The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series of ten high fantasy novels written by American author Stephen R. Donaldson. The series began as a trilogy, entitled The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. This was followed by another trilogy, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and finally a tetralogy, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
AuthorStephen R. Donaldson
Cover artist
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreHigh fantasy
Publisher
Published1977–2013
Media type
No. of books10

The main character of the stories surround Thomas Covenant, an embittered and cynical writer, afflicted with leprosy and shunned by society, is fated to become the heroic savior of the Land, an alternate world. In ten novels, published between 1977 and 2013, he struggles against Lord Foul, "the Despiser", who intends to escape the bondage of the physical universe and wreak revenge upon his arch-enemy, "the Creator".

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever
  1. Lord Foul's Bane (1977)
  2. The Illearth War (1978; "Gilden-Fire" - first published 1981)[1]
  3. The Power that Preserves (1979)

The story "Gilden-Fire" first appeared as an independent novella, but is most widely available as a part of most versions of the Donaldson short story collection, Daughter of Regals, 1985.[2] It was set during the action of The Illearth War, and covers an episode from the doomed mission to contact the Giants. Gilden-Fire is told from the point of view of Korik, the senior Bloodguard on the mission. It describes Korik's selection of the mission's Bloodguard, then narrates the mission's passage through Grimmerdhore forest, where they defeat an ambush of ur-viles and kresh (wolves). The narrative ends as the mission leaves the forest.

As per the author's foreword. Gilden-Fire was originally part of a larger, planned section of The Illearth War that followed the mission to the Giants in "real time", but was cut due to space restrictions as well as point-of-view inconsistency with the rest of the Chronicles. The events during the trek through Grimmerdhore are not mentioned in the published narrative of The Illearth War, and some information shared here on the origin and motivation of the Bloodguard does appear in other contexts in the published Chronicles. The rest of the mission after the Grimmerdhore passage was included in the Chronicles, via the narrative device of Bloodguard messengers.

The Arc of the Plot

The first trilogy (sometimes called the first Chronicles) begins with the story of Covenant's bereavement. He was a successful author with a wife, Joan, and young baby, when he contracted leprosy from no apparent cause. The reader later learns that time in our world is correlated with time-passage in the fantasy realm (the "Land"): a minute here corresponds roughly to nine days in the Land's time, so that the onset of Covenant's leprosy corresponds with the great "desecration" roughly 1000 years ago in the Land's history. This destructive cataclysm was chosen by the leader of the Land and that time, High Lord Kevin, in a failed gambit to destroy the Land's immortal enemy, the "Despiser."

Covenant's wife abandons him, taking their son Roger, and the townspeople do everything they can to ostracize Covenant. But after treatment at a hospital for lepers, Covenant's disease is controlled -- although his extremities are numb and he has lost two fingers. His psyche is also numb with anger, but he has not totally despaired; he keeps his wedding ring. On a visit to town, he attempts to give this ring to a beggar who challenges him with a hypothetical ethical question about a protagonist who is transported into a world of wonder as the champion of that world's creator to defend it against its would-be destroyer. But this imagined character refuses his charge, insisting the world is a dream. Yet if he cannot save it, his own world will die. Shortly after this, Covenant is hit by a car and finds himself in exactly this position. The Despiser tells him that the Land's creator has chosen him to fight and stop the Despiser. Covenant refuses to bow to him, but he is so astounded by the world in which he has awoken that he thinks he is going mad. His only explanation is that he must be dreaming after the car accident.

Covenant is rescued from the height on which he appeared by a young woman named Lena, who introduces him to the Land. In many ways, the story implies that Lena stands for the entire Land. It is a world fecund with beauty; the "Earthpower" is a force that runs through every living thing and natural part of the Land; it is visible in different manifestations, and responds to the passion of the Land's people, who are devoted to caring for their Earth. Among other things, it makes bodily and psychological health and sickness tangible to the senses. Lena uses one of its embodiments, hurtloam, on Covenant's injuries, without understanding what leprosy is. Amazingly, Covenant finds his nerves restored. He is so overcome by this renewed vitality, so wounded by what he has suffered in our world, and so moved by inner self-loathing that the next day, he responds to Lena's interest in him with by raping her. This great crime has a cosmic significance in the novels; it is as if Covenant has violated and harmed the Land itself. He rationalizes this crime at first by insisting again that this is all just a dream; and then he attempts to flee responsibility. Much of the development in the first novel involves Covenant coming step by step to recognize the horror of what he has done and begin to take responsibility for it.

