Book Review #3 - Lord Foul's Bane

Well I went into the deep dark alcoves of my book library to pick up the first book in a series that I started reading almost 30 years ago. The series is by Stephen R. Donaldson, the book is Lord Foul's Bane, and it is the first book in the chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I picked this one up at the request of the librarian at my Junior High, I was a library student assistant and she asked me to read this new book that they had gotten and let her know about it. So I jumped in feet first and needless to say was both shocked and educated by the graphic nature of the book. It is not a blood and guts story but a story that exposes a raw nerve and rubs on it for the whole story.

The book is about Thomas Covenant, a one time successful writer, husband, and father. However fate is not kind to Covenant, while in the process of writing his second novel, he starts to have numbness in his fingers and toes. When he finally has it checked out, he is diagnosed with leprosy, and because of the advanced stages of the disease he loses 2 fingers on his left hand. To compound the agony his wife leaves him and takes his son with her, because of the fact that children are more vulnerable to catching leprosy.

Here is the text from the book flaps of the hard cover version of the book

Here we meet Thomas Covenant, a man burdened with a terrible stigma that has deprived him of wife, friends, almost all human contact, perhaps even his sanity. In this state of moral isolation, he is suddenly shunted to a mysterious world known simply as "the Land" - a place of magical potency, acutely beautiful wherever it has recovered from the ravages of age-old, recurring wars. For the Land has an immortal enemy - Lord Foul the Despiser - whose unceasing intent is to lay it waste. He has been defeated in the past by the Council of Lords, servants of the Land and protectors of its arcane lore; but now the power of the Council has been reduced, and Lord Foul has found his perfect, unwitting tool - Thomas Covenant, the man who thinks the Land is a dream; who cannot accept its life-restoring powers for fear of confronting the terrible dilemma of his own existence; Covenant, the Unbeliever.

So here is a man who is taken from a world where he is an outcast and pariah, and all of a sudden he is thrown into another world where he is the reincarnation of the greatest hero of the world. A world where his disease is healed, and he is expected to be the savior of a place he has never been before. Add on top of that the fact that is leprosy survival training is screaming at him that this is all a dream.

He called himself Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever because he dared not believe in this strange alternate world on which he suddenly found himself.
Yet the Land tempted him. He had been sick: now he seemed better than ever before. Through no fault of his own, he had been an outcast, unclean, a pariah. Now he was regarded as a reincarnation of the Land's greatest hero - Berek Halfhand - armed with the mystic power of White Gold. That power alone could protect the Lords of the Land from the ancient evil of the Despiser, Lord Foul. Only ... Covenant had no idea of how the power could be used.

The book is the first of what was originally six books in two trilogies, However Donaldson is in the process of writing another four book series to complete the story. He has completed the first book in that series Runes of Earth and the second in the series is due out in October Fatal Revenant. Donaldson also has what he calls the gradual interview where he answers questions that are submitted to him. There have been some very interesting discussions on that section of his site and allows the reader to get a better feel for what it takes at least for this author to write. All seven books are fantastic and the type that pull you in and make you think, however at the same time you are sitting there rooting for the good guys to win all the while the reluctant hero is dealing with his morality as well as beliefs. Good reading but not for someone to just skim and blow through...