Against All Things Ending: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant [Paperback]

I reread "Fatal Revenant" in the days previous to the release of "Against All Things Ending," and I could barely contain my excitement as I waited the final day... unfortunately, I quickly found myself in the shoes of Thomas Covenant himself, begging people to hit him in order to pull him from the stupor of his memories and back to the present.

The endless repetitive narration and introspective whining on the parts of the characters (when the world was about to end, mind you) was indulgent and offensive to me. Half the time I felt like I was stuck in a bad history lecture. With a head cold. Even if I had not "known" the main characters for years, I would have been screaming, "ENOUGH! I GET IT!" after the first ten times I was clobbered with their indulgent angst.

Every character's motivations (or lack thereof) was overexplained, and when the action *did* happen, it seemed like filler so that we could quickly get back to a scene where everyone rested and thought about/felt sorry for themselves, or rode long distances and thought about/felt sorry for themselves. No one ever knew what to do or how to do it, and the few characters who *did* were quickly discounted so there could be more self-recriminations later.

Although I haven't been a Linden Avery hater in the past, I'm rapidly approaching that state. Mr. Donaldson seems to have forgotten how to build effective characters, concentrating more on his impressive vocabulary and making sure we don't forget how much everyone loathes him/herself and how utterly clueless they seem to have become.

Even the secondary characters lacked the soul of Covenant's previous works - specifically the Giants and the Humbled, as other reviewers have pointed out. I too had a hard time differentiating between them - and didn't really care enough about them to try. Even Linden and Covenant thought more about Saltheart Foamfollower and Grimmand Honninsgrove than the giants they were actually with!

The Insequent were fascinating at first, but even the Mahdoubt - my favorite secondary character in this series - was reduced to nothing more than a cheap deux ex machina. Not only do Donaldson's faithful readers deserve more than that, but his beautiful, brutal creation of The Land deserves more than that.

The book did improve toward the end - and Jeremiah's awakening was admittedly moving. The problem is, by then I wanted to yell to him, "Tell her she can't touch you! Tell her she can't touch you!" Because I'm mean that way.

In the end, I was left feeling disappointed and a bit angry. I don't mind a cliffhanger ending, but this one seemed to end in the middle of nowhere. The whole scene with Infelice and Jeremiah's construct baffled me to no end ~ I never did understand why, if she was so worried about what Jeremiah was doing, she didn't just stay the heck away. I guess she, too, was only worried - and rightfully so, it seems - about herself.

One last comment about Donaldson's language. I have never minded this in the past, as I do not believe he (or anyone) should ever have to dumb themselves down. If I don't know the meaning of a word, I gladly look it up. (And Kindle is GREAT for this... although some of his words were not even *IN* the dictionary included!) However, I am also a believer in using your language effectively, and Donaldson did not. He used the same $5 words over... and over... and over.

I will definitely still read the last volume of this series. I know every book can't be phenomenal. However, I would not reread "Against All Things Ending" under any circumstances. It felt like a gigantic chore of just so much filler when it should have been a joy. To me, that is the saddest thing of all.

As a lifelong Donaldson fan, it slays me to admit it - but this book is just not very good (though it does get better as it goes along).

For the third book in a four book series, just not enough happens, and a huge number of problems and foes are left to be settled in the fourth book - and with the glacial pace of this book, I actually wonder if the author can pull if off without a bunch of cheap and lame deus ex machina moments, as so marred this book (far too many of the deaths were random, cheap, and lame, for example).

There is far too much time spent in pointless and repetitive introspection (particularly in the mind of Linden Avery, who rarely seems to have any new thoughts or revelations) and in conversation between the characters - OK, so the world is ending, and we will spend dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of pages just standing around talking? About the same issues again and again? And again and again and again? And then again some more?

What ever happened to an author showing rather than telling?

Donaldson has seemingly forgotten his strengths as a writer. In the past even when you wanted to reach into one of his books and strangle Covenant or Linden, you still had Mhoram and Pitchwife and other wonderful and lovable secondary characters to keep you going. In this book I cannot even manage keep the names of most of the secondary characters straight. There are few if any differences between the Humbled (between themselves) or the Giants (other than Longwrath). It is hard to care about characters who are little more than mere plot points - and this from an author who has previously written some of the best character driven epic fantasy out there.

Instead the author seems to be trying to write a Malazan book - with a huge cast of mostly undeveloped characters, lots of uberpowerful mages, never before (or rarely) mentioned godlike beings coming out of nowhere, and some confusion as to exactly what is going on. But what works with Malazan - in a universe MEANT to be like that - does not work particularly well in an already established universe which has not previously contained these elements. It just manages to screw around with some long established elements of the series (and NOT in a good way).

As a lifelong fan, I will be reading the fourth book. But I hope it will be a heck of a lot better than this one.

To frame this review, please understand that I am a huge Stephen R. Donaldson fan and think his Thomas Covenant series is some of the best books I have every read. In some respects, he ruined my love of the fantasy genre because other writers seemed shallow and trite by comparison.

However, I was a little disappointed in this work. Here are my main complaints:

1. The pacing is painstakingly slow and the characters spend too much time muddling about and wondering what they should do, seemingly to reserve time (pages) for over self-analysis/self-recrimination. In the first two series, there was at least a clear framework of what the characters should do or what was their general aim. In this series, and this book in particular, not so much.

2. I am finding that most of the characters that surround Linden I really don't care about. In Mr. Donaldson's previous works, I found myself emotionally attached to the characters and that is why I think he separates himself from 99% of other writers. I often times will go back to read individual chapters just to revisit Bannor, Mhoram, Pitchwife, Sunder, etc.. In this series, more specifically this book, I find I really don't care whether any of Linden's companions live, die, do something heroic or whatever. Even Thomas Covenant is often relegated to the role of an observor or non-factor. Does anyone really care which, if any, of the Ramen die? How about any Giant? Liand? Any Huruchai? The best and most interesting characters are the ones that come and go (Esmer, any Insequent)

3. Too many of the characters are enigmas needing to be solved, or waiting for certain conditions ot occur, or know things but won't tell. Esmer, Jeremiah, Thomas Covenant, Anele, Mahrtiir, the urviles, need I go on? This contributes to the lack of direction and general muddling about.

4. The plot lines that do get resolved in this book ended up leaving me unsatisfied. I'm found myself wondering "Really? That's how this ended?" I won't go into details so as not to spoil anything, but I was definitely disappointed.

I know this sounds harsh, but that is not my intention. I rated it three stars because it does have some strong points (you still can't predict how the story unfolds) and a couple of good parts (I won't be a spoiler). If you have read the first two novels, you will want to pick this one up too. Just lower your expectations. That said, I am anxiously awaiting the conclusion.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 146 reviews  3.2 out of 5 stars