MTU Cork Library Catalogue

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The chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. vol.1. Lord Foul's bane / Stephen Donaldson.

By: Donaldson, Stephen R.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: London : Fontana, 1978Description: 446 p. : 1 map ; 18 cm.ISBN: 0006152392.Subject(s): Covenant, Thomas (Fictitious character) | FantasyDDC classification: 823.91
Series information: Click to open in new window Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
General Lending MTU Bishopstown Library Store Item 823.91 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00034458
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

He called himself Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, because he dared not believe in this strange alternative world in which he suddenly found himself. Treated as an outcast, he was now believed to be the reincarnation of Berek Halfhand, armed with the mystic power of white gold.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

ONE: Golden Boy   She came out of the store just in time to see her young son playing on the sidewalk directly in the path of the gray, gaunt man who strode down the center of the walk like a mechanical derelict. For an instant, her heart quailed. Then she jumped forward, gripped her son by the arm, snatched him out of harm's way.   The man went by without turning his head. As his back moved away from her, she hissed at it, "Go away! Get out of here! You ought to be ashamed!"   Thomas Covenant's stride went on, as unfaltering as clockwork that had been wound to the hilt for just this purpose. But to himself he responded, Ashamed? Ashamed? His face contorted in a wild grimace. Beware! Outcast unclean!   But he saw that the people he passed, the people who knew him, whose names and houses and handclasps were known to him--he saw that they stepped aside, gave him plenty of room. Some of them looked as if they were holding their breath. His inner shouting collapsed. These people did not need the ancient ritual of warning. He concentrated on restraining the spasmodic snarl which lurched across his face, and let the tight machinery of his will carry him forward step by step.   As he walked, he flicked his eyes up and down himself, verifying that there were no unexpected tears or snags in his clothing, checking his hands for scratches, making sure that nothing had happened to the scar which stretched from the heel of his right palm across where his last two fingers had been. He could hear the doctors saying, "VSE, Mr. Covenant. Visual Surveillance of Extremities. Your health depends upon it. Those dead nerves will never grow back--you'll never know when you've hurt yourself unless you get in the habit of checking. Do it all the time--think about it all the time. The next time you might not be so lucky."   VSE. Those initials comprised his entire life.   Doctors! he thought mordantly. But without them, he might not have survived even this long. He had been so ignorant of his danger. Self-neglect might have killed him.   Watching the startled, frightened or oblivious faces--there were many oblivious faces, though the town was small--that passed around him, he wished he could be sure that his face bore a proper expression of disdain. But the nerves in his cheeks seemed only vaguely alive, though the doctors had assured him that this was an illusion at the present stage of his illness, and he could never trust the front which he placed between himself and the world. Now, as women who had at one time chosen to discuss his novel in their literary clubs recoiled from him as if he were some kind of minor horror or ghoul, he felt a sudden treacherous pang of loss. He strangled it harshly, before it could shake his balance.   He was nearing his destination, the goal of the affirmation or proclamation that he had so grimly undertaken. He could see the sign two blocks ahead of him: Bell Telephone Company. He was walking the two miles into town from Haven Farm in order to pay his phone bill. Of course, he could have mailed in the money, but he had learned to see that act as a surrender, an abdication to the mounting bereavement which was being practiced against him.   While he had been in treatment, his wife, Joan, had divorced him--taken their infant son and moved out of the state. The only thing in which he, Thomas Covenant, had a stake that she had dared handle had been the car; she had taken it as well. Most of her clothing she had left behind. Then his nearest neighbors, half a mile away on either side, had complained shrilly about his presence among them; and when he had refused to sell his property, one of them moved from the county. Next, within three weeks of his return home, the grocery store--he was walking past it now, its windows full of frenetic advertisements had begun delivering his supplies, whether or not he ordered them--and, he suspected, whether or not he was willing to pay.   Now he strode past the courthouse, its old gray columns looking proud of their burden of justice and law--the building in which, by proxy, of course, he had been reft of his family. Even its front steps were polished to guard against the stain of human need which prowled up and down them, seeking restitution. The divorce had been granted because no compassionate law could force a woman to raise her child in the company of a man like him. Were there tears? he asked Joan's memory. Were you brave? Relieved? Covenant resisted an urge to run out of danger. The gaping giant heads which topped the courthouse columns looked oddly nauseated, as if they were about to vomit on him.   In a town of no more than five thousand, the business section was not large. Covenant crossed in front of the department store, and through the glass front he could see several high-school girls pricing cheap jewelry. They leaned on the counters in provocative poses, and Covenant's throat tightened involuntarily. He found himself resenting the hips and breasts of the girls--curves for other men's caresses, not his. He was impotent. In the decay of his nerves, his sexual capacity was just another amputated member. Even the release of lust was denied to him; he could conjure up desires until insanity threatened, but he could do nothing about them. Without warning, a memory of his wife flared in his mind, almost blanking out the sunshine and the sidewalk and the people in front of him. He saw her in one of the opaque nightgowns he had bought for her, her breasts tracing circles of invitation under the thin fabric. His heart cried, Joan!   How could you do it? Is one sick body more important than everything?   Bracing his shoulders like a strangler, he suppressed the memory. Such thoughts were a weakness he could not afford; he had to stamp them out. Better to be bitter, he thought. Bitterness survives. It seemed to be the only savor he was still able to taste.   To his dismay, he discovered that he had stopped moving. He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his fists clenched and his shoulders trembling. Roughly he forced himself into motion again. As he did so, he collided with someone.   Outcast unclean!   He caught a glimpse of ocher; the person he had bumped seemed to be wearing a dirty, reddish-brown robe. But he did not stop to apologize. He stalked on down the walk so that he would not have to face that particular individual's fear and loathing. After a moment, his stride recovered its empty, mechanical tick.   Now he was passing the offices of the Electric Company--his last reason for coming to pay his phone bill in person. Two months ago, he had mailed in a check to the Electric Company--the amount was small; he had little use for power--and it had been returned to him. In fact, his envelope had not even been opened. An attached note had explained that his bill had been anonymously paid for at least a year.   After a private struggle, he had realized that if he did not resist this trend, he would soon have no reason at all to go among his fellow human beings. So today he was walking the two miles into town to pay his phone bill in person--to show his peers that he did not intend to be shriven of his humanity. In rage at his outcasting, he sought to defy it, to assert the rights of his common mortal blood.   In person, he thought. What if he were too late? If the bill had already been paid? What did he come in person for then?   The thought caught his heart in a clench of trepidation. He clicked rapidly through his VSE, then returned his gaze to the hanging sign of the Bell Telephone Company, half a block away. As he moved forward, conscious of a pressure to surge against his anxiety, he noticed a tune running in his mind along the beat of his stride. Then he recollected the words:   Golden boy with feet of clay, Let me help you on your way. A proper push will take you far But what a clumsy lad you are!   The doggerel chuckled satirically through his thoughts, and its crude rhythm thumped against him like an insult, accompanied by slow stripper's music. He wondered if there were an overweight goddess somewhere in the mystical heavens of the universe, grinding out his burlesque fate: A proper push leer will take you far--but what a clumsy lad you are! mock pained dismay. Oh, right, golden boy.   But he could not sneer his way out of that thought, because at one time he had been a kind of golden boy. He had been happily married. He had had a son. He had written a novel in ecstasy and ignorance, and had watched it spend a year on the best-seller lists. And because of it, he now had all the money he needed.   I would be better off, he thought, if I'd known I was writing that kind of book.   Excerpted from Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Stephen Donaldson, 1947 - Novelist Stephen Donaldson was born on May 13, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio to James R. Donaldson, a medical missionary, and Mary Ruth Reeder, a prosthetist. His father was an orthopedic surgeon that worked with lepers in India. He lived in India between the ages of three to sixteen and while listening to one of his father's lectures on leprosy, he conceived the legendary Thomas Covenant. Donaldson attended the College of Wooster, Ohio and graduated in 1968. Afterwards, he spent two years being a conscientious objector doing hospital work in Akron and then attended Kent University where he received an M.A. in English.