Thus in the first Chronicles, Covenant begins as an anti-hero; in a couple respects, he resembles Alberich the dwarf in the Wagner's adaptation of the Volsungsaga, who foreswears love to gain power. However, Covenant denies the law-transcending power that the Land's inhabitants believe resides in his wedding ring. He refuses power because he does not want responsibility for the Land's fate. Yet his crime has inescapably involved him. While Lena's parents are unable to avoid self-consuming hatred in response to what Covenant has done, many others still believe that he is essential to the Land's survival. Bit by bit, this irenic faith in him wears down his defenses. First it helps him to face the fact that, whether in a dream or not, rape is a mortal evil. The first novel ends when Covenant reluctantly helps the Lords who defend the Land to retrieve the Staff of Law, a talisman integral to the order of the Earthpower, that was lost by Kevin during the Ritual of Desecration.

But when he returns in the second novel, three months later in our time and forty years in the Land, Covenant is still too afraid that his power could cause a second Desecration. He is called into the Land by High Lord Elena just at the moment when his wife is calling him on the phone; because Elena will not release Covenant from her call, he loses this one precious chance to speak with Joan. While the lords' power has growth with the Staff (and second war of Kevin's Lore), and their army has been built up, the Despiser has hatched a plan to destroy the Giants and enslave three of them with fragments of the Illearth Stone -- a terrible bane that was unearthed under Mount Thunder at the end of the first novel. Still broken and bitter, Covenant is shocked to learn that Elena is Lena's daughter, and he is her father. This makes her pleas for help hard to refuse. The plenitude of value everywhere in the Land also wears on his resistance. The marvels of the Earthpower and purity of the people's service to the Earth chip away at the emotional wall he has built around himself. Yet Covenant clings to the cynical view that if he gives in to the temptation to love the Land and aid in its defense, he will lose the self-control on which his life depends and probably destroy the Land as well. His friends – Lord Mhoram, the giant Foamfollower, and Bannor, who leads a set of warriors (the "Bloodguard") bound by a magical vow to the Land – make increasingly urgent appeals for his help; but with a couple exceptions, he tries to remain an observer, convinced that he can only do harm.

So he keeps looking for others onto whom he can shift his responsibility to redeem the Land from the doom gathering around it. In particular, he goes on a mission to help Elena reach the hidden center of the Earthpower in the Land, which she believes will enable her to destroy the Land’s demonic enemy. In the process, Covenant is horrified to discover that Elena, who is roughly his age and does not look on him as her father, is in love with him. Refusing to repeat the wrong he did to Lena, Covenant resists her advances. In this, there is another echo of the Volsungsaga (and the Nibelungleid epic derived from it), which features a curse arising from unwitting incest. ELena's unnatural fixation on Covenant is a symptom of deeper distortions in her psyche that result from the rape. At bottom, Elena's power comes from an almost infinite hatred of the Despiser secretly nurtured within her -- mirror-image of the self-hatred and anger expressed in the rape. On finally realizing this, Covenant also understand that his plan for her is a betrayal which imperils her. So he repents at the last moment when they have already arrived at the Blood of the Earth, which gives the power to command anything in the Land and its law. But he is too late: she is determined to use this power, rationalizing private vengeance as a justified war tactic. On drinking the Earthblood, Elena commands Kevin's spirit to arise from its grave and slay the Despiser. But this command rebounds because Kevin's ghost lacks the potency she believed would come from his act of Desecration: the Despiser masters Kevin's spirit and sends it back to battle Elena. After a long fight, in which Covenant and Bannor are separated from Elena and expelled from the mountain containing the Chamber of the Earthblood, Elena is destroyed and the Staff lost again. Thus the effects of the rape keep multiplying.

