Lord Foul's Bane was a decent start to a potentially refreshing series. Illearth War fails to deliver on that and has put me off completely.
It begins well, with the build-up to Covenants summoning and the transition from his world to the next setting a good foundation.
It is a shame that the next 150 pages consist almost entirely of war council meetings. The next phase of the story takes up more than a third of the book and comprises entirely of a long war march led by a character that's new to the series. He's also a bit whiny. Thomas Covenant is not involved in this part of the story which rather contradicts the fact that the rest of the story is centered on him and his unbelief in the potentially imaginary world that surrounds him. When we finally get past this dull deviation, we are shown his “meanwhile" galavantings in the latter part of the book. Unfortunately, his strange attraction to his daughter (whose mother he raped), and her even stranger attraction to him, seem to become more of a focus than the actual plot.
Accompanying this are a lot of unrealistic, overblown events that are only just about acceptable due to the fact that this is a fantasy book and, I guess, you can get away with more or less anything under that umbrella.
Ah well, on to better things. ( )

What a pleasure to spend time in this world again, with the Unbeliever. There's a bit of cookie-cutter work here, sending Covenant back to the land after a short respite remembering his condition, and sending him home rather unceremoniously at the height of the conclusion. But the world building skills Donaldson displays in the second installment shine. Interestingly, Covenant is joined by another refugee from his world, and the unusual, fragile relations between the two make for good reading - as does the revelation that Covenant's violent sin in the first book produced a child. I'm sorry I didn't know about this series earlier in my reading life.

4 1/2 bones!!!!!
Highly Recommended!!!!! ( )

Thomas Covenant se autodenominaba ”El Incrédulo” porque ni aún en su segunda visita al Reino pudo descuidar las precauciones que necesita un leproso para sobrevivir. Aquí, en el planeta Tierra, una cantante de cabaret había pedido después de su actuación un aplauso para él, que se hallaba entre el público, llamándole Berek Mediamano. Poco después, ya en su casa, Covenant se desvaneció e inició su segunda visita al Reino. Y se encontró en una reunión del Consejo de los Amos que había apelado desesperadarnente a él y a la magia legendaria del oro blanco, porque el Amo Execrable estaba en posesión de Illearth, la ”Piedra de la Mala Tierra”.

I find myself in the unenviable position of rooting for Lord Foul Bane and his many loathsome minions. Maybe it's just the intentional feature of making all the good guys so perfectly good and forgiving and nonviolent and understanding, but Thomas Covenant DOES NOT DESERVE IT.

Therefore, I really want to see Lord Foul Bane corrupt every single one of those bastards solely for the purpose of rising up and smiting that worthless son of a bitch, the Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant.

If it wasn't crazy enough that the Rape-Child of TC loves her Rape-Father so much that she summons him from our world to save their cut-out-heaven, she thinks she's in love with him and throws herself at him.

Yes, she's his daughter.

Not only does every character in the Land have no more dimensionality than a piece of toilet paper, but their insane levels of acceptance, even when a rage-filled father goes after TC or when the only true hero of the tale attempts to smite TC across his head, no one gets his just deserts. The grand heroic general who deserves every accolade gets transformed into a tree, and this is despite the fact that he was summoned from the our world, just like TC. He was also the most interesting character of the bunch.

So what was actually good about this book?

Well, the battles and battles and endless battles and strategy wasn't as bad as I've read elsewhere, but it isn't my cup of tea. It reminded me of the bad old days of WoT books 7 and 8, or perhaps a bit worse, because I cared less for the Land or its characters.

Some of the fantasy elements were pretty good, though, and what's not to love about bone melding and turning a combatant's bones to ash, letting the meat sack tumble to the ground? I got into this book only late, and completely to spite TC. Good thing most of the novel didn't have TC in it, or I might have gotten through an entire season of a TV show I'm way far behind on instead of just half of it, all in a desperate attempt to alleviate the boredom I felt while reading this godforsaken novel.

I can understand why people might revere this, considering the amount and kinds of fantasy trash that might have been out and about at the time it was written. I understand why it changed the face of old fantasy, just as I understand the Mallorean books did the same.

But the fact is, they all lack the gritty realism and complexly developed characters that I have come to revere in modern fantasy, and I just can't get behind it.

Having far off pining and far off horrors and far off hopes and plans is just BORING as hell to me, and if it can't be shored up by characters that learn and develop and change when faced with singular events that OUGHT to change them, then all we've got is a spoiled asshole who's turned a veritable heaven into an ongoing hell and he actually BELONGS on the side of Lord Foul Bane and he always will. The fact that he was summoned by LFB's minion in the first place should be a dead giveaway, but what the hell do I know?

It's not like Lord Wonderful Kevin (Don't get me started with the silliness of that name, the wonderful ancient godlike hero and destroyer of the Land) had anything to do with TC's summoning, like everyone thought. It looks like everyone has been fooled, and fooled good. Maybe I'm right about TC's direction. I don't know. I'm going to have to summon superhuman stores of patience to pick up the third book to find out. ( )

** spoiler alert **

The Illearth War is just more of the same. Whereas in my previous review I excused Donaldson for being tedious because it was the first book in the series and required a certain amount of introductory information, he has thusfar failed to add any level of excitement. The reader's feeling of "leaving the story just as soon as something interesting has happened" becomes stronger, and more disappointing.

Some things felt too obvious, and perhaps it was intended to be that way, in order to let the reader feel like they know something about the book, only to throw them off later. Things such as the High Lord's lineage, which are not stated immediately, but are obvious to even the casual reader. As the reader, I kept waiting for there to be some sort of immense, plot-shattering surprise, and was frustrated when I did not find one.

A new aspect in this book that was not present in Lord Foul's Bane was shifting perspectives. Despite being called "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever," the reader finds herself sucked into a new character's mind for the majority of the story: Warmark Hile Troy. While Troy is not incredibly unlikeable, his side of the story is nothing more than a grueling marching pace - literally, the reader spends half the book watching the Land's army march. I found it to be draggy and unexciting, and perhaps this is a reader's fault, since I have been raised in the world of instant gratification and over-dramatacism... but the lengthy descriptions of Troy's inability to come up with a sufficient battle plan and the struggles of the army to march fast enough without dying becomes tedious.

There are some aspects of the book that are more interesting than in the first in the trilogy. For example, instead of giving a long speech to explain an event, there is a point where Donaldson chooses to use a flashback. This flashback is considerably more interesting than the alternative (and, unfortunately, a little more exciting than most the rest of the book).

Once again, as the reader, I found myself disappointed as, at the end, the action was only just beginning, but Covenant was being sucked back into his world and the book had ended, just as the "good part" was starting. No resolution, yet again. ( )