Stephen Donaldson is that kind of writer where there is not much middle ground between love and hate for his work. This book is the third one of a four-book serie, which will be the conclusion of 2 previous trilogies started in the 80s. The first trilogy contained all the elements of a fantasy serie in the 80s, i.e. a villain trying to destroy the world, an artifact of power, goblin-like creatures, a complete imaginary world (the Land) with its past history, and a character (Thomas Covenant) transported from our world to the Land, with the power to save them all….
But here is where the comparison ended. The savior is a lonely and miserable leper living in a constant OCD-like self awareness of his own body to make sure the disease is not spreading, that right off the start decides that this world he is been transported into is not real, so he doesn’t care one bit about trying to save it. He has all the power to do it, but doesn’t want to learn, and to top it all, his first act in that world is to rape a girl. Nice hero, eh. On top of all this are the moral consequences of his actions/inactions, that will develop and increase with each chapter/book, to the point that it becomes a narration of failures and pathetic behaviors.
As you can see, this is not a serie for everyone, and one may even wonder why the heck people are reading this at all. The reason is simple; Donaldson did a fantastic job in creating the Land, and describing how wonderful this place is. Its inhabitants are so interesting and beautiful in their various appearance. In addition I don’t think I ever saw a writer other than Donaldson better able to illustrate the mood of situations and beauty of environments. And the ugliness and moral dilemmas too.
I was expecting a lot from “Against All Things Ending”, because the previous novel ”Fatal Revenant” ended with a tremendous cliffhanger, and also because I really enjoyed Fatal Revenant. I thought it was one of the best books I read from Donaldson. However, as much as I think that his creation and descriptions of the Land and its inhabitants are a brilliant piece of work, and that this author is one of the best to make you grasp the mood of the situation, sometimes however I also believe that too much is like not enough, and this was the case with this book.
Even though you expect some of this when picking a Covenant book, it remains that the primary character Linden Avery is whiny like there is no tomorrow (which in fact is the case. ;p ). I mean, REALLY whiny. The first 150 pages or so occurs in Andelain, where the book started and nothing is done except being horrified at the consequences of what is happening. I mean, I understand the consequences are dire, it's not often your actions lead to the destruction of the universe, but at some point, I was tired of being nailed repetitively how much despair, blame, self-recrimination etc from every character and their mother. Ok Mr Donaldson, I think I get it now...
After all this complaining is FINALLY done, the group teleports to a deep cavern where you will learn multiple times in what order people are moving, and often what each and everyone are doing in details whether it be blaming someone else, blaming Linden, or not, blaming themselves etc, ad nauseam. At least towards the end of the first part we get a cool fight and some action.
This is, in essence, the first part of the book. Don't get me wrong, once you are halfway though the book, it becomes more interesting. Things start to be moving forward, plot points are completed. But for me, the first part of the book is the weakest part of the entire series so far (9 books). The last 6 chapters are excellent, and without being a huge cliffhanger like with the ending of Fatal Revenant, it does provide a good setup for the next book.
3 stars out of 5