In the wake of her Elena's death, Covenant's increasingly fragile efforts to remain neutral are undone. Back in our world, he stops the medications and ritual self-checking that have kept his leprosy from spreading. Although he is unravelling, he is able to muster enough strength to save a little girl in our world who has been bitten by a rattlesnake. Mhoram attempts to call Covenant back into the Land just as he is trying to help this girl (a minute in our time are correlated with many weeks in the Land’s time). But Mhoram hears Covenant’s appeal and lets him go, seemingly risking the Land’s final destruction so that Covenant can save the girl. This great act of faith, along with Foamfollower’s abiding friendship, changes Covenant when he returns in The Power that Preserves. Although he still hates himself for his crimes (which were partly a manifestation of self-hatred), he allows himself to love the Land.

The horrors mount quickly in this third novel, as the Despiser's army lays siege to the Lords' citadel. Covenant, called by Foamfollower into Lena's village, is appalled to discover that seven years after Elena's fall, now the Land is held in the grip of an unnaturally extended winter (a motif borrowed from Narnia). Even worse, Lena, now in her sixties, is insane, but believes Covenant has returned to marry her! All the giants except for Foamfollower (and one remaining Giant-raver possessed by the Illearth Stone) have been destroyed. The Bloodguard, seeing one of their own corrupted by the fragment of the Illearth stone retrieved from the failed mission to save the giants, have given up their Vow and abandoned the lords in Revelstone. The enormity of the rape's results rend his heart, but Covenant is now determined to stop the Despiser.

On their journey, Covenant and Lena are eventually separated from their friends. When Lena finally learns of Elena's death, clarity returns to her; alone with him in the winterland, she appears ready to kill Covenant. Instead, she saves him from an attack, and is mortally wounded. Dying, she declares that she forgives him. Stricken beyond bearing by this, Covenant drags himself into a nearby forest, expecting death. He continues only by eating a grass that brings on temporary madness. Covenant is rescued by a Healer with no name. Her use of Earthpower is a kind of substitution that heals his bodily injury, and then the self-hatred rotting his core. This sacrifice, which costs her life, enables Covenant to use his power for the Land’s sake, rather than out of hatred for its demonic enemy. He recognizes that there is no way to restore all the good that was lost due to original crime and later reluctance to help, but there are possibilities beyond this horizon.

Soon after this recovery, all the plot lines in the first trilogy come together in a great climax. Covenant finds Elena's spirit, possessed by the Despiser, using the Staff of Law to hold the winter on the Land. When she attempts to kill him with it, her power awakens the wild magic in his ring. Its counterforce rips the Staff to cinders and frees Elena's spirit from the Despiser's control. This enables Mhoram, far away, to overcome the possessed giant who is leading the Despiser's army against the Lord's Keep. In the resulting respite, Foamfollower is able to lead Covenant, against all odds (and over a river of lava) into the Despiser's stronghold where he uses the wild magic to destroy the Illearth Stone and diminish the Despiser's spirit to the vanishing point (as it was after the Desecration). Thus another millennium of life is bought for the Land, before Covenant returns to our world.

But the Staff of Law is destroyed. This is a wound in the natural order of the Land -- the cosmic outcome of the rape that wounded Lena, who personifies the Land. The plot line of the Second Chronicles derives from this event.

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
  1. The Wounded Land (1980)
  2. The One Tree (1982)
  3. White Gold Wielder (1983)


The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
  1. The Runes of the Earth (2004)
  2. Fatal Revenant (2007)
  3. Against All Things Ending (2010)
  4. The Last Dark (2013)

Peoples and creatures of the Land

Cavewights are dimly intelligent subterranean creatures skilled in metal working and mining. They are weak willed, and are easily intimidated by Lord Foul into serving him (though they once traded openly with the humans of the Land). They are described as having "long, scrawny limbs, hands as huge and heavy as shovels," plus "a thin, hunched torso, and a head shaped like a battering ram." Drool Rockworm is a cavewight.

The Creator is the mysterious being who created the Land and the universe in which it exists. This universe is referred to as "the Land" but is clearly a different reality than Covenant's world. The fundamental structure of the universe, the Arch of Time, prevents the Creator from intervening directly in events in the world of his creation, and he never appears in physical form within that world. He can, however, manifest himself in the "real" world—he appears to Covenant and Linden as an old man in an ochre robe—and guides those who attempt to make contact between the universes.

