The Runes of the Earth

New York Times bestselling author Stephen R. Donaldson presents the first novel of the four-volume finale to the series that’s become a modern fantasy classic: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

Thomas Covenant lost everything. Abandoned by his wife and child, sick and alone, he was transported while unconscious to a magical, dreamlike world called the Land. Convinced it was all a delusion, Covenant was christened The Unbeliever by the Land’s inhabitants—but gave his life to save this new-found world he came to regard as precious.

Ten years after Covenant’s death, Linden Avery still mourns for her beloved companion. But a violent confrontation with Covenant’s son, who is doing the evil Lord Foul’s bidding, forces her into the Land, where a dark malevolence is about to unmake the laws of nature—and of life and death itself. It is here that she comes upon Esmer, son of the Dancers of the Sea, a creature of strange powers who draws Linden backwards through time to witness Thomas Covenant’s return to life, and to reinvent the mysterious, dangerous, and violent history of the Land.

Stephen R. Donaldson is the author of the The Great God’s War Trilogy and the original six volumes of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a landmark in modern fantasy. Every volume, beginning with Lord Foul’s Bane in 1977, has been an international bestseller. Donaldson returned to the series with The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, comprising The Runes of the Earth, Fatal Revenant, Against All Things Ending, and The Last Dark. Donaldson lives in New Mexico.