The Illearth War: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Book 2

husband had me order . He read them years ago and wanted to read again he is really enjoying the set of books.

The second book in the first trilogy by this author is on a more epic scale. I both love and hate the writing of this author. On most pages, there are unusual words that I have no idea of the meaning unless I go to a Dictionary. There are also long sections of tedious, expositions in all of his books, especially his later writings. Likewise, the main character is one you love and hate at the same time. But overall the stories are highly imaginative and full of rich, wonderful characters that you become invested in quickly. there is sweeping drama along with heart-pounding action and great character development. I am probably in the minority, but after several readings I have come to enjoy the second trilogy more than the first. I love the Maritime aspects, and having more with the Giants.The author likes to shift the narrative, so that some chapters are from the point of view of one character and other chapters are written from another point of view. interesting, but I don’t really like it. It shocks you out your involvement with whichever character was narrating, and you have to tune in to their point of you, which might not be so enjoyable. The author often uses an unusual mixture of adjectives, sentence construction and metaphors to conjure up images of locations and scenes. Some of these are very beautiful and poetic, but others are just downright confusing.Having said all that, I highly recommend this book and the first trilogy, as well as the second trilogy. The books that come much later are awful and I would give them a miss.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant doesn’t exist without the design and scope of Tolkein’s epic world-building, but similarities essentially end there. tCOTC makes such a fantasy world experience accessible to us through Thomas Covenant- a man from the “real” world. He brings with him the rage, damage, callousness and stubbornness of a man who has been severely ostracized from his world - and this conflicts directly with the noble peaceful magical and ominously dangerous world he finds himself in. This is an easy story to get lost in, and picture oneself in.

I'm in the middle of a re-read -- my first, since the 70's, when I read it as a kid.Good Lord, does it hold up and then some! This is every bit as excellent as I remember, maybe better.This is like watching one of the very best old Star Trek episodes and it doesn't feel old at all but fresh and new -- and you suddenly realize that it's better than anything else on TV.So much originality, so much craftsmanship.If they ever got around to filming these books it would be a smash hit on par with LORT and GOT.If it were me, I'd start with Wounded Land, and but flash back a lot to the major events in Illearth War and Power That Preserves. And It would be a mini-series -- roughly 10 eps per book, including flashbacks to the first trilogy. This book is amazing, and really, for me THIS was what hooked my on Covenant, this book. The whole Amok storyline, the Hile Troy as Warmark and then ending in Garroting Deep -- all of it, deeply magnificent.

I've read better fantasy but The Illearth War is five-star material nonetheless. This is the sequel to Lord Foul's Bane, in which Thomas Covenant first discovered the Land and assisted in the recovery of an important magical artifact. This time around he again gets transported from the "real world" to the Land but while Covenant is only a few weeks older, 40 years have passed in the Land and the struggle against Lord Foul has become desperate. Foul is about to march against the Lords, who simply aren't prepared for what's coming!The novel is slow to get going and most of the highlights come in the second half. The first half provides a lot of backstory and character development. We meet the important woman Elena, who develops a close relationship with Covenant (for good reason too, as you'll learn to your surprise later in the novel). Hile Troy, a military tactician who claims to also be from Covenant's world, leads the war effort and plays an even more central role in this book than Covenant. Lord Mhoram is a leading character this time around. Trell, the former loving gravelingas of Mithil Stonedown, is now a tragic and unpredictable character. The mysterious creature Amok holds a key to ancient and terrible power.The second half of the book is where the action really hits. Donaldson gives us three simultaneous plot lines to follow; each is exciting and keeps you turning the pages. My favorite plot line was the mission to Seareach but all three are excellent! Just as in the last book, scenes of battle and gore are depicted admirably. Settings are described in lavish detail but the prose never gets exceedingly verbose unlike some other fantasy out there (*cough* Wheel of Time *cough*). The ending ties things up nicely, yet leaves the big picture unresolved and hence leads perfectly into the sequel.Though still bitter from his experience as a leper, Covenant seems to have lightened up a bit. In fact in a couple parts of the book he actually feels genuinely happy, albeit briefly. Unfortunately, as in Lord Foul's Bane, most of the other characters aren't too unique and their personalities tend to be uniformly strong and heroic. Troy is an interesting one though.Overall, top notch fantasy and certainly not to be missed after reading Lord Foul's Bane!

The main character, Thomas Covenant is very frustrating to get behind as you read this book. If he acted even just a little more brave, or had a few less flaws he would not be so bad. Still, I love the book and the entire series and have read it more than once! The author paints such a tremendously creative and detailed world, filled with characters you will love and others you will hate as you are taken on an exciting jouney through "The Land".

Love this series

A un certo punto non ne potevo più di leggere del protagonista chesipiange addosso. Peccato perché l'ambientazione è bella e si legge bene.

It's a great tale, with an main character that ineffectively does everything he can to stay uninvolved in the events unfolding. He's been infected with leprosy, and shunned, and clings to the belief that it's all a dream. He's a totally depressed hero, very human and in his disbelief often behaves quite badly. It's an unforgettable story.

The huge popularity of The Lord of the Rings led in later decades to a boom in similar epic fantasy. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a trilogy subsequently expanded with further volumes, is one of the earliest and most interesting examples. The Illearth War is the second part of the original trilogy, which was retrospectively dubbed The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.I suspect what would have struck most readers when the First Chronicles first came out in the late 70s would have been just how different Donaldson’s work is to Tolkien’s. Donaldson has a deeply unsympathetic, flawed and psychologically complex protagonist hero, and the sort of grim realism found in popular contemporary epic fantasy. For a reader today the similarities to Tolkien stand out more. Though I am not a fan of that brand of epic fantasy, overall Donaldson does enough differently to keep me interested throughout this 500-page volume as well as its equally long predecessor.Thomas Covenant is a successful writer whose life has been wrecked by the devastating condition of leprosy. In the first volume, following an accident that renders him unconscious, Covenant wakes to find himself in a sort of Tolkeinesque world. Unable to entirely believe or entirely disbelieve the veracity of his experiences, he is uneasily drawn into events in a world where the inhabitants seem intent on regarding him as a magical saviour. In this volume a similar event brings him back to the magical world, The Land. Though this is only a matter of weeks after the first incident, in the Land 40 years have elapsed and war with dark forces is now reaching the stage of an open clash of armies.I liked the book a lot, even more than the first volume. It has more pace and less scene setting, with interesting new characters which are to some extent foils to the exasperating Covenant. It can be very grim reading at times. However Donaldson gives us something that is original (despite the heavy debt to Tolkien) and distinctive, complex and intriguing. The books are well known for their unsympathetic protagonist and that is very true. Covenant is certainly no heroic personality, not even an anti-hero. He is an original and clever creation nevertheless, not easy to understand and impossible to like (at least after two volumes). Some readers apparently find Donaldson’s prose style a barrier, finding it too purple. I like his style and I particularly liked the rather arcane vocabulary he frequently deploys, which I think is ideal for this kind of fantasy writing. I recommend you try this trilogy if you are interested in epic fantasy.

This is the second time I’ve read The Illearth war (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and it is another brilliant fantasy book, the battle between the good and bad if you like that sort of book.