen R. Donaldson's work. Revelations are made that will break Linden's heart, and she must find the strength within herself to persevere.

As was the case with the previous trilogies in the Covenant saga, Donaldson's narrative conjures up vivid and magical images. Vast in scope and vision, Fatal Revenant answers many questions that were raised by its predecessor. Indeed, secrets about Kastenessen, the Durance, the skurj, the Giants, the Haruchai, Kevin's Dirt, the Elohim, Roger Covenant, the Demondim, the ur-viles, the Waynhim, and more are revealed. Add to that a journey back into time, the introduction of the Insequent -- a cabal of powerful wizards who oppose the Elohim, a showdown beneath Melenkurion Skyweir, and a lot more, and you have a very satisfying reading experience in front of you!

I truly enjoyed the manner with which the author brought Fatal Revenant to a close, even though it is more or less anti-climatic and yet another cliffhanger. I expect some readers to find this off-putting, but I thought it was apropos to end it in such a fashion.

As always, my main complaint remains that the dialogues often don't ring true. When a vulgar villager uses a vocabulary which would put an English major to shame, something's not right. So expect terms such as condign, sooth, benison, puissant/puissance, oblique/obliquely, etc, to pepper throughout the chapters of this novel.

Given the author's career, I was expecting a bit more character growth in this second volume. And yet, other than where Stave is concerned, there is not much growth to speak of. Still, since Linden and her companions find themselves into dire straits at every turn, this might explain why. . .

One facet of this novel which could have been better is the pace. Donaldson's Covenant books have never been known for their fast-paced narrative, but various portions of Fatal Revenant are sluggish and break the overall rhythm of the story.

Nevertheless, fans of the Thomas Covenant saga should love this new installment. As a matter of fact, you may pre-order this one without fear that it won't live up to your expectations.

The press release claims that the addition of a synopsis of all previous Covenant books at the start of this one makes Fatal Revenant the perfect jumping-on point for new readers, who will supposedly find the story easily accessible. This, I must say, is the biggest lie I've heard in quite a while. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are a highly imaginative saga that resounds with depth and complexity. As such, it is impossible to jump in at this point without reading the first two trilogy, not if you want to appreciate this tale for what it is -- one of the classics of the genre.

Fatal Revenant is for aficionados who crave high fantasy tales with depth and substance.

It seems practically compulsory to start off a review of one of the new Covenant books with the words "I was a huge fan of the first two trilogies" and then follow it up with a "BUT..." I suppose this is not too surprising. Nobody is going to pick up the eighth book of what has effectively become a ten book series if they do not have a fair amount of affection for the author's work. I do wonder if the people (and I am one of them) who are feel " Runes" and "Revenant" are turgid, slow and uneventful may be overlooking the fact that this is not completely unheard of from Donaldson. "Lord Foul's Bane" in particular is one of the slowest, least eventful and most awkwardly written novels ever to launch a best-selling fantasy franchise. "Bane" does have its virtues, but most of them only become apparent when it is considered in the light of the second and third books of the Chronicles. Certainly the cowardice, mendacity and self-pity of Covenant in that first novel is at least as objectionable as anything Linden Avery is guilty of in "Revenant".

I have to say that I found this book disappointing and frustrating. Part of the frustration was due to the book being not completely awful. If it had been totally unreadable I could have simply set it aside and moved on to something else. Instead, I found that the situations Donaldson had created were sufficiently interesting that they would nag at me if I failed to complete the book. Then in the last one hundred and fifty pages the action picks up quite well culminating in a pretty decent cliff-hanger. The last part of the book gives glimpses of the excellent storyteller Donaldson can occasionally be.

Sadly, they are only glimpses. There is nothing in the 1,500 odd pages of the Last Chronicles which comes close to the excitement of the death march of the Warward in "Illearth War" or the battle for Revelstone in the "The Power That Preserves". I feel Donaldson reached a peak of achievement with "The Illearth War", more or less maintained that quality through "The Power Preserves" andhas gone downhill ever since.

