Product Description
The initial part of the title is, 'The Cronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever'.It is a story about a man who struggles with leprosy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wild Magic vs. Lord Foul: Final Battle.
The first trilogy of "Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" was Donaldson's initial opus and launched him to immediate consideration of public & critics.

One great thing about this trilogy is that it was conceived as a whole and complete work. The other Covenant's trilogies were product of editors, market and public pressure exerted on Donaldson to continue writing adventure using this great scenery.
What do I mean with this comment? Well...that reader won't be disappointed with an open end as some time occurs with sagas &series.

Donaldson's proposals are quite risky.
First: the main character is a sick man unable to compromise with the fantastic universe that deploys before him. The reader will certainly not identify with Covenant's sour & bitter personality.
Nevertheless a powerful story is constructed over this implausible pillar!
Second: he chooses a baroque language, full of exotic English words & new words from The Land. However, it seems to me that this entire word firework adds instead of detract.

"The Power That Preserves" is the third and closing volume of the trilogy and I strongly recommend reading the first two volumes before start reading this one. It is true that the author provides a two page summary of what happened before, nevertheless The Land scenery & characters is too complex to be understood with that intro only, and the reader risk to get confused and even bored.

The tale is as follows: after a second return to our own world, Thomas is recalled to the Land. Yet this time he is able to refuse returning. When he effectively and almost voluntarily returns there is a subtle difference: Covenant is in his own skewed way compromised with the Land.

This time a malignant unnatural Winter froze the Land and the soul of its inhabitants. Lord's Keep is under siege. The Giants are annihilated. The Rhiannon are decimated and the Ramen are frenzied. Stonedownors are dispersed and thrown into wilderness. Bloodguard disbanded. Ur-viles, ghouls and wicked Foul's armies are free and destroying everything.

From this starting point two main & parallel stories evolve.
One line follows the defense of Lord's Keep.
The other line follows Covenant and his small band attempting the impossible: reach Foul's Crèche and confront the Evil one in person.

In this third volume of the saga each character will be confronted with its own past acts and their consequences. Each of them should pay the highest price and will reach a point of supreme decision.

IMHO this volume is the best in the trilogy. There are not only adventures tales in this book, there are ethical & philosophical issues to be solved by characters and readers!

It is great book that may be enjoyed by fantasy fans and general public as well! But remember read Book One and Two first!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
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Product Description
A collection of twenty-seven short works of fantasy features the work of Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, Orson Scott Card, Greg Bear, Theodore Sturgeon, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Haunted by "Strange Dreams"
I read this collection twice through, one after the other, when I was in high school and would loved to have reread it again but I lost track of it. I'm not one who rereads books more than once because they tend to stick with me for a long time. Well, with Strange Dreams, that happened, but I also got incredibly hooked on the stories. As Stephen Donaldson writes in his intro to this collection, these are stories that resonate with you, that never leave you.

Filled with short stories by classic authors such as Greg Bear and Franz Kafka, there are newer authors such as Orson Scott Card and Nancy Kress. I should add to that, however, that no story in it newer than 1987, heh.

I was searching for this book, off and on, for three years, and during that time I could still see the story of "The Fallen Country" by Somtow Sucharitkul and "The House of Compassionate Sharers" by Michael Bishop.

Stories you will never forget. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

German Version of"The Power that Preserves"
This is the excellent German translation of "The Power that Preserves", which is book 3 in the first "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever". The original German first edition was translated from English and published by Heyne Verlag, while this subsequent printing was put out by Droemer-Knauer (the competitors Heyne and Knauer basically produce pretty much all of the available science fiction titles in Germany, both fororiginal German works and translations of English titles.

This book is every bit as good in German, as it is in English - though a decidely thicker read due to the German language's tendency toward more lengthy sentence structure / vocabulary. The truly original character of Thomas Covenant finally allows himself to accept his friends and the reality of The Land - however briefly - and directly challenge the Land's (and his) arch enemy, Lord Foul, with everything at stake. A great book, in either language!

