It goes without saying that a reader who enters the series without the benefit of the preceding volumes will be utterly...
The Thomas Covenant series comes to a lumbering halt after four decades.
Donaldson (Against All Things Ending, 2010, etc.) opened the 10-book series in 1977 with Lord Foul’s Bane, Lord Foul being, as his name suggests, a decidedly not-nice fellow whose job it is to bring misery to the Earth and The Land, the latter a place that exists if you click your heels together three times or otherwise believe. Like so many fantasy series of the era, Donaldson’s labors under the heavy shadow of J.R.R. Tolkien, and at times, it reads like a lost million or so words from the Lord of the Rings as filtered through H.P. Lovecraft, who never met an eldritch sentence he didn’t like. And Donaldson’s series and this last book are as eldritch as they come, populated by the likes of magic-shunning warriors called Haruchai; horsemen, and not Japanese noodle makers, called Ramen; and Ravers, not MDMA-partaking hipsters but very, very unpleasant evil spirits whose nastiness is tempered only by the will of old Lord Foul himself. Thomas Covenant is an unusual hero to the extent that he’s not really very likable, though he’s got an interesting CV, including having survived a fearful bout of leprosy and every demon The Land could throw at him. Donaldson brings this tale to a close with an epic showdown between Lord Foul and Covenant, and it moves from Tolkien Lite to Tolkien Heavy: “Barnl...passed Bluntfist and Stonemage, drifted like a shadow among the Cavewights. With the rippled edges of his longsword, he seemed to reap creatures all around him. Howls became shrieks. Bodies fell.” It’s the standard good-versus-evil yarn, save that if evil is always evil, good is not always good.
It goes without saying that a reader who enters the series without the benefit of the preceding volumes will be utterly lost. Definitively of a piece with what has come before; if you’re a fan of Donaldson, this is indispensable. If not, of course, not.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-15920-6
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
First hardcover appearance for Lackey's Bardic Voices series (The Eagle and the Nightingales, etc.). In the city of Haldene, constable Tal Rufen ponders a string of brutal murders. The victims are all poor street-musician girls, but Tal's clues are confusing: The perpetrators are also all dead (they always commit suicide right after carrying out a murder); in every case, the weapon is a knife with a characteristic blade, but somehow it invariably vanishes from the crime scene; as for the weather, it's always raining—because water washes away traces of magic? Confronted with indifference by his superiors (the cases are, after all, technically solved), Tal resigns when the murders stop and heads for Kingsford, a city in chaos where such crimes could go undetected. Sure enough, the murders begin again. Tal, now working for High Bishop Ardis, investigates and eventually discovers that a mage named Rand, who has the ability to transform himself into the Black Bird, seeks revenge for perceived wrongs done him in the past. And so he has orchestrated the murders as a means of enhancing his magical powers. Between the leisurely setup and the protracted windup lie hundreds of pages of verbose twiddling. Only fans who need everything spelled out in the tiniest detail will stick around.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-671-87853-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Baen
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
This book has an odd genesis: The main section first appeared in much shorter form in 1971 as a collaboration between Delany (The Bridge of Lost Desire, 1987, etc.) and James Sallis. It was then rewritten and expanded by Delany in 1992; two related short stories round out the volume. In the far future, an army of the expansionist empire of Myetra, led by the cruel, bloodthirsty Prince Nactor and his thoughtful, civilized lieutenant, Kire, attacks the peaceful village of Äiron. Utterly bewildered, the villagers are routed—but then form an alliance with the Winged Ones, flying humanoids from the high mountain village of Hi-Vator. During the occupation, Prince Nactor condemns Kire to death for refusing to beat and rape singer Naa, and he appoints the stalwart Äironian Rahm as Kire's executioner. But Rahm kills Nactor instead, which touches off a bloody rebellion in which Kire, the Äironians, and the Winged Ones swiftly defeat the Myetrans. A slender fable, without new perspectives on the intractable problem of how nonviolent societies might defend themselves against ruthless aggressors.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-85775-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
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