Donaldson's publishing debut was with "Lord Foul's Bane" (1977), which was the first book in the fantasy trilogy entitled The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. It was named best novel of the year by the British Fantasy Society and received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, in 1979. He followed with the sequel series The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, also set in The Land, starting with "Daughter of Regals," and then the Mordant's Need series with "The Mirror of Her Dreams" and "A Man Rides Through." Donaldson is also the author of the Gap Into series of science fiction adventure that began with "The Real Story" and followed with "Forbidden Knowledge," "A Dark and Hungry God Arises," and "Chaos and Order."

In addition to the awards he received for his first novel/series, Donaldson has also received the Balrog Fantasy Award for Best Novel for "The Wounded Land" in 1981 and for "The One Tree" in 1983, the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Novel for "The One Tree" in 1983, the Balrog Fantasy Award for Best Collection for "Daughter of Regals and Other Tales" in 1985, and the Science Fiction Book Club Award for Best Book of the Year for "The Mirror of Her Dreams" in 1988 and "A Man Rides Through" in 1989. He also received The College of Wooster Distinguished Alumni Award in 1989, the WIN/WIN Popular Fiction Readers Choice Award for Favorite Fantasy Author in 1991, the Atlanta Fantasy Fair Award for Outstanding Achievement in 1992 and the President's Award, The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts in 1997.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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