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November 8, 2004
The Runes of the Earth, by Stephen R. Donaldson
Twenty-one years ago, Stephen R. Donaldson, released White Gold Wielder, the final book in the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. It would have seemed that the series had run its course. The Staff of Law was reformed, the Land was saved, Lord Foul was banished, Linden Avery was restored to her world and Thomas Covenant lay dead. There was nothing more to write about Thomas Covenant.
But even as a sixteen-year-old, I was a sophisticated enough reader to have been left with a feeling of dissatisfaction. I didn't put my finger on the reasons until much later on, this past year when I decided to reread both trilogies, and indeed, I was left with a much greater sense of disappointment in the loose ends upon finishing the second time.
Sunder and Hollian, the villagers that were recruited along Covenant and Avery's journey, were now the custodians of the Staff, and the heirs of the Forestal Caer Cavarel; but the healing of the land would be slow, and Hollian was pregnant. The two surviving Giants of the Search still had to reach their ship. Joan Covenant, the hero's estranged wife was still insane, and although Thomas's son, eleven-year-old Roger had never been more than an absent character, but with no parents, his future still remained desperately uncertain. Finally, although Lord Foul has been once more destroyed, we know that he will always return, even if it takes him millennia to do it. Mere years in Avery's world.
It was mere chance that I read Stephen R. Donaldson's website one day and learned of the newest entry into the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, The Runes of the Earth. Here I thought White Gold Wielder ended it all, but Thomas Covenant's legacy has somehow survived his passing.
The only disappointment I felt for Runes was that I read it too fast, and it ended on a cliffhanger. I want more, and fear that with Donaldson's history of writing, I will have to wait a year before I get it. Runes held true to the earlier chronicles, and left me wanting for more.
It is ten years after the events of White Gold Wielder on Linden Avery's world, and she is confronted by a newly 21-year old Roger Covenant seeking the release of his catatonic mother into his custody. At once we can sense the aberrant behavior in Roger Covenant, and suspect the young man is under some darker influence. Linden denies the younger Covenant his request, and turns the young man away, but left feeling uneasy at the events that soon unfold. She must protect her quasi-autistic adopted son, Jeremiah, whose hand was maimed in the very same fashion as Thomas Covenant's was, as a child, in the events that brought Avery first to the Land.
When Linden Avery is transported to the Land, as we know what must ultimately happen, we find that another three and a half millennia have passed, and just as in The Wounded Land the wondrous land has been changed and deformed by dark forces, in both the form of an invisible fog that disables Avery's inherent earthsense called “Kevin's Dirt” and a macabre storms that breaches reality known as “Falls.” She encounters Anele, a blind and crazy old mystic with a world of unlocked knowledge, Stave, one of the Haruchai who have set themselves up as “Masters” of the land, intending to save it from itself, and Liand, an ordinary man from Mithil Stonedown, the same little village that we find our protagonist(s) in at the beginning of the first two trilogies.
The Runes of the Earth begins series of four books, according to Donaldson, intended to tie up all the loose ends. I managed to spread the last hundred pages out among a few nights, but ultimately found myself finishing the book far sooner than I wanted. The Covenant series are destined to put Donaldson among the very greatest writers of epic fantasy; in the ranks of names such as Tolkein and Bradley.
Interested in buying it or seeing more about it? Click here: The Runes of the Earth (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 1)
Posted by Bastique at November 8, 2004 11:34 PM