[There have been deviations from the trend. The last half of White Gold Wielder is excellent as is the first book of Mordant's Need (the second, sadly is rubbish), and books II and IV of the Gap sequence contain some amazingly inventive and compelling plotting. But generally the books have got worse rather than better, and that strikes me as a pity.]

There are two things which make "Fatal Revenant" a disappointment. Neither, perhaps surprisingly, is the writing. Donaldson has consciously chosen an esoteric style the Covenant books and at this point in the story's arc I think it is fair for him to expect that his readers will either have accepted it, decided to ignore it, or gone out and bought a damn big dictionary. I can live with and even enjoy the abstruse vocabulary. Other things are harder to accept.

The first thing which bugs me is the characterisation and the unsatisfactory effect which the characterisation has on the plot. (Or maybe it's the other way around.) There have been quite a few eyebrows raised at the extent to which the Last Chronicles have turned out to be the story of Linden Avery rather than Thomas Covenant. This might have mattered less if she had not been so dreary to read about. Donaldson has built a career out of self-loathing, damaged and dysfunctional heroes. It's what he does, and when he gets it right the results are pretty good. I'd choose one hundred pages of Covenant over ten pages of Frodo Baggins any day of the week. The historic traumas experienced by Covenant in the first trilogy and Linden Avery in the second are things which make them interesting. The problem is that Donaldson pretty much made it so that Linden had confronted and dealt with her demons by the end of White Gold Wielder and Donaldson does not have anything else to put in their place.

The lack of interest generated by the central character serves to emphasise the lack of interest generated by the plot itself. It is quite an achievement to be bloated and thin at the same time, but Donaldson seems to have managed it. As the books have gone have gone on (and this goes for the transition from the First to the Second Chronicles as well) their geographical, and now chronological scope seems to have expanded, while the human drama seems to have shrunk.

The text of the book and various portentous characters within it keep reminding us of the "peril to the land" but the main reason they have to do this is because if they didn't it would be pretty hard to figure out what the danger actually is. In the First Chronicles we had preternatural winter and Giant-led armies stamping all over the Land. In the Second we have Sunbane perverting the law of nature and the na-Mhoram's grim raining acid over the land. In the Last Chronicles a village gets churned up and some of the people are made homeless and there are some monsters with big teeth that eat trees. Oh Kevin's Watch gets knocked down... which, seeing as how it is about 10,000 years old at this point might have been expected to happen from natural causes anyway. After so many pages I would have expected a greater sense of peril.

Too many of the "good" characters in the Last Chronicles feel like water-down versions of their predecessors in earlier books. We have good hearted Stonedowners and good hearted Giants and we have the Haruchai being 'dispassionate' and 'impassive' just like they always are. And the story is heavily over-burdened with villains who are acting for motives which are intentionally poaque. In the earlier books there is nothing remotely likeable about Lord Foul, but he is certainly understandable. You feel his contempt, his visceral loathing , his need to escape from the Land "which he abhors". You know what he wants, you know what he's trying to do and you know that it is very, very bad. He is a hugely successful, hugely memorable villain.

But in the new book, Foul, like Covenant, is put in the back seat. In his place we have a whole host of secondary villains, none of whom are actually very interesting. We have an enraged Elohim (who does not seem to have any motivation apart from being mad) and we have Covenant's son and his ex-wife (who are similarly devoid of any meaningful motives), we have a couple of plot robots like Amok and Vain only not so interesting, and various other beings, most of whom flit in and out of the text like puppets being pushed in and out of the flaps in a children's puppet theatre. Donaldson might understand what these characters are doing in his story, but I'm not at all sure I do, and by the time I waded through six hundred pages of their cryptic utterances it was getting quite hard to figure out why I cared.

The odd thing is that I probably will look for the next book when it finally appears. Maybe it's just blind optimism, but I am still hoping the Donaldson can somehow turn this around and make it into something truly memorable. If my wishes come true then Thomas Covenant will start to play a proper part in the action, all the complications will start to make sense, and I will be given a story in which characters I care about, admire and hugely respect suffer terribly in defence of something wonderful and magical. Or, I could just give up on waiting and go read "The Power That Preserves" again.