The Last Dark by Stephen R. Donaldson

The bestselling fantasy series from one of the biggest names in the genre comes to an unforgettable conclusion. This is the final volume of the epic 10 books Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - one of the keynote works of modern fantasy.

Compelled step by step to actions whose consequences they could neither see nor prevent, Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery have fought for what they love in the magical reality known only as 'the Land'. Now they face their final crisis. Reunited after their separate struggles, they discover in each other their true power - and yet they cannot imagine how to stop the Worm of the World's End from unmaking Time. Nevertheless they must resist the ruin of all things, giving their last strength in the service of the world's continuance.

The idea of writing a review of the most important series of books I've read is rather daunting, so I'll just knock something out quickly to get over the scope of the thing.

I don't know what it was about the last chronicles that kept me from reading it for so long. I've read the first and second chronicles multiple times over the years, starting around 1991-ish when I was 20. My wedding band is white gold. My blog is at sunbane.com. I'm a fan.

So why did I only just finish the last chronicles today? Dunno.

And it took me a Long Time. I started reading the first of the last in October 2015. Partly that's because I'm more of an audiobook guy and still can't get any TC chronicles in the UK, so it meant reading with my eyes. I don't do that so much now.

Anyway, the book. Yeah. Damn. It's good. Yes there are sloggy bits and purple prose galore. And SRD hasn't reigned in his flowery vocab at all, has he? Maybe it's condign. I dunno. This is why I'm enjoying Stormlight Archive so much - heavy hitting fantasy and no dictionary required. And yes, towards the end of this book I did have to look up mansuetude again. The Chrome spell checker here doesn't care much for it either; it has a red squiggle.

And some of the names of the giants really took me out the book, as if I were reading a SNL parody.

But vocab and silly names aside, I say YES to this book and to the whole series. Sure, the final scene was a bit samey, but with enough of a punch to make me choke up a bit. In fact there were a few chokey-uppy moments. I found the ending 100% satisfying.

And now I'm done, I feel like going back to the first of the last again and rereading them all. Maybe the One Tree as well, just to get the whole Elohim bit and the story of Kastenessen as told by Findail the Appointed on Starfare's Gem.

I'm reading with my eyes a lot more these days and some of the history sections were rather dense. But they add so much to the first and second chronicles, particularly the whole Theomach storyline and the backstory of the Viles and the Demondim and the Colossus of the Fall.

Keep doing your appointed task, even though you can not know what that task is. Just do it, and all will be well.

I love these books. My gratitude to Donaldson is immense.

I guess that's all I can say. Reviewing the last book of a series is sort of silly. Start at the beginning and enjoy!