I do recommend that anyone who can read German should take advantage of that skill to order thisvolume (I stress, it is only Volume 3 - in a 3 volume trilogy) through a German website -(e.g. Amazoncom.de) - and in this way pay only about 19 Euros (in the $20 to $30 range) for the book plus Intl. shipping - rather than the whopping $125 (!!! - they must be mad!) single volume price quoted by some of the few U.S. sellers offering this German edition...
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Customer Reviews (4)

Slow Beginnings to a truly Great Sci Fi Story!
As many other readers have noted, this book starts slow, is a difficult read, and implies some racy deviations where the Moral Majority is concerned.However, one must Keep in mind that this story is set wayforward in the future, and appears quite believable as a possible directionof our society in general.Like all good books with a complicated plot,one must take the time to learn the players in the story, and Donaldson hashis hands full developing a believable plot around:

1: a TechnologicallySuperior Alien Race bent on Destroying the Human Race,

2: a female whois primarily the victim, but plays a key role in the conclusion of thestory.

3: a Weak Earth Government Ruling Class.

4: a corrupt SpaceFaring Police Force.

5: a Space Pirate Black Market Organization.

6:and many more characters as the Gap Series Develops.

My point being that;like most good books you have to carefully read your way through the first25-50 pages or so before the story starts to Really Get Good!Well, thisstory is REALLY GOOD!However, in this case: "The RealStory"(the whole first book of the Gap Series) is that hypotheticalfirst 25-50 pages.

Do youself a favor... If you like Donaldson's storytelling style, plan on reading the whole Gap Series, and don't expectanything more than an introduction out of "The Real Story".Itis the BEGINNING of a truly great story and is well worth the time to readit.

I am currently reading the Gap Series for the third time and am stillsurprised at almost every turn of the page.The depth of plotting andinterweaving of all the key players is truly a work of art on Mr.Donaldson's part.He has OUTDONE himself this time!

Excellent, if read as part of the series
Stephen R. Donaldson hooked me with the Covenant series, and when this book came out, I bought it because the blurb on the back intrigued me.The content is pretty strong stuff, and the book reads poorly as a stand alone.But, if one reads the rest of the Gap series, the events of the Real Story are explained, and the content more acceptable.The Gap series was one of the best pieces of fiction I have read.The most impressive thing about it was that each chapter was from a different person's perspective, skewing events previous covered in other chapters.It amazed me that Donaldson could keep it all sorted out.I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes gritty sci-fi (Moorcock or Herbert, for example).

A mediocre first step to a great story
I'm an avid reader of Stephen Donaldson and have read everything of his I can get my hands on.The Real Story was a big disappointment after the Covenenant Chronicles and his other works.It is worth reading, however, as the series becomes much better from the second book on.I hold the last four books in the series as very readable.

Welcome to the darkest corners of Stephen Donalsons mind
I have been a long standing fan of Stephen R Donalson, and automatically pick up anything he writes.Unfortunately, the best thing about this book is the fact that it is short.The Real Story strikes me as an emotional hairball that the author just had to cough up...The characters are either vile or uninteresting and the story seems to exist as a vehicle for sexual deviance and violence.Although the series itself does develop into something moderately interesting, this is a poor starting point that seems to point to some dark fantasy of the authors more than an actual story. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Interesting and Useful
I was looking to understand the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant a bit better, and this book helped out a lot, even though it deals primarily with the First Chronicles. If you're addicted to Stephen R. Donaldson's stuff and want to return to the Land (if only in a tangential fashion), this is a good book to check out.

Excellent review of Donaldson's work
As a fan of Donaldson's Covenant series, I was delighted to see that there was a scholarly work of literary criticism covering the Chronicles. There have been so many written about The Lord of the Rings (deservedly so) but none regarding Covenant. I felt this was a mistake, as Donaldson's works, while certainly not equal to Tolkien's, bear significant literary merit.

