The Last Dark: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 4

The grand finale to the Thomas Covenant saga moves slower than one might predict, given the apocalyptic atmosphere and scant amount of time remaining for the Land. The sun and stars have all gone out, the Worm of the World's End is approaching and mindlessly consuming everything in its path, and our (anti)heroes face daunting foes who continue to lash out in pain or in glee to create new immediate perils that must be dealt with first. Yet in that hazardous gloom, there are still lengthy scenes of grandiloquent dialogue, weighted with accusations, defenses, and pleading. It is a Stephen R. Donaldson story, after all.The moral crux of this series has shifted over these ten volumes, moving past the initial concern of Unbelief over the setting's reality, but it has stayed a profoundly introspective and deconstructive take on the fantasy genre. Lately, the primary focus has been on the importance of fighting for what's right even when all hope seems lost -- not merely because help and salvation can always arrive unexpectedly, but because the effort itself is a meaningful pursuit entirely apart from its actual success or failure. That's easier to say than to fully internalize and accept, however, and this novel finds its cast struggling with apathy and despair at the overwhelming odds arrayed against them. Simultaneously, there is a question of how much grace is owed to one's enemies, from the resentful Elohim to Lord Foul himself, and whether saving someone who wouldn't return the favor is more wisdom or folly.Readers who have enjoyed that philosophical aspect thus far will likely appreciate it here (and it's hard to imagine anyone even reaching this point otherwise), with the added poignance of finality that any great conclusion brings. There are surprising reunions and anxious farewells and incredible last feats of strength and dedication, not to mention the sweet and long-overdue development of Linden starting to call Covenant by his first name. It all builds to a tripartite climax as he faces off against his son channeling the Despiser, she seeks to redeem and unbind the eldritch amalgam She Who Must Not Be Named -- a sequence I feel works better than the creature's introduction in the previous title -- and her newfound child Jeremiah undergoes an internal ordeal with his own possessor, the sole surviving Raver.It's not a flawless ending. The Insequent are barely mentioned despite playing a fairly large role in the last couple books, and I would have personally liked to see a stronger payoff to the time travel element of this quartet, like bringing any of the Unhomed or some other champions forward from their place in established history to meet the challenges of this later era. I also don't love how the Worm is effectively neutralized off-screen, turning it into a bit of an afterthought to the emotional crisis involving the more personal adversaries rather than a proper spectacle in its own right. And a good editor probably could have trimmed down the often-superfluous levels of combat and journeying throughout.Overall, though, this is a fine sendoff to a realm rich in intricate worldbuilding and an assembly of complex characters who will forever mean a lot to me. I've adored falling back in and getting to know them all over again via this reread, as well as pushing myself to think critically and articulate why exactly they move me so for these reviews. I thank you for following along with me -- for as the people of Mithil Stonedown once said, "In accepting a gift you honor the giver." I honor Donaldson for sharing these tales with us, and you honor me by reading my thoughts on them.[Content warning for gore and mention of rape.]This volume: ★★★★☆Overall series: ★★★★☆Volumes ranked: 2 > 4 > 1 > 3

