[gmw]

I just finished The Last Dark, the fourth and last book of the The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen Donaldson. In fact, I went right back to the start and re-read all the early books first. ... But now I'm at a bit confused over my reaction to this last series.

Re-reading the first and second Chronicles was good. I still enjoy them, perhaps not to the extent of back when I first read them, but still very good books, all of them.

The first book of the last Chronicles, The Runes of the Earth, made a really good start. Powerfully written and feeling consistent with what had gone before. The second book, Fatal Revenant, started to lose it for me. The introduction of the Insequent didn't convince me that we shouldn't have seen them before now, if they really existed, and it was starting to feel like I had all-powerful beings coming out my ears. It can get quite confusing. As you progress into the third book, Linden seems to start to resemble Covenant from the earlier books in various ways, not sure if this was intentional.

I'm starting to think that I should have left a gap between reading the second Chronicles and the last. The text contains many reminders of what went before (even reminders of what went before in the Last Chronicles), and that repetition gets a bit much in places. By the end of the third book I was feeling a bit like "enough already, I've got the point". And then the last book ...

The Last Dark was mostly good. The conclusion worked for me, if perhaps a little predictable. For his importance to the series, Jeremiah wasn't as convincing as other characters, but then he wasn't given much air-time. In contrast to the rest of the story in this last series, the end felt excessively brief ... so I must have liked it enough to still be wanting a bit more. Hence, my confusion.

I'm guessing I will have to sit down and re-read them again (in a year to two) before I can really make up my mind. I certainly don't regret reading them, or anything like that. Donaldson writes well (if you like this sort of thing), but this last series felt bigger and more confusing and that has made it more difficult to come to terms with.