Demondim are a now-extinct race spawned by the Viles. They had a semi-corporeal nature, and could only achieve physical presence by animating dead bodies. (They are somewhat like dybbuks in this respect.) They were not originally wholly evil, but their inherent self-loathing was used by Lord Foul to gain their allegiance. They spawned two other races, the Waynhim and the ur-viles.

Elohim are a race of spirits who possess god-like powers. To mortal perceptions, they appear as beautiful men and women in a remote, sealed-off region of the Earth, and spend their time in dazzling physical transformations. In their own perspective, they constitute the animating principle of the Earth, and the history of the Land is the manifestation of events in their own consciousness. As they regard their own domain as the only "real" place in the Earth, they rarely dabble in outside events. However, if they perceive a grave threat to the Earth, one of their number is "Appointed" to attempt to avert the threat – and to bear the cost of failing.

Forestals are beings who serve the forests of the Land, the remnants of the One Forest, the great sentient wood which once covered the Land. They are human in appearance, but according to the Elohim they were created by the One Forest itself using knowledge from another Elohim imprisoned within the Colossus. The Forestals actively protected the remaining forest from destruction by encroaching mortals. They were more numerous in the distant past but few survived into the era of the New Lords. By the time of the Second Chronicles, when the remnants of the ancient forest (with the exception of Giant Woods in the Lower Land) were long dead, the last remaining Forestal lived in Andelain. His name was Caer-Caveral, though he was originally Hile Troy, a man from Covenant's world who had once been Warmark (commander-in-chief) of the Lords' army.

Giants are a race of extremely long-lived (but nevertheless mortal) humanoids of unusual height and strength. Giants are known for their stone lore (similar to but not identical with that of the Stonedownors), their skill at seamanship, and their love of story-telling. A common Giantish interjection is, "Stone and Sea!" Giants are resistant to cold and cannot be harmed by ordinary fire. Fire does, however, cause them intense pain, which they use to cure themselves of grief in a ritual known as caamora. In return for a favor performed for the mysterious Elohim long ago, the entire race of Giants are endowed with an innate ability to speak and understand all languages. The Giants' own language is very florid and verbose, and they find human speech to be rather curt and inexpressive. The Giants of the Land are sometimes called the Unhomed since they were separated from their homeland long ago. Although the Giants love children, they are not fertile as a people, and their numbers in the Land in the time of the First Chronicles have dwindled. Kevin Landwaster entrusted them with the first of his Seven Wards before the Ritual of Desecration. They sometimes refer to humans as Rockbrothers and Rocksisters, in honor of the ancient alliance they made with High Lord Damelon Giantfriend. Saltheart Foamfollower is a Giant.

Griffins are winged lions. They are sometimes ridden by ur-viles.

Haruchai are a hardy race of warriors living in the Westron Mountains, west of the Land. The Haruchai shun the use of weapons or magic, taking pride in their own physical prowess and the purity of their service, which is never given lightly. They have the ability to communicate amongst themselves via telepathy, and each can access the combined memories of their entire race. Outwardly stoic, even seemingly emotionless, they could also be considered arrogant in their beliefs. It is revealed on several occasions that the Haruchai are a deeply passionate race, capable of swearing a lifetime's worth of service if sufficiently moved.

The Insequent are a mysterious race of people who dwell to the west of the Land. Each Insequent has a unique and very focused skill that can seem magical or superhuman. These skills range from invisibility, virtual invulnerability or even time travel. They have an almost dismissive disdain for the Haruchai and a bitter and long-standing rivalry with The Elohim, which has not yet been fully explained. They rarely reveal their true names, but prefer to be identified by their titles. So far only four Insequent have appeared in the stories: The Mahdoubt, the Harrow, the Theomach and the Ardent. A fifth, the Vizard, is referenced by several other characters, and a sixth—the Auriference—is mentioned briefly by the Ardent, although both the Vizard and the Auriference are believed to be deceased.