I believe this is the first time since A MAN RIDES THROUGH that the ending of a Donaldson novel has left me grinning from ear to ear.First, a little background geekery: I am a huge, unabashed fan of Stephen R. Donaldson, and have been since 1980 or so -- ever since I discovered Lord Foul's Bane in my local library and remembered that a college friend had said it was a terrific book. (Thank you, Elizabeth, wherever you are.) I've read all of his published work, I think, and have met him in person several times. In addition, I've been an active member of the message boards at kevinswatch.com for more than ten years (ask me about the EZ Board days -- on second thought, don't) and I count many of the posters there as real-life friends. One of those friends loaned me an ARC of this book, and this review is based on that version, although I've got the final one on my Kindle right now.The three novels that comprised the original Chronicles (over at the Watch, we call 'em the Chrons for short) were all published in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant were released. And then there was a 20-year hiatus while the author got on with living his life, learning what he needed to know in order to write the Last Chronicles.The setup for the series is this: Bestselling author Thomas Covenant contracts leprosy and his life falls apart. His wife leaves him, taking their infant son, and he becomes a pariah in his hometown. (Leprosy is still not a fun disease today, but it was scarier in the '70s, before there was a cure.) Covenant runs into a beggar who hands him a piece of paper that asks him about the necessity of freedom. Soon afterward, he finds himself translated to an alternate reality/parallel universe/place in his own head called the Land. There, he is cured of leprosy and revered for his white gold wedding band, as white gold is a conduit for a kind of power called wild magic. In addition, a bad guy named Lord Foul the Despiser claims anything Covenant does will play right into his hands. Covenant buys none of this; his life since his diagnosis has been harsh reality, and so he spends the first three books both doing and not doing stuff he regrets while he decides whether the Land is real -- and whether it even matters.In the Second Chrons, Covenant's experiences in the Land have changed him, but he still has work to do. Enter Linden Avery, a doctor new to town, but with a horrific past. As a child, her father forced her to watch him commit suicide; as a teen, she suffocated her abusive mother. She, too, meets up with the beggar, who tells her there is also love in the world. She is present when Covenant swaps places with his ex-wife, Joan, as the sacrificial victim of a cult. Both Linden and Covenant are then transported to the Land, where Lord Foul is in the process of destroying the ecosystem. Linden, it turns out, has a magical health-sense that allows her to use Earthpower to heal. Of course, the power can also be misused, and she has her share of missteps along the way. And she and Covenant fall in love.The Last Chrons open again in the real world, where Linden heads the local mental hospital in which Joan is a patient. She has also adopted Jeremiah, a boy whose hand was damaged in the same ritual in which Covenant was killed and who consequently suffers from dissociation disorder. This time, a whole bunch of people suffer fatal injuries in a gunfight before their translation to the Land -- Linden, Jeremiah, Joan, and Covenant's son, Roger. Roger has been turned by Lord Foul and is using his mad mother to trick Linden into bringing down the Arch of Time so Foul can escape the Land. Roger also kidnaps Jeremiah, and Linden will do almost anything to get the boy back -- including resurrecting Covenant.There's a lot to wrap up in this final book of the ten-book series, and Donaldson does an admirable job. As the book opens, Linden is coming to terms with Jeremiah's recovery, while Covenant must find his way back from the edge of the Sunbirth Sea where Joan died. The Worm of the World's End is coming -- it's beginning to gobble up stars -- and the Elohim mistrust Jeremiah's solution for protecting them. Covenant's leprosy is back, courtesy of Kevin's Dirt, and Linden is still kicking herself for not apologizing to Covenant's lost daughter Elena. And there's every indication that this journey in the Land is going to end where the whole thing began: in the bowels of Mount Thunder.THE LAST DARK has everything Donaldson fans love him for: big words, big ideas, and extreme peril; noble horses, Haruchai, and Giants; and Thomas Covenant. And in the end, as that beggar told Linden, there is also love in the world. I can't wait to read it again.

