Against All Things Ending

The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 3

By: Stephen R. Donaldson

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

Length: 33 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Award-winning author Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books have sold more than 10 million copies. In the third volume of this trilogy, Linden Avery confronts the consequences of using magical power sufficient to wake the Worm, which is capable of destroying the Land. And although the only hope may rest with Linden’s son, the boy could also bring disaster upon everyone.

©2010 Stephen R. Donaldson (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"[A] writer of extraordinary power and imagination.” ( Booklist)

A fantastically well-read and enchanting story

The writer does an excellent job of captivating us and blowing our minds once again while the reader did a phenomenal job with voices and making each character unique. Well done

Scottish Giants

This is an awesome book, SO well written and very easy to listen to. Prepare for some pretty heart rending scenes though. The only thing I have to criticize is... WTF is with these giants speaking with scotting brogue? That's the ONLY thing that irritates me, the rest of the time this book is awesome.

It took a little while to get used to it

After listening to the first 8 books in the series narrated by Scott Brick, it was hard to follow and get into this one. Nothing against Tim Gerard Reynolds, but it was like all of the characters had changed.

The wrong narrator for this series

I love, and I mean, love all of the Thomas Covenant books. One of the most sublime pleasures I have had is listening to these books. I'm an impatient reader, but listening forces me to slow down and savor each word. Tim Gerard Reynolds, however, is not the narrator for this book. He mispronounces words. The voices he gives the characters do not fit their personalities at all. The commentator who said that he makes the Haruchai sound like robot munchkins was dead on!

I eventually gave up and just picked up my hardcopy rather than torture myself by listening to another 30 hours of Reynolds botching this job.

I don't mean any offense to Mr. Reynolds here. He does a superb job on other books. But who the heck made the decision to let Scott Brick record ALL of the rest of the Thomas Covenant books but decided to let Mr. Reynolds do just this one. Boggles the mind.

I am not against this story ending

Any additional comments?

I rated this higher than I truely think it should be from the totality of all the books. I was so excited to get into the book that I could overlook the long drawn out internal struggles. By the end of the book I couldn't wait for it to end but I am so heavily invested in the story that I can't wait for the last book either so that the story can finally be resolved. Please use more than 5 scenes in the next book so my imagination can wonder around "The Land" one last time.

Oh my gosh!!!

Nine books in and Linden makes it almost impossible to continue. What an insipid character. Great writing…. Oh my gosh what a horrible character

For the Thomas Covenant fans. For all others…

Stephen R. Donaldson gets deeper into the minds and souls of his main characters in this penultimate of the last chronicle. For the fans of the books this will bring them into the motivations that drive Linden and Covenant in their motivations and resolutions to save the Land. Be prepared for a deeper journey into the thoughts of the main characters. With less action and more dialogue that the previous books, Donaldson reveals the beginning of the end of the adventure to save or damn. For those that are not acquainted with the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant they will be lost and should get the first chronicles. Start there, because you will be lost and not enjoy this - but, will be grateful in reading the first books if you should choose to do so.

New Narrator didn't work for me

Loved the story but should have stayed with Scott Brick. After 8 books with Scott, you get used to his voices, pronunciation, etc. This narrator was good, but different accents and pronunciations. Was distracting and took away from an otherwise excellent story.

Great story, sketchy performance

What aspect of Tim Gerard Reynolds’s performance would you have changed?

Haruchai (especially Stave) sound like robot munchkins & the giants (especially Ironhand) sound like leprechauns.

Any additional comments?

Could use a do-over by Scott Brick.

Did Linden learn nothing in the previous trilogy?

I have stated previously that Donaldson is one of the yardsticks against which I measure all other writing. In many ways, his propensity for manipulating the English language is getting in the way of the story.

The main focus of three quarters of this book is the continued degeneration of Linden Avery's character. Her monomaniac charge to redeem her son has already doomed the Earth at the end of Fatal Revenant. She continues to ignore consequences and her indifference finally leads to the death of several companions. The story seems to tread water for the majority of the book, and only advances in the last two chapters.

The many seemingly insurmountable problems Linden and Covenant face continue to magnify. Without spoiling the specifics, the problems of Esmer and Joan are the only things that redeem this storyline from irrelevancy.

The specific problems of this novel are many. The biggest issue in my opinion is that this story seems to exist to jam every background note ever written by Donaldson into published form. In many ways, the previous novel as well as this one suffer from the same problems that doomed The Silmarillion. I am not saying that it is not interesting, but it can be done better. I refer to the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson expansions of Dune. Additionally, as stated in the headline, Linden Avery seems to have forgotten everything she learned during her previous sojourn with Covenant under the Sunbane. I found this highly distasteful, and I have to go all the way back to the 80s to Night and Fog (the 5th Cenotaph Road book) for such a sad evolution in character development.

My final objection to this work is that Donaldson's contortion of the language stabs him in the foot. His constant description of all magic as "theurgy," magic of divine origin, rather than "thaumaturgy," or general magic, as well as refering to an oversize sword as a glaive, a polearm consisting of a stick with a knife on the end, are the most obvious problems.

Finally, directly related to the audiobook and its performance, please do whatever is necessary to bring back Scott Brick for the last book. This reader speaks with a noticeable and distracting Irish accent. His only apparent ability at characterisation is to enhance this accent.