Lords are the leaders and stewards of the Land, also known as Earthfriends. The standards for Lordship are high, so they are generally few in number. In order to become a Lord, a person must master the martial arts and the use and application of magic. These skills are called the Sword and the Staff respectively, and together form the First Ward of Kevin's Lore, an ancient repository of knowledge. A student who masters both parts of the Lore – and does not opt to become Unfettered in order to pursue a private vision – is invited to join the Council of Lords at Revelstone, also known as Lord's Keep. The Lords carry special staffs that allow them to channel their power, and are easily identified by their sky blue robes.

Lord Foul is the most commonly used name for the ancient enemy of the Land, given to him by the Council of Lords. He is also called 'The Despiser', the 'Gray Slayer' (his name in The Plains), 'Fangthane the Render' by the Ramen and 'a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells' by The Clave. According to Roger Covenant, he also called himself 'a-Jeroth' during the time he served on Kevin's council. He is described as "the wicked son or brother of the Creator's heart" and is the source of all evil in the Land. He is a being of pure spirit, although capable of taking on human form, and is apparently immortal: he cannot be killed, but his power can be reduced to near insignificance. On occasions when this has happened he has always been able to restore and regenerate his power. His desire to bring suffering to the earth and the Land in particular is manifested by his extremely well orchestrated and even cautious long-term plans throughout the chronicles.

Ramen are the tenders of the Ranyhyn (see below). The Ramen's life-work is to serve the Ranyhyn, whom they hold in very high esteem. Traditionally they do not ride or otherwise subjugate the great horses, and can grow resentful of those who do. The fact that the Lords of Revelstone and the Bloodguard often ride the great horses is a major point of contention, but the Ramen tolerate this in deference to the Ranyhyn, who choose to give their service. When defending the Ranyhyn from Kresh (large wolves in service to the Despiser) or other predators, the Ramen frequently use ropes as garottes to break the attackers' necks. Ramen are organised into three "ranks": Manethralls who are the leaders, Cords who assist the Manethralls while training to become Manethralls themselves, and Winhomes who perform domestic supporting duties. Two other ranks are mentioned in The Runes of the Earth, Keepers and Curriers, but their placement within the Ramen hierarchy is not known.

Ranyhyn are the great horses of the Land. These horses live on the Plains of Ra, and are tended by the Ramen. The Ranyhyn are akin to normal horses, but are larger, always have a star and are in some indefinable sense enhanced by the Earthpower of the Land, so that their speed and endurance, as well as their intelligence, far outstrip those of a standard horse. The Ranyhyn can be ridden by individuals they deem worthy, but a person who seeks such a mount must travel to the Plains of Ra and offer himself to the horses for consideration. If a Ranyhyn accepts a rider, it is loyal to that rider until death. All of the Bloodguard (apparently) are accepted by the Ranyhyn, but not all Lords have been deemed worthy. The Ranyhyn also have a limited ability to perceive the future; these horses can "hear" when their rider will need them, hearing their calling days or weeks before the rider makes the call. Thus, when the rider summons his Ranyhyn, it appears shortly thereafter, regardless of the distance between them.

Ravers are bodiless evil spirits with the ability to possess and control some lesser creatures, and most humans as well. Giants and Bloodguard are typically immune to this power, and there are no known instances of a Raver possessing a Ranyhyn. There are only three Ravers, ancient brothers who each have many names but are commonly called turiya Herem, samādhi Sheol, and moksha Jehannum. Their greatest hatred is reserved for the trees of the One Forest of old, and their loathing of the Earthpower and all good things has led them to become Lord Foul's willing servants. The Despiser is somehow able to enhance their abilities when he pleases, but can prevent them from possessing individuals he deems too powerful. (They were not allowed to possess Thomas Covenant, for instance, because his ring would make them too powerful for Lord Foul to control.) This possession can be, and in some cases needs to be, facilitated by some external power. In the 'Illearth War' the Ravers were only able to possess their giant 'hosts' when they worked in harmony with the power of the Illearth Stone. They often serve as leaders in Lord Foul's armies, or as spies among his enemies.