"I see you finally decide to turn up then." Covenant observed with a percipient but impenetrable mien of thesauric obscurity."Yes," the Creator replied. "I know you expected it at the end of the book, but frankly I was so disappointed I couldn't bring myself to manifest until now.""But..." Covenant's ring flared puissant argent with a theurgic mention of the krill thrown in to boot. "This was the final book, ever. It has some great action scenes! I fight a raver! Skurj! Cavewights! Masters do loads of kung fu in an epic underground battle! Linden Avery stops moaning! What wasn't there to like?"The Creator frowned. "I know there was some really good stuff. The return of the fire-lions was a masterful stroke by Donaldson, and some of the character development, especially for Jeremiah, was actually quite good. But the same old problems remain, don't they? Endless moaning by Linden before the final chapter. The Land feels empty, with a total population of about 20, plus 400 nameless Masters. The repetition of words scoured from from the furthest regions of the thesaurus still grates...""Nonsense!" Covenant interrupted percipiently, congratulating himself with a condign simony of guerdon. "And the The Last Dark actually reads as a sensitive exploration of what it is to undergo mental and physical abuse and emerge as a survivor. Surely that deserves 5 stars, not a paltry 3?""But what about the many, many pages given over to describing how to mine some rock?" the Creator countered. "Geology isn't that exciting to start with, and although Jeremiah is supposedly capable of making a prison to trap the creator, why doesn't he make one for the skurj? Or the Ravers? Or Sandgorgons? Or Foul? Or the Worm at the World's End? Why does no-one think of this? And why is there a time limit on stopping the Worm when Linden and Covenant can time travel? It just doesn't make sense, not when compared to the excellent conclusion of the Mistborn trilogy by Sanderson, for instance. There, everything falls into place with an engineered precision. In The Last Dark it looks like Donaldson is desperately scrabbling around to pull thinks together after letting them fall too far apart in an effort to make your situation seem hopeless. And while we are on the subject, Memories of Light was a far better epic finale too."Covenant's mien was troubled. He fingered his ring, which probably did something argent and theurgic again. "Ok, I see that there are flaws. But don't you think that you should cut me some slack? This is the final book, ever. Foul is forever defeated, the Land is safe for eternity and Linden is finally happy. That is worth a 4 star review, is it not?"The Creator's wrath swelled. "Hellfire! But it isn't the end, is it? As soon as Donaldson runs out of cash, it will be so easy for him to resurrect Foul and we'll have to go through it all over again, won't we? Foul was comprehensively defeated at the end of White Gold wielder and you ascended into the Arch of Time, but you managed to bugger that up, didn't you? And his defeat this time is even less convincing. This is why I'm so depressed."Saying that, the Creator vanished in a cloud of Despair, only to appear in the epilogue of the 9th and final volume of: The Really Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, No I Really Mean It, Honest, This Is It Now, My Pension Fund Is Big Enough, Seriously, No Going Back, Kings.Covenant sighed, and decided to wander off to the One Tree again to cheer himself up.Meanwhile Lord Foul/Steven Donaldson (who had always been aspects of one another) joined together and laughed, all the way to the bank.

Nobody will read The Last Dark unless they've already read the previous three volumes of the Last Chronicles; or indeed any of those if they haven't already read the First and Second ones. So as I am speaking to fellow committed travellers there are only three questions -1. Is the Last Dark any good?2. Is it a fitting end to the Last Chronicles?; and3. Do the Last Chronicles add anything to the first two?On (1) - absolutely. Clearly Last Dark doesn't stand alone, but I would say it's the best single volume of any multi volume fantasy ever!!! The writing is very strong and remarkably free (almost) of Donaldson's prolixity that so nearly ruined Against All Things Ending. The storytelling is clever and quick - incredibly so, we get more development in the first chapter than in 800 pages of AATE. The pace is relentless and the conclusions unexpected and exhilarating. It's undoubtedly the best book in the Last Chronicles and a fitting end to them: events that have been building up for hundreds of pages come to excellent conclusions and the time spent on characterisation is well used. We really do care about all of these characters - and what happens to them is rarely as predictable as we might have thought. For real fans it is (mostly) a joy spending time with these characters and in the Land, and it is undoubtedly clever how Donaldson introduces new characters, re-introduces old, and then manages to give them all proper and sensitive resolutions.On (3) I'm very clear that the First and Second Chronicles are superb and there is a real issue for me about whether we needed a further four books. I re-read all nine previous volumes again before Last Dark came out - and that certainly added something to my enjoyment. Fans are not going to argue about the luxury of spending more time in the Land. But for me the last few sentences of White Gold Wielder remain the most affecting end of any of the books. But the Last Chronicles are great - longer, pretty densely written at times and more self indulgent, with very little in the way of humour (until Last Dark surprisingly).If you start reading Thomas Covenant you could finish at the end of the Second Chronicles and your enjoyment will be completely unaffected by not reading further. It's an entirely satisfying place to end. But if you do get into the Last Chronicles, you will discover an even deeper and more fantastic story than you thought you were reading - and the emotional commitment is well rewarded. I expected Donaldson to deliver in The Last Dark. And he does so in spades.

