⋙ Read Free The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Wounded Land' 'One Tree' and 'White Gold Wielder Stephen Donaldson 9780006473305 Books

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Wounded Land' 'One Tree' and 'White Gold Wielder Stephen Donaldson 9780006473305 Books

Download As PDF : The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Wounded Land' 'One Tree' and 'White Gold Wielder Stephen Donaldson 9780006473305 Books

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Wounded Land' 'One Tree' and 'White Gold Wielder Stephen Donaldson 9780006473305 Books

If I were rating the book on the imaginative setting and the overall quality of the story arc, I would give this book 5 stars. I give it only 3 because, as with all the books in this series, there is far too much filler. Characters seem to take 5 pages to mount their horse and ride out of camp, for example. All of the characters are so filled with worry, and the author makes us listen to everything they are thinking. I feel that if you kept all of the action and actual conversation of a 400+ page Covenant book and tossed all of the worried and frantic thoughts of the characters, you'd be left with a book of less than 100 pages. After a while, it just gets tiresome to read. This is why the old masters of sic-fi and fantasy could write great books in 150 pages, while the new authors tell the same story in a book that takes 4 times as long to read.


Tags : The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant : Wounded Land', 'One Tree' and 'White Gold Wielder [Stephen Donaldson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The magnificent saga of Thomas Covenant continues in Stephen Donaldson's highly acclaimed second epic fantasy trilogy,Stephen Donaldson,The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant : Wounded Land', 'One Tree' and 'White Gold Wielder,Harpercollins Pub Ltd,000647330X,Fantasy

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Wounded Land' 'One Tree' and 'White Gold Wielder Stephen Donaldson 9780006473305 Books Reviews

This series either suffers or shines due to its ever-present weirdness. It takes place mostly inside the heads of the characters, who are constantly motivated by emotion and duty to the point where feelings and opinions often supersede survival. I love these books because Thomas Covenant never stops being completely negative while always doing the right thing. The leprosy allegory is still there, if anyone cares. The second best of the 10 Covenant books, im my opinion.
White Gold Wielder is the final member of Donaldson's series of six Thomas Covenant novels. In this one, our hero finally gets around to fighting the Despiser himself. But first he has to take care of the Banefire burning from out of Revelstone. So in this book we get two climactic battles and they're both actually quite exciting with unexpected outcomes. I won't give anything away except to mention that the Sandgorgon Nom from The One Tree is back in fine form. Nom was possibly the most interesting character from that book. The One Tree is, in my opinion, the best novel in the second trilogy. White Gold Wielder, though satisfying, doesn't quite match it nor does it compare to The Illearth War (the second book of the first trilogy). It is, however, a much better finish than The Power That Preserves was to the first series.
Unfortunately, characterization takes somewhat of a nosedive from the previous books in the series (though not near as bad as the atrocious nosedive between the two books of Dan Simmons's Endymion series). The Giants in this novel are more than ever before like machines impossibly strong and devoid of character flaws for the most part. Linden is a headcase and doesn't resemble anyone I know. The "romance" between Covenant and Linden, if you can call it that, seems ridiculously artificial and contrived. These two people never lighten up! They're stone-faced serious at all times and argue with each other more than anything else. Donaldson doesn't manage to convince the reader that they're actually lovers and I think that he should have abandoned the whole relationship from the start and just focused on the action.
The action is done very well and brings this book up to a solid four-star rating. As in all five previous books, Donaldson's development of the swords and sorcery is excellent. The first half of the book is somewhat slow, but the tension builds well as the party gets closer to the waiting enemy. The long sequence under Kiril Threndor will have you turning pages late into the night to find out what happens next.
I'm glad I read through this series. Though not quite as complex as some other offerings in the fantasy genre, the generally dark mood of the prose gives the Covenant novels a unique touch. I think that those in their late teens would get the most enjoyment out of these books.
Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant began in 1977 and consisted of 2 sets of trilogies that continued to 1983.. I was 31 when the first book, "Lord Foul's Bane", was published and was mesmerized by the story and those that followed. When Donaldson started Covenant's Final Chronicles (a tetralogy) in 2004 I was determined to re-obtain hardcover, albeit trade copies, of all that I once possessed. Although slightly dog-eared, in some cases, the books I've acquired have faired quite well over the three-and-some-odd decades. The last entry of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, "The Last Dark", was published in 2013 and ended the 36 year series.
The series and this book are great reads, definitely an under-appreciated Fantasy series. I was excited to see White Gold Wielder finally available for the after a long wait. I want to focus this review narrowly on flaws in the kindle addition just so people are aware and so that, just maybe, the publisher will try a little harder next time.

This book shows strong evidence of being created by using a computer to scan in text with little human intervention. The first part is fine, I'm sure many older books are turned into books this way. But the latter is inexcusable. The text has a significant number of strange typos like asterisks where apostrophes should be. A sentence from loc 3175 "... her tone was candid, but free of sarcasm or accusation -- rsssssssssssss "... I have the original hard cover book and compared the texts. As I suspected Donaldson never wrote "rsssssssssssss" into his characters dialog. The publisher did a lousy job preparing the kindle edition and it deserves to be noted.

So four stars for a great story but try a little harder next time Del Rey; make sure the intern doing your proofreading has some coffee or something.
I have read both the first and second chronicles a couple of times and they still hold up as my favorite fantasy series of all time. To be honest, I'm not normally a fan of the fantasy genre but these books are just so different from others I have read. The two trilogies are similar and different enough that I can't decide which I prefer. I've read the third chronicles once and these installments are excellent as well, but having read them only once, I have yet to decide where they fall in my preferences. I won't bore you by telling the story here but will just say that you root for the title character even though he tends to be so unlikable. It's all in the contradictions, which seems to me what the books are about.
If I were rating the book on the imaginative setting and the overall quality of the story arc, I would give this book 5 stars. I give it only 3 because, as with all the books in this series, there is far too much filler. Characters seem to take 5 pages to mount their horse and ride out of camp, for example. All of the characters are so filled with worry, and the author makes us listen to everything they are thinking. I feel that if you kept all of the action and actual conversation of a 400+ page Covenant book and tossed all of the worried and frantic thoughts of the characters, you'd be left with a book of less than 100 pages. After a while, it just gets tiresome to read. This is why the old masters of sic-fi and fantasy could write great books in 150 pages, while the new authors tell the same story in a book that takes 4 times as long to read.