White Gold Wielder

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 3

By: Stephen R. Donaldson

Narrated by: Scott Brick

“…I want you to go back to the Land. To Revelstone. And stop the Clave. Put out the Sunbane. If you do that, the Sunbane’ll slow down. Maybe it’ll even recede. That’ll give us time to look for a better answer.”

Thomas Covenant was shocked by Linden Avery’s demand; but he realized that, despite their awful failure on The Isle of The One Tree, there was no alternative but to return and fight. Mhoram had warned him: “…In the end, you must return to the Land.” After a long and arduous journey overland, the company reaches Revelstone. Following a fiery showdown with Gibbon Raver, Covenant discovers that he can come to terms with—and control—his awesome power. As he readies himself for the final showdown with Lord Foul, the Despiser, Thomas Covenant knows he has the answer at last.

©1983 by Stephen R. Donaldson (P)2016 by Scott Brick Productions, Inc.

A very deep a moving journey unique in all of fantasy

A magical work of mixing fiction and language into a poetic prose saga that inspires and moves the reader or listener. Having read the series several times now I can say that every time I return to it and to The Land that Stephen R. Donaldson has created I pick up on something new about both the story and it’s players as well as about myself.

Highly recommended and supremely narrated on audio book by Scott Brick as well, Turns out that The Saga of Liden Avery and Thomas Covenant fits that medium very well indeed if you are so inclined.

Enjoy.

Well performed

I love this series! One of my all time favorites! Brick catches all the nuances Donaldson put into words, and brings to life all the separate characters.

Every book has been better and better.

I finished the second series in two weeks, and I loved them so much, words can't describe it.

Wonderful conclusion to the second trilogy!

Well written and also well read by Scott Brick. Looking forward to the next part of the journey.

Thesaurus

Read it as a young adult 20+ years ago. Looked forward to this series. Completely forgot that this is one author where you need a thesaurus or dictionary if you want to understand all of the words 🤓. Loved it the first time and even more the second time. Wraps up really quick in the end.

Rich storytelling

Fantastic series. Anyone who wants to listen to a well written fantasy series, this is right up your alley.

I cried

I know that people have an issue with these books. Unclean, despite, hurt, hate and self loathing. It’s not about a man who raped an innocent girl. It’s about an act that came from a darkness that all of us understand if we’re honest enough with ourselves. And a cleansing of all of that which causes us harm by one simple act of acceptance and selflessness.

The authors style

I enjoy all of the Covenant stories. He creates a full and beautiful world filled with wonderful characters who stay with you.

Donaldson is very literate. He is reduced by his need to turn ever sentence into pages of overly complex descriptions. It made me feel as though he had a thesaurus by his side and every time he reached a certain word count he threw in two or three words from the thesaurus to show off. It detracts from the whole.

Go see a shrink.

This writer could have written this piece in 1/4 of time. He goes on and on… camping out in words of dispair and loss. I think the writer must be a very depressed individual.

Every character is a raging narcissist or viewed from the perspective of a character who is a raging narcissist

I have something called the eye roll quotient: how many words between events or descriptions that make me roll my eyes. In a good book it would be hundreds to thousands to infinite. An iffy book would be dozens. Here we're talking an eye roll quotient of around 10. It has been so hard for me to push through this series. It's not just that every character feels sorry for themselves. Every hardship and even every mistake and regret for those mistakes is heroic and heroically overcome and built on as an internal narrative of suffering. The first several hours of this book feature the main characters competing for who can feel more sorry for themselves, or who can be more indignant, or who can be more self-sacrificial in self-imposed dilemmas generated from the need to decide for, manipulate, or protect other people who might otherwise demonstrate agency.

It's really some of the worst literature I've ever forced myself to continue with, but it's been like this multi-thousand page train wreck - I can't stop watching. It's filler material for my commute but honestly the eye rolls have become a safety issue. I need to keep my eyes on the road.

I'm guessing raging narcissists will love this material.