One of the things I found most interesting was the shared vocabulary between Senior and Donaldson. Any reader of Donaldson knows that he enjoys employing archaic words. Senior even levies this as somewhat of a criticism. However, *he uses some of the same words*. I couldn't help but chuckle. To argue for clarity, and then go against your own argument is, well, silly.

But that's the worst I can say about the book. Other than works on literary criticism regarding Tolkien, this was one of the very few that I read from cover to cover. He didn't miss many points (although as others have pointed out there were some factual innaccuries; these were minor, though).

Here are some chapter titles, to give you an idea of what's in the book:

1. Modern Fantasy and Stephen R. Donaldson
2. 2. Thomas Covenant: Leper as Hero
3. Donaldson and Tolkien (great chapter)
4. Myth
5. Narrative, Structure, and Knowledge
6. Life and Death
7. The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: "To Bear What Must Be Borne".

There are also two rather extensive interviews, which for those Covenant fans who don't participate in the "gradual interview" on www.stephenrdonaldson.com or who don't follow the bulletin boards on www.kevinswatch.com, offer much needed insight into the mind of an author who is much more complex than he seems to the casual observer.

readable literary criticism of Donaldson
Keep in mind, contrary to most of the reviews below, this is NOT a novel by Stephen Donaldson.It's a scholarly book written by a PhD ABOUT Donaldson's Thomas Covenant trilogies.If you're looking for the actual books, don't get this one.As for this book, Variations on the Fantasy Tradition, it's readable, if somewhat over written and in places awkward--a common failing of academic writing.It examines Donaldson's Covenant books (mainly the First Chronicles) in light of general trends and tendencies in fantasy.As such, it's often a compare-contrast operation: this is what a fantasy hero is usually like; this is how Thomas Covenant is similar and different from the standard fantasy hero.It covers in its chapters the hero and how Covenant is something of an inversion of the typical hero; comparisons to Tolkien; myth and how it is used in the Covenant books; the significance/importance of knowledge in the books and how it is gained; the narrative structure; and how life and death are viewed and what meanings they are given in the text. It also does a general coverage of the Second Chronicles.Some "trivia" are gotten wrong or misstated, so that could have been tightened up, though that in itself doesn't affect any of the main points made.The scholarship isn't ground-breaking and it's fairly straightforward, but interesting to me as someone who liked the Covenant books and has taken English courses.The interviews with Donaldson are interesting, though I wouldn't buy it only for them ....If you liked thinking about the themes and ideas in the Covenant books, you may like this, though more of it is devoted to form and structure and than the meanings/reasons behind them (i.e. how Covenant differs from typical heros as opposed to _why_ make him not like other heros). But, then, that's not really why this book was written.It's aim is to locate Donaldson in the literary canon of fantasy.So in that sense, it does all right.Say, three and a half stars.

An over analysis of a great work.
I really like the Covenant series, and so I picked this book up to see how others reacted to it. What I found was a work that read far to much into Donaldson's work, missed some major points, and committed simple errors(such as which hand Covenant had fingers amputated from). Maybe it'sbecause I'm not a huge fan of lit.crit., but I found this text very denseto work through, and Senior came across as trying too hard to make hispoints.

The superlative in Fantasy criticism
This text is the definitive work on Donaldson and an enlightning exploration into the genre of Fantasy.This work has provided me with several quotes for academic papers as well as guide points on teachingtraditional and non-traditional Fantasy.Senior never vascilates on hisarguments, and there is yet to be an error found in his thinking.A cheapprice for a priceless reference source. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A JUMBLE OF THREAD AND THRUM
I expected a more systematic and comprehensive book, but in vain. I expected a voluminous and exhaustive work, but in vain. I was extremely astonished at the scantiness of space on Japanese same-sexrelationship.Among numberless Japanese male love literal works onlyAkinoyononaga monogatari is translated. Many famous homoerotical storiesand historical episodes are omitted.Although this is an interesting bookand I don't hesitate to recommend it , I must indicate that it is onlyananthological theses collection et meager in content. ... Read more