The Power That Preserves

British Fantasy Award 1979. World Fantasy Award nominee 1978, Locus Award nominee 1978.

Twice Thomas Covenant has been wrenched out of his bitter life of isolation and scorn to find himself the reluctant instrument of conflict between good and evil in that magical world known as the Land. Again he returns; but now, realizing his responsibility for the Land's survival, and in angry atonement for having been the cause of so much of its anguish and peril, he will no longer be manipulated. He is prepared to make his own stand against Lord Foul the Despiser, to use – if only he can discover how – the power that is his alone, feared beyond all other by Foul and his minions.

In the great cliffside citadel of Revelstone, the Council of Lords is under siege by the seemingly limitless armies raised by Foul's malignant magic – creatures of hideous form and spirit against whom High Lord Mhoram and his exhausted cohorts must constantly revise their own magic and force of arms. Meanwhile, across the Land, Covenant makes his tortuous way to the Despiser's stronghold – the cavernous keep known as Foul's Creche – accompanied by his great friend Saltheart Foamfollower, the Giant whose magnificent strength and resolution are reinforced by his own cause for revenge.

But it is Covenant alone who must meet Foul in final combat, not only to assure survival for the Land but also to achieve salvation for himself in his life beyond it... thus bringing to a close Stephen R. Donaldson's magnificent epic fantasy, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.