What if you were whisked away to another world? This is the premise of a thousand fantasy yarns out there, but think about it for a second: Why is it that all those protagonists have little trouble with the transition? Right now you're sitting in front of your computer reading this, what if when you turned around you were temporarily blinded and began to hear voices? You'd think that you were crazy, wouldn't you?
Now what if you had some debilating incurable disease--something you'd spent years getting used to having--and when this worldshift happened, you were magically cured? Well then you'd KNOW you were crazy. Right? What would you do?
This is the crux of Thomas Covenant. Thomas, a leper, is having a very a tough time in the real world. I'm not giving away anything that isn't in the first chapter, but as the book starts his wife has taken their kid and divorced him, nobody wants to have anything to do with him, and he is having to fight with despair at every turn.
When crossing the street he faints--or something--and finds himself in THE LAND. Thomas is quite sure dismay has sent him around the bend, he's gone nuts, and he makes the decision not to believe his own senses. He is, as the title suggests, The Unbeliever.
Our Protagonist is a very dark character indeed. Admit it, you'd have a similar reaction, wouldn't you? Since Covenant doesn't believe in The Land, does his actions there have any consequences? He commits some very dark acts at the beginning of his time in the land, then spends the next thousand or so pages regretting it. Enough said.
What pulls this trilogy off, though, is not Mr. Unbeliever, but The Land and the people in it. SRD does quite an amazing job of creating a beautiful world full of magic and heroism and its own ancient history.
Donaldson is one of the few fantasy writers fit to be mentioned in the same league as J.R.R. Tolkein, someone who he obviously studied and, I suspect, worked hard not to imitate. If that's the case then he succeeded, for The Land and its peoples are as wonderful as Middle-Earth while having almost nothing in common with them. And this is the central conflict of the book, something that is guaranteed to grab you and hold on to you: because pretty soon, YOU are rooting for The Land, you care about it more than Covenant does, and you keep waiting for Thomas to come up with a better answer for his unbelief.
I don't want to go into detail on story, but SRD is quite aware that you've read Lord of the Rings and he works hard to make this interesting and something you won't expect. Again, it is dark. Covenant is at constant war with his unbelief even as those around him fight to protect him and protect The Land.
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