The Illearth War: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Book Two (Mass Market Paperback)

by Stephen R. Donaldson (Author) "BY the time Thomas Covenant reached his house the burden of what had happened to him had already become intolerable..." (more)
Key Phrases: wild magic, wedding finger, High Lord, Lord Mhoram, Lord Hyrim (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'Something entirely out of the ordinary you'll want to go straight through Lord Foul's Bane, The Illearth War and The Power that Preserves at one sitting' The Times 'The Thomas Covenant saga is a remarkable acheivement which will certainly find a place on the small list of all true classics' Washington Post 'A feast for epic fantasy addicts' Publishers Weekly --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
The second volume in the epic Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.
Thomas Covenant found himself once again summoned to the Land. The Council of Lords needed him to move against Foul the Despiser who held the Illearth Stone, ancient source of evil power. But although Thomas Covenant held the legendary ring, he didn't know how to use its strength, and risked losing everything....


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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (October 12, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345348664
• ISBN-13: 978-0345348661
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #18,416 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 2 in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Epic, original, creative, masterful storytelling, August 26, 2001

By	Steven Dennis (Reston, VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is Donaldson's best book -- the best of the Covenant series and better than any other fantasy written in the past 20 years. It's that good. Continuing the story from Lord Foul's Bane, the reluctant anti-hero leper Thomas Covenant returns to the mysterious Land, where he is again called upon to save it even as he must deny its existence to try and maintain his sanity. Of course, there is the added twist that he doesn't even know how to use the awesome power of the white gold wedding band at his wrist, even if he wanted to. Meanwhile, in the "real world," life is getting even tougher for Covenant. The forces of evil are at work in both worlds, with a titanic war splitting the Land and threatening to destroy it utterly. It's rare these days for a fantasy to be truly fantastic. Too often, hacks like David Eddings or Terry Brooks simply recycle plots from their earlier days and write hack and slash 'em pulp novels that are read one day and mind-flushed the next.

Donaldson's novels sear themselves into your brain, so that you remember them for years, decades after you last read them. The characters -- Foamfollower, the Bloodguard, Lord Mhoram, Lena -- each is deep and rich with emotional scars and a quiet strength and courage. Covenant in comparison can't help but appear bad, yet somehow, through his travels in the Land, he slowly, slowly manages to find his humanity again that had been stripped away by leprosy and VSE. If you haven't read the Covenant series, do yourself a favor and go read Lord Foul's Bane, then the Illearth War and the rest of the books. They are the treasure of modern fantasy.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a sophomore slump, November 11, 2004

By	T. Burger (Chicago) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It's obvious that Donaldson was cutting his teeth, so to speak, while writing Lord Foul's Bane. To be certain, that book had periods of brilliance, such as the occurrences in Andelain, but all in all it was probably the weakest book in the series. (That doesn't mean it isn't good - just that the rest of the books are incredible.)

In The Illearth War Covenant is called back to the Land for a second time, and his image of a reluctant hero is burnished in our mind even more than it was in the previous book, for while he was being summoned he was also on the phone with his ex-wife, Joan. The woman who left him for fear of his leprosy, the woman with whom he was still in love, the woman who was telling him, right then, that she missed and needed him. So he protests his summoning vehemently, but to no avail. As the new High Lord Elena indicates, they have no knowledge of how to send a person back once a summons is complete.

The Council of Lords has some new faces on it. It's been forty years since Covenant has been to the Land, and seven years (seven "Land" years) remain until the fulfillment of Foul's ominous prophecy from Lord Foul's Bane. The Lords are desperate. While they regained the Staff of Law and found High Lord Kevin's Second Ward at the end of Lord Foul's Bane, they have learned very little. The language, they find, is difficult to penetrate, and they find themselves unequal to the task of mastering the lore. Due to their sense of overwhelming failure and inadequacy, and other baleful events, they make the decision to summon Covenant.

There is another addition to Revelstone: Hile Troy. He is a character from the "real world", someone who has read (or had read to him) Covenant's best selling novel. This is, perhaps, Donaldson's way of telling us that Covenant's experiences most definitely is not a dream (which Covenant is still convincing himself of). He's also blind, and unlike Covenant - who maintains fierce unbelief - Troy believes in the Land with a passion that precludes life.

Many readers interpret Troy's character as what Covenant *should* be. If Hile Troy had a white gold ring, his passion, his love for the land (for it allowed him to see again - and besides, everyone, even the readers, fall in love with the Land) would lead him directly to a confrontation to Foul. Unfortunately, not understanding the dilemmas of power, he would likely experience a resounding defeat. What people don't understand about Covenant, and Troy's character is supposed to help them understand this, is that Covenant's stubborn unbelief exists for a reason. In Lord Foul's Bane, Donaldson meticulously discussed the rigors of leprosy, what it meant to be a leper, what it meant to *survive* as a leper. And though bitter and angry at life and everything around him - or perhaps because of his bitterness - Covenant made the decision to live. And living entails never, ever letting your guard drop for one second. Because if you do, you can bump into something, not realize that you're bleeding internally, and die of hemorrhaging; gangrene can set in; and much more. So Covenant's unbelief, while incredibly frustrating, is completely understandable. He needs to believe that the Land isn't real, because if he gives in to it, then when he wakes up from his dream (for it may be a dream), his guard may drop, and he could die.

