The Wounded Land by Stephen Donaldson

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Summary Sophisticated reading for an adult audience.

The Wounded Land by Stephen Donaldson begins The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant as Thomas Covenant once more returns to the Land.

It has been four thousand years since Thomas Covenant fought and threw down Lord Foul. The Land was saved but the time that has elapsed since has been unkind and human sacrifice and corruption is a plague on the Land.

It is into this nightmare dreamscape that Thomas Covenant once again reluctantly returns to the Land and he must one again battle Lord Foul armed only with his white gold wedding ring.

The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant were dark, the Second Chronicles take us even further into despair. The Land, once full of beauty and health is now a land full of pestilence and evil. Everything that was once good about the Land has gone and every memory Covenant has is now tainted by corruption.

The Wounded Land improves upon the first three books by giving is more mature characters and also by making Covenant far easier to empathize with. We follow him every inch of the way as he and his companions suffer under the dreadful Sunbane as we feel the pain he feels when he sees what has become of Revelstone.

Reading this piece of work should not be entered lightly as you will only get something out of it if you put a lot of yourself in. You will not be uplifted as despair and desperation are the overriding emotions, Covenant does after all have leprosy and this is not a man that you would expect to be full of the joys of life.

Sophisticated reading for an adult audience, an enthralling story set against an epic fantasy background.