Stonedownors are humans descended from the Land's original inhabitants. They are known for their knowledge of stone lore and live in stone huts. A master of stone lore is called a "Gravelingas", or a Rhadhamaerl which also refers to the craft of stone lore. Stonedownors are typically dark-skinned, squat and muscular, though this is not always the case. Trell and Triock are both unusually tall for Stonedownors. During the Second Chronicles, their leaders are known as Gravellers, and sacrifice members of their village to use the blood to call forth the power of the Sunbane. Sunder, the Graveller of Mithil Stonedown, manages to use the power of Loric's Krill to summon forth the power of the Sunbane without shedding blood, and learns to manipulate the Sunbane for his own purposes.

Ur-viles are creatures of jet black color and are constructions of an extinct race named the Demondim. They are highly magical, possessing a number of supernatural abilities, including shooting acid, creating bolts of pure energy and the like. They are blind, lacking any form of visual organ, but possess a preternatural sense of smell. One of their most distinctive features is that when assembled in a wedge formation, the leader (or loremaster) at the apex wields the combined power of the entire group, without weakening any of their kin in the rest of the wedge. The ur-viles initially served Lord Foul, but later turned against him by creating the creature Vain (from which the new Staff of Law was created). In The Runes of the Earth, the ur-viles have actively joined the side of "good", though their motivation remains unclear. Because they were made rather than born, the ur-viles loathe their own bodies and often redirect this rage towards other targets. They also do not die, except when killed, or reproduce naturally, although they do retain the lore required to construct more of their own kind and the Waynhim—however, their motivations for doing so are unlike those of natural creatures.

Viles are an extinct race who spawned the Demondim. They were non-corporeal, but nonetheless very powerful. Initially a proud and gifted race, they were led into self-hatred and despair by the Ravers. They were eventually destroyed by the Council of Lords, under High Lord Loric "Vilesilencer".

Waynhim are another race of creatures spawned by the Demondim (often referred to as the "accidental" or "lesser" creations, in contrast with the ur-viles). They closely resemble the Ur-viles (having no eyes, super-sensitive smell and hearing, and magical abilities), though they are smaller and lighter in color. Like the Ur-viles (who are their long-standing nemeses), the Waynhim were made rather than born. However, they do not share their cousins' self-hatred, and have dedicated themselves to serving the Land and the Earthpower according to their own peculiar ethical system, the Weird of the Waynhim. Like the Ur-viles, they fight in a wedge formation with a loremaster at the apex.

Woodhelvennin are humans descended from the Land's original inhabitants. They are known for their use of wood lore and living in tree-top villages. The village elders are called Heers. A master of wood lore is called a Hirebrand, or a lillianrill. (Lillianrill usually refers to the craft of wood lore.) They are typically fair-skinned, tall and slender.

Main concepts
Map drawn by Lynn K. Plagge to illustrate the books.

In Donaldson's fiction, Andelain is a focal region of the Land, where the Earthpower is especially strong. In the Second Chronicles it is the one place immune from the Sunbane, as it is protected by the Forestal Caer Caveral.

Languages: Human inhabitants of the Land (together with Giants, Cavewights, and the human inhabitants of other regions of the Earth) all appear to speak modern English, though their style of speech is usually rather formal and archaic. The strange commonality of language between Covenant and the Land's inhabitants is never addressed in the books. There are, however, other languages extant: for example, in Lord Foul's Bane, Atiaran tells Thomas Covenant that a different language was spoken in the age of the Old Lords. (However, this appears to be contradicted in Fatal Revenant, when Linden Avery and Berek Halfhand converse together in English.) Non-humans also have their own languages, for example the barking speech of ur-viles and Waynhim, the Giants' florid and ornate language, and the native tongue of the Haruchai. In the Second Chronicles it is explained that the Giants received "the gift of tongues" from the Elohim as a reward for the telling of a simple tale, and the Bhrathair, a people who live on the edge of the Great Desert, also speak their own language, which is described only as sounding "brackish".

Worm/Word/Weird. In the cosmology of the Land, the Earth's core consists of a coiled-up serpent called the "Worm of the World's End". When Covenant attempts to sever a branch of the One Tree by using the power of the white gold, he risks rousing the Worm (which is not fully asleep, but merely resting) and thus destroying the Earth. The Waynhim and Ur-viles believe in a principle of ethics or destiny called the "Weird". The Elohim have a concept which appears to do duty for both these beliefs: it is impossible to determine whether the sound used for this is "Worm", "Word" or "Weird", as it comes out in a blurred form sounding something like "Würd".