So it's unfortunate that people don't recognize Troy for what he is, and see him for exactly the opposite of what Donaldson intended.

Other reviewers have said this is the best book in the series. I love this book, as it introduces some extremely intriguing relationships and concepts (Elena and Amok, the latter of which is the key to High Lord Kevin's Seventh Ward - talk about heightened anticipation), and the devastating fear that Foul has mastered the Illearth Stone to such a degree that he can cut chips off of it and give it to his servants (Ravers).

The battle of Garrotting Deep (yes, similar in placement and scope to the epic Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers) shows that Donaldson, like Tolkien before him, can write both of beauty and of beauty's absence in the heart of darkness of war. He is quite adept at handling battle scenes.

Many second books suffer from the so-called sophomore slump. Not this one. I don't think Donaldson is capable of writing such a book, as The One Tree (the second book in The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) is arguably the most intriguing of the series, and within that book in particular are the seeds for the Last Chronicles, which everyone - and I mean everyone - should read.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Probably 2.5 stars - a labored read without much payoff, May 28, 2006

By	K. Sullivan "No accounting for taste..." (Virginia - United States) - See all my reviews

I was convinced to sample the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever upon reading the reviews on Amazon. Many debated the merit of the trilogy due to the tragic and conflicted soul of the protagonist, Covenant himself. He was described as an anti-hero. Having read books one and two of these Chronicles, it was not Covenant who alienated me, but instead the writing of Stephen Donaldson.

I enjoyed the first book in a qualified way. It was not a quick and exciting read, but I felt it had its merit. One could feel for the plight of Thomas Covenant (being a leper and learning to survive as a leper only to be thrust into a world where his leprosy appeared healed - sure it would be great if it were true but it is quite natural someone in his position would be reluctant to accept it). The world was complex but well-developed. The flaws (as I judge them) that I will point out shortly about The Illearth War (Book 2) were present in Lord Foul's Bane (Book 1) but they were more forgivable for some reason. Anyway, there was merit enough in the first book to make me plod through the second.

I mention that it is Stephen Donaldson's writing that drives me away. It does so in several ways. First, his is a very dense writing style. He uses words that the common person does not. I am not suggesting he is putting on airs or trying to be high-minded, I assume he is just that way. I believe the words flow naturally from him. It must be a weird experience to have a conversation with the man! Allow me to share a very simple example from The Illearth War: "Their nostrils distended at the vapory breath of dawn or dusk. Their eyes roamed searchingly over the sunward crags, the valleys occasionally bedizened with azure tarns, the hoary glaciers crouching in the highest cols, the snow-fed streams... Their wide foreheads and flat cheeks and confident poise betrayed no heart upsurge, no visceral excitement. Yet there was something clear and passionate in their alacrity..." (page 421). You could find innumerable examples of such lofty prose throughout. I am sure it is just the way he writes. I just do not find it enjoyable. It is so dense and dry. There is no poetry to it even when the passages are descriptive. It is like a highly technical and labored experience. The words are so precise the life is sucked from the narrative. Again, at least that is my humble opinion. I do not mind slow or difficult reads when there is a payoff. This one maximized the difficulty but minimized the payoff.

Second, he has created a world with its own terms. I suppose this is realistic in its way (although everyone speaks English most of the time anyway). He gives us a brief glossary, but I would prefer my reads to do without one. I have no idea what he is talking about when he uses the fictitious expressions. It may make an exciting adventure for some readers but it just turned me off. Who wants to work that hard to learn about a place that doesn't exist? At least the fantasy words could have had some common root with our language. Then things could have been somewhat intuitive. Instead it was just gibberish to me. And it played such a vital part throughout his works. To not appreciate this literary device makes his work hard to enjoy.

Third, he builds ever so slowly to a climax. Then the climax occurs and is gone and you feel like you must have missed something. "Oh, so that's it," I was left thinking. It was a long journey (a painful one at times, certainly a slow one), and then the payoff is not very rewarding.

Fourth, the bad guys seem awfully powerful. I couldn't help wondering why they just didn't sweep all the good guys away. They seem as though there is nothing that can stop them. But then the good "lords" display similar power. The magical powers just seem too present and too readily available for us common folk to relate to the struggle. I couldn't find a reality to the war that was raging. I didn't understand most of the magical beings. They were not developed very fully.

I certainly credit Donaldson for his imagination. He brings depth to the characters. He seems to have created a world with a great degree of internal consistency. I commend him for his talent, but if you are like me you won't much appreciate it.

These books remind me of Gene Wolfe and his works that compose The Book of the New Sun. That work was more science fiction, but the protagonist also had darker issues to be dealt with. Both worlds were difficult for me to identify with. Both used expressions that made no sense to me. They were both slow and deep reads. If you like this Covenant series, I whole-heartedly recommend Wolfe's series to you (and vice versa). My life would be no worse off had I missed both experiences. I am going to skip The Power that Preserves (book 3) and just hope it all works out.