Worst book of the chronicles?

[Nerdanel]

I think The One Tree is my least favorite book in the series. It lacks much of the darkness from the other books which for me is a bad thing, and while there are many good passages the whole lacks cohesion.

The second is Lord Foul's Bane. It feels a little rough around the edges due to it being Donaldson's first novel.

[Brinn of the Haruchai]

I think everyone is missing the point with TWL. It HAS to be painful and frustrating, we are reading about a land that we love and was beautiful. It took 300 yrs to destroy and SRD wants us to feel the desolation and utter despair of the Land. It has to be written in this manner to get us feeling TC's feelings.

[fightingmyinstincts]

I just hate reading about the army marching, marching, marching....Ugh! How they were so tired they didn't sweat, how some of them just died....And it was a little slow, but Mhoram fighting the Raver was good, if that was in this book...I get mixed up...
I liked TWL, except when I was reading about the desert and the lack of water while the a/c wasn't working...hehe, I never knew reading could make me that thirsty.

[shrike]

I'd have to go with Lord Foul's Bane, but it's a tough call. The whole quest thing had a derivative feel to it, especially when you didn't know what was coming next.

Best book I'd nominate The One Tree.

Oops the syllable Nom was in there. Gotta run

[srtrout]

I am surprised that so few of you enjoyed The Wounded Land, my favorite book of the series. After finding a complete set of the first Chronicles abandoned in a hospital room, I was surprised one day to find TWL in the library. I stayed up until 4 am to finish it!, something I have done with no other book.

Part of the attraction was the delight and interest Covenant had in returning to the Land. Have you ever gone somewhere and yearned to return, and then delighted in the good parts of it when you finally did? It was especially true of his time back in Andelain. True, the Land was in big trouble and was "perverted" by the Clave, but Covenant still saw the goodness and beauty that persisted.

[CovenantJr]

Although TWL is one of my least-loved installments of TCTC, there is one feature in it that really struck me, and made me think (I believe I have mentioned this before, waaaaaaaay back when I first joined Kevin's Watch, nearly a year ago ). It was relatively brief, but I remember finding myself lying awake contemplating it!...

Near the beginning of TWL, just after TC and the accursed Linden have decended from the Watch: Messiah parallels. The predicted 'second coming', the shrines (or churches...) that had been constructed but were falling into disrepair do to lack of dilligence and belief. The Clave's twisted accounts of TC's previous exploits (how accurate is the Bible?...). And of course, when TC is first spotted by that old man - I forget his name - who gapes at TC's arrival, and the disbelief of the Stonedowners (if some bloke showed up right now and said "Hi, I'm Jesus. No really, I am!", how many people would believe him?...).

Sorry if that all sounded a little blunt, I mean no disrespect to anyone's religion, I just couldn't think of another way to get my point across

[Lord Mhoram]

I'd say Illearth War-1st Chronicles Wounded Land overall(cuz of Linden)
Best is hands down the Power that Preserves!

[Tenara]

Wow, this is a difficult one. Since it's so long since I've read the Second Chronicles, it's really hard to think.

If I had to choose one, I would have to choose TWL, not because it's the worst book - I don't think there is a "worst" - but because it's my least favourite. It's the one in which the most horrible things happen. We find out the terrible things that have been done to the Land, and it just gets worse and worse as the book goes on. The only real exceptions to the heavy depressiveness IMHO are the discovery of the Haruchai at Revelstone and when Covenant's party meets the Giants.

TOT came as a relief to me. Getting away from the Land for a while made it much easier to read, and it was interesting to discover other parts of the world. By the time WGW came along, I was glad to be going back to the Land. It had a lot of bad points to it, but the highlights of the overthrow of the Clave, the defeat of Lord Foul and the healing of the Land made up for that.

My favourite book of the six is TIW, closely followed by TPTP. I think TIW is "better" overall, even though TPTP has some of my favourite scenes. I'm also probably in the minority in that I really enjoyed LFB. (Well, let's face it - if I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have read any more.) I spent the whole book falling in love with the Land and its people, and found Covenant's unbelief just a minor irritation. When I "rediscovered" the series 10 years after my first reading, I found myself with that "wide-eyed child" feeling reading LFB.

Sorry that was so long, everyone. I guess I had lots to say after all.

[Jehannum]

I'd have to go for Lord Foul's Bane. While still an excellent chapter in the chronicles, it's a little raw and not nearly as dramatic as 'The Power that Preserves' or 'The One Tree'.

[Lord Mhoram]

Well said Jehannum! Welcome, but are Ravers truly welcome? Welcome to Kevins Watch!

[Guest]

it would have to be the illearth war. i have a very strong dislike of both elena and troy. i find them both very irritating. the parts of the book without them, like seareach and the war itself, are just fine, though.

[High Lord Prothall]

When I first read the series in 1991, The One Tree was my least favorite of them all because I was expecting the Elohim to have the dignity and compassion of the old Lords, so I wanted to throw the book across the room, I was so mad at them Also 1/3 of the book was about Kasreyn which seemed to be a big chunk for a subplot.

After rereading the series again, my least favorite is WGW because it is even more depressing for me than TWL. It would have been more satisfying if Sunder & Hollian could have mustered some resistance from the villiages. Then to boot you have the last bastion of the Waynhim destroyed along with the zoo and arboretum they would have used to repopulate the Land, and Andelain severely damaged. At the end when TC & LA redeem the land again there's practically nobody left alive to celebrate it, so there's almost a "What's the point" about the novel at the end.

TWL is still one of my favorite of the series. There is still hope for the Land's future so I didn't find it as depressing as WGW, and it's great to see TC fight and behave with the dignity of the old Lords, and I like the Sarangrave Flat sequence near the end, and finally the whole Clave setup is an interesting metaphor for the opression of organized religion in our world.

[duchess of malfi]

All of these books are very well written, IMHO. It would be hard to choose my least favorite, but I suppose that it would have to be The Wounded Land. I really fell in love with the Land in the first three books, and finding it to be so damaged and changed -- and the people all going from dedicated to each other and their country, well, they sacrifice each other instead of themselves. It was emotionally painful for me to read. High Lord Prothall has a good point about WGW, too. Everything is so decimated by the end of the book...you've got to wonder what'll be left for the third