Lord Foul’s Bane

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Book 1

By: Stephen R. Donaldson

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 19 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's Summary

Thomas Covenant is a leper, a bitter and solitary pariah who is mystically transported to another Earth where time moves differently than ours, one in which magic takes many forms. The Land is threatened by many evils, the most immediate of which is a maddened Cavewight whose subterranean excavations have unearthed the ancient and puissant Staff of Law.

More dangerous to the free people of the Land is the Gray Slayer, Lord Foul, the Despiser, who intends to destroy the actual foundations of the Earth that he might wage war against the universe’s creator. And Foul’s intended weapon in this conflict? None other than Thomas Covenant himself.

©1977 Stephen R. Donaldson (P)2020 Brick by Brick Audiobooks

The most underrated saga of our time

The story of Thomas Covenant is difficult because he truly is a Anti-hero. lord Fouls Bane does at times bury you with descriptions and vocabulary but the characters are believable and vivid. The struggles become palpable the emotions intense. I have read the whole series at least 8 times just to re experience and find new things I missed before. As I have aged different parts become more relevant but as a whole the story holds true over time. like Covenant I encourage you to slip into the land soak up its richness and be changed and formed into a new being.

Despicable

The "hero" of the story is a disgusting foul creature that takes it upon himself to rape a child the second he has opportunity. I'm completely dismayed and I'm going to return this book because whoever gets royalties from it does not deserve a penny. Shame on the author, this should have never been printed. I'm saddened that I can't ever unlisted to this trash.

Tedious description, slow and deliberate narration

This is a good book in a classic series which I first read years ago. If only someone had been able to give this thing a thorough edit, it could've been great. As it is, it's a bit of a slog. The reader could've helped by breathing some life into the text, but instead he reads in a slow, deliberate (yet somehow over-dramatic) crawl. Not sure I can handle the entire series in an audiobook format . . .

Amazing series

Admittedly, the first book is hard to get thru. You get to know characters and the land. You want to reach in and throttle Covenant. But I promise, the series is so worth continuing.

This is the full version!

The other book was missing the last chapter 25 but this one is complete. I reported it and hopefully they fix it or it just remove the other book from the library. Also there is no reason to have duplicate versions of the same book they should fix that as well.
Overall the book is great so is the audio version, if you’d like the lord of the rings books you would like this. However the voice narration on the audible version of the Lord of the rings was much better. Still I thought he did a good job and you to get used to his voice. It’s just nothing like I imagined when reading the books.

rape?

this book would have been much better without the rape, it made me uneasy ew

Presentation great, story meh

the one thing you expect in a fantasy story is a hero and villain that are clear. in this story the hero is a whiner, useless, raping scumbag. The villain is vague and not really engaging until the very end and only then laughs. The minor villain turns out to be almost as whiney as the hero. Maybe this sets the stage for further books, but by itself is pretty weak IMO.

best fantasy series ever

This is among the very best fantasy i have ever known. The writing is obviously donaldsons earliest efforts, with some over used metaphores and such, but the quality of charachters and especially world building, sets the chronicles in a league of thier own. The narration took me some time to get used to, but in the end I feel Scotts dramatic tone was well suited to the tale he was telling. stick with this series and you will note be disappointed.

would not recomend.

Stubbornness the main character. general refusal to partake in his own story. awfully boring book.

Rewind.

The narrator sucked. Had to rewind to figure out who was speaking. Very frustrating. I wish I hadn't paid for this.