It would be a serious mistake to attempt to write, in isolation, a review of Stephen Donaldson's finale to a saga that began in 1977 with the publication of  Lord Foul's Bane , The Illearth War  and  The Power That Preserves . It's far more sensible to consider the 'The Last Dark' as being the concluding 577 pages of the ten-volume story of Thomas Covenant and his eternal struggle with Corruption and Lord Foul the Despiser.So, a quick resume...Well before the start of 'The Last Dark' (and during his cataclysmic battle with Lord Foul the Despiser) Thomas Covenant is killed. Linden Avery's adopted son Jeremiah - key to the Despiser's plans for the ultimate destruction of both The Arch of Time and The Earth itself - has also been captured by one of Lord Foul's minions.In a frantic effort to find and rescue Jeremiah, Linden Avery, Sun Sage and White Gold Wielder, uses her powers, aided by both the krill - an age-old knife of power resurrected by Thomas Covenant - and her Staff of Law to shatter the immutable Laws of Life and Death. But, as she succeeds in drawing Covenant's spirit out of the Arch of Time and resurrecting his mortal body, she knows she has invoked powers that will lead to the ruin of the Earth: exactly as Lord Foul had planned...In  Against All Things Ending , the penultimate book of the saga, a distraught Linden spends much the time battling with Despair, the inevitable consequence of her earlier action. Within the context of that single book, her Despair came close to jarring - albeit briefly - the overall storyline of the saga.But in 'The Last Dark' Stephen Donaldson skilfully merges the three threads of Linden Avery's ferocious battle with her deepest fears, Covenant's final encounter with Lord Foul and Jeremiah's unique and newly discovered powers into a brilliant and utterly convincing conclusion. A conclusion in which the Giants, the Elohim, Stave and the Haruchai plus the Feroce and the great horses of Ra each play a major role.My daughter tells me she's decided to re-read the entire saga before starting on the 'The Last Dark'. Probably a very good idea. Lord Foul's BaneThe Illearth WarThe Power That PreservesAgainst All Things Ending

The tenth and final volume of the chronicles of Thomas Covenant has a lot to live up to. The irritating features of the recent series are still present: a lot of talking and over-thinking between events; clumsy lists of who's standing where and who's following who (not aided by the cumbersome names of Giants); and vocabulary that varies from the actinic and pellucid to the lambent and crepuscular. (?)However, the ratio seems better in this volume, the exotic language better worked-in, and a great deal happens in the way of spectacular confrontations. The moping Jeremiah comes into his own, and his personal resolution is cunningly organised. Linden and Covenant settle and work towards their separate goals with suitably final determination. Donaldson's plotting is smart and his moral philosophy of compassion and responsibility is trenchantly insistent. The climax is multi-stranded and exciting, though I was a little less comfortable with the epilogue, for reasons I couldn't disclose without spoilers.One glaring peculiarity throughout this closing series of four books is that we see almost none of the ordinary inhabitants of the Land. Linden fled from Mithil Stonedown without meeting anyone but Liand, and later passed through a destroyed village without us hearing a single line of dialogue from the villagers. Apart from those close encounters, the thousands or millions of folk who populate the place remain invisible. It means that Team Covenant seem to be working to save a wilderness reserve rather than a living country - very different from the First Chronicles.That aside, this volume and this series is a grand achievement, not only as an epic fantasy adventure but as a gymnasium of morality, a turbulent sequence of compelling thought-experiments that challenge the reader as well as the characters to find the best outcome. Impressive, involving and satisfying.

Stephen Donaldson is a fine writer, and this is the completion of his Thomas Covenant Chronicles series - book 10. You can read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant as a fantasy tale or find it allegorical of human motivations and characters, certainly there are religious and political allusions not far below the surface, and the struggles for power, domination, the fundamental pull between good and evil - the doubts and dashed hopes and impossible wishes that are found in all our lives are there in abundance. I loved the whole series, I loved thecourage that held firm in adversity and endured the doubts and the defeats along the way, and I grieved for the honesty and brokenness of the characters, even the bad guys. Donaldson writes deep and searching - he makes you think and struggle, so you also share in the triumphs when they come - but how do you bring to a conclusion possibly the greatest tale in modern fantasy fiction? His writing style and command of the English language is first class - would stand alongside any of the classical greats - and that helps enormously - but this volume paces itself to a shuddering climax, though I dreaded the inevitable sacrifices. It seems fate must always claim the lives of the most courageous or innocent, the Christian sacrifice of self for the good of one's friends too often seems inhuman and cruel - so what will happen here? Yes there is sacrifice - but Donaldson remembers Easter Sunday follows Good Friday, and love wins. This great and sometimes dark saga actually has a happy ending - and it isn't contrived - it is as much a cliff-hanger and surprise twist as any other throughout the series. So this was an added bonus - and a magnificently appropriate conclusion to the best fantasy series I have ever read.