Law

Law is the natural order; a body of principles which defines and governs the way in which the world works. Some parts of the Law conform to the scientific laws of the real world: gravity and motion, for example operate as the reader expects them to. Other aspects of Law are unlike the real world. Chief among these is the accessibility of Earthpower. Another important difference is that Law is not inherently inviolable. Acts of thaumaturgy can create phenomena which do not conform to Law. In some instances, the violation of a Law can cause that law to stop operating altogether, which results in a major shift in the nature of the world. The novels have discussed three Laws in detail: the Law of Time, the Law of Death, and the Law of Life.

The Law of Time is the most basic and fundamental aspect of Law: it defines the nature and structure of time, and provides a "place" in which the Earth can exist. It requires that instants and events proceed in an orderly fashion from cause to effect. The consequences of all actions must be borne. Although a later action might reverse the effects of an earlier one, those effects (and the earlier action itself) cannot be made to have not been. Any attempt to alter past events risks creating a paradox, which would destroy the structure of time, taking the entire Earth with it.

Terminology

In the Thomas Covenant stories, Donaldson takes several terms from Sanskrit that are significant in Hinduism and Buddhism and reassigns them meanings in the Land. For example, the term moksha, which in Sanskrit refers to liberation from the cycle of sorrow, is given as the original name for a creature of depravity and evil called a Raver. Another Raver, Satansfist, is called samādhi, which in Sanskrit refers to a state of mind in which one achieves oneness with the object of one's concentration. The third Raver, Kinslaughterer, is called turiya, Sanskrit for a state of pure consciousness. Donaldson has commented on his website that moksha, samadhi, and turiya are ways the Ravers describe themselves, while their other names are given by others.

Donaldson repeats this application of Sanskrit terms to seemingly unrelated aspects of the Land to other terms, including: dukkha, dharmakshetra, ahamkara, and yajna.

The Chronicles also contain names of Semitic origin. For instance, samadhi/Satansfist is also called "Sheol", (Hebrew for the grave, the abode of the dead), moksha/Fleshharrower is also known as "Jehannum" (similar to the Hebrew "Gehinnom" and the Arabic "Jahannum", for Hell or Purgatory), and turiya/Kinslaughterer is also "Herem" (Hebrew for banned, excluded, excommunicated and Arabic for sinful or forbidden [Haram]). The name of the fairy race of Elohim is the Hebrew for God.

Critical response

The first volume in the series was included in David Pringle's book Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels.

Conversely, in 1986, David Langford published an essay by Nick Lowe, in which Lowe suggested "a way to derive pleasure from Stephen Donaldson books. (Needless to say, it doesn't involve reading them.)"[3] This proposal involved a game he called "Clench Racing", wherein players each open a volume of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant to a random page; the winner is the first to find the word "clench". Lowe describes it as a "fast" game – "sixty seconds is unusually drawn out".

In 1995, scholar W. A. Senior published a full-length study published by Kent State University Press entitled Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Variations on the Fantasy of Tradition. It situates the Chronicles in the context of the fantasy tradition and argues that "Donaldson has created an important contribution to the canon because of his serious intent and adult concerns, his powerful mythopoesis, and his manipulation of the conventions of epic fantasy."[4]

In 2009, James Nicoll said that Thomas Covenant would win a "special lifetime achievement award" for the "most unlikeable supposedly sympathetic protagonist".[5]

gollark: I mean, given that base 10 is what we use, it's quite important that computers can handle it correctly.
gollark: Never mind, I just don't understand maths.
gollark: ```λ| pred 0.3-0.7```WHAAAA?
gollark: Rational numbers, since these are nice, simple, base 10 thingies.
gollark: There is, kind of.

References
  1. Gilden-Fire Archived 2006-05-04 at the Wayback Machine. Gilden-Fire Manuscripts (held by KSU Special Collections and Archives).
  2. Interview
  3. "The Well-Tempered Plot Device: Nick Lowe".
  4. Senior, W. A. (1995). Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-1-61277-112-0.
  5. Inspired by previous discussions Archived 2016-01-06 at the Wayback Machine by James Nicoll, December 28, 2009, at Livejournal.

Sources
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