BOOK REVIEW: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever – The Last Dark

Posted on July 18, 2014 Updated on September 26, 2014

Book Reviews with Zen Master Hubba Bubba

The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever – The Last Dark

This review contains spoilers.   You’ve been warned.

For any who have not read Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, I highly recommend them.  And while “Lord Foul’s Bane” is legendarily difficult to progress through, the books which follow are filled with originality and splendor that will amaze and enthrall you.  The characters are rich, the storytelling novel and unique, and the world which is conveyed is one of such remarkable beauty as to make you ache to actually be able to see it, if only for a moment.

The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever provide all the promise of the original six, and build and build through the course of three relatively well-written — yet flawed — books to conclude with the “Last Dark” leaving me gnashing my teeth and cursing.

Three words which plagued this last series and typified virtually every conflict which was miraculously resolved in “The Last Dark” are these: Deus Ex Machina.     Getting overrun by nasties?  Have a bunch of wandering giants just miraculously show up at the last second.  Getting run down and confused inside or outside of Mt. Thunder, why not miraculously have the Ur-Viles and Waynim just show up and save the day?  Run out of food and supplies, need a horse?  The Insequent or an old Haruchai  Guardian is ever on hand.   Trapped by an overwelming force within Mount Thunder durning a ridiculous plan to assail the mountain, how about having the Haruchai show up again, in force, and be somewhat super-duper human.  And on and on and on it goes.   New characters came and went so quickly you could barely visualize them, and really didn’t care all that much anyway.  Hell, even the central characters comment to themselves that they didn’t know hardly any of the people (giants at this instance) who just showed up long enough to lay down their lives for a bunch of strangers.

All this divine help, and yet the one thing that you NEVER get are answers.  Who is She Who Must Not Be Named, and is she a relative of Voldemort?  How did she get there?  How did Katassen make the Earth-sense killing smog?  What was it made of?  Why were the Elohim tied to the STARS?   Does that make the Elohim a conscious expression of starlight, or is this a greater tell to the nature of Consciousness as perceived by Donaldson?   How is the Arch of Time even still working with all that time traveling going on?   Questions, questions, questions, and none of them are EVER resolved.

Then there was the constant whining throughout the first three books of the last series.  Everyone has so many personal issues that they can barely see past themselves to get to the real problems at hand.  At least in the Last Dark, Covenant and Avery set aside their angst, get married and tie off that knot (as it were).   Quite literally, that was the only satisfying part of the book.  The rest was an unrelenting barrage of conflict resolved via Deus Ex Machina.

In fact, the most interesting parts of this last series were relative to the Land’s hidden history, which sounded far more interesting than ANYTHING covered in these four books.   Write a book about that first Forestal meeting, or the massive battle that lead to the bone field from which Jeremiah brought forth his Mind.   How about telling us more about Jeremiah’s abilities, and explore those?   Give us a story about the Viles, a real story.  Do more than merely suggest how epic the Land is or was, show us!  .    Tell us more about the Insequent , they’re totally fascinating!  And for God’s sake, write a book actually TELLING Kevin’s story, perhaps from his point of view (I know, violates the POV … well to that I say “Gildenfire!”), anything but this constant array of sadness and angst, coupled with endless Deus Ex Machina.

The irony of all this divine intervention is that you never get to see the Creator.  Beyond the initial contact in Lord Foul’s Bane, and that rather vague question regarding ethics and dreaming.   Instead, the book creates such conflict that the central characters become completely ancillary to the plot, and when the world is literally coming apart at the seams, everything is resolved merely by wishing it so.

OH MY GOD!   I was furious!  Collectively there are a few thousand pages spread across four books (his editor must have just said “F@ck it” and let him just write whatever), and THIS is how you are going to conclude your Opus Magnum, by WISHING all the death, the suffering, the pain, the destruction, and devastation away with a magical hug of self-acceptance and POOF, it’s all better?   No sir, this was not some kind of exercise in the exploration of the human soul, this was pure laziness.

So there you have it, do yourself a favor and stop reading at the conclusion of “The White Gold Wielder” and you won’t have missed a thing.  Or, you can stop at the conclusion of “Against All Things Ending” and all you have to do is merely wish that everything will be all better, and it shall be.  Because that’s just how it ends.

And you know what the worst of it was?  After all that toil and suffering each main character tells their friends in the Land, “Hey … after all this crap, we have issues, and we’re gonna take our god-selves our for a walkabout and do some MORE soul searching.”  If I had hair, I would be pulling it out right now just thinking about how infuriating the last page of the book was.  Pure insult to injury.

Mr. Donaldson, shame on you sir.  Shame.