The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever are a series of fantasy novels of tremendous scope and a psychological depth never before attempted. Written by Stephen R. Donaldson (who later authored the Gap series of science fiction novels) the Chronicles reveal the existence of another Earth, and recount the otherworldly adventures and struggles of a human from our Earth, Thomas Covenant.

The First Chronicles consists of three main novels -- Lord Foul's Bane, The Illearth War and The Power That Preserves -- and one novelette called Gilden Fire that is actually a chapter or several chapters edited out of the first (and possibly other editions of) The Illearth War.

First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Lord Foul's Bane	The Illearth War	Gilden Fire	The Power That Preserves

The Second Chronicles are comprised of three novels -- The Wounded Land, The One Tree and White Gold Wielder -- that cover Covenant's return some ten Earthly years later during which time three or four millennia have elapsed in the other world.

Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
The Wounded Land	The One Tree	White Gold Wielder

The Third Chronicles are a tetralogy -- The Runes of the Earth, Fatal Revenant, Shall Pass Utterly, and The Last Dark -- that are currently being written. As of this writing (26 Oct 2005) The Runes of the Earth has been published and Fatal Revenant is mostly complete.

Third (and final) Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
The Runes of the Earth	Fatal Revenant	Shall Pass Utterly	The Last Dark

All of the action in the First Chronicles and much of the Second takes place in the Land, a rich and diverse mountain-hemmed region where a powerful Enemy named Lord Foul the Despiser attempts to destroy or enslave the free people of the Land. These folk live in harmony with the Land through the dedication to its inherent Earthpower -- magic that can be evoked through a long and painstaking devotion to stone, wood, water or even animals such as the mighty Ranyhyn horses. Led by the tiny but determined Council of Lords from their great keep of Revelstone they attempt to preserve the beauty of the Land against the remorseless armies of the Despiser.

Thomas Covenant, a nondescript man whose wife and son have fled after he is diagnosed with leprosy, is mystically and unwillingly transported to the Land in a time of crisis when Lord Foul's plans approach their time of fruition. He wears a wedding ring of white gold -- metal found nowhere else in the Land -- that proves to be a talisman of indescribably powerful sorcery, making him a wild card in the war against the Despiser. His lack of control of the white gold and his bottomless well of self-loathing, confusion, cynicism and rage imperil his friends as surely as the worst travails Lord Foul unleashes at them.

The core of the Chronicles, and the reason they stand far apart from any fantasy novel I've ever read, lies in the psychological makeup and flawed but undeniable humanity of the main protagonist, Thomas Covenant. He is not a noble hero in the classical sense like Beowulf or King Arthur, a powerful wizard like Merlin or Gandalf, or even a flawed anti-hero such as Elric, but rather a diseased and spiritually crippled human catapulted from his hateful existence as a shunned leper in our Earth into a strange and alien world with which he is unprepared to cope. He is not merely reluctant to take part in a grand adventure, as were Bilbo and Frodo, he is entirely unwilling to participate or even believe in the reality of his circumstances. To survive the lurking and incurable physical dangers of disfiguring leprosy he has had to become ruthlessly clinical and emotionless, constantly vigilant of his frail physical condition. He's abandoned the hope of ever being healthy again, and his wife's and community's repudiation of him has denied or abrogated his most basic human needs for companionship, understanding, acceptance, sexual fulfillment and love.

So it is with a sense of fascination as the story unfolds over many hundreds of pages to see this disgusting, hated and self-hating pariah slowly and painfully learn to reclaim his essential humanity; to accept and put his faith in his friends, to weed out the festering emotional and spiritual sores that drove him to some pretty horrible acts, to learn a deep and abiding love for the beauty and the people of the Land, and to commit himself literally body and soul to warding them from the wrath of the Despiser. The Chronicles are powerful, whether the reader chooses to see them as merely fantasy writing or as an exploration of one man's psyche. And like the Lord of the Rings, the reader does not walk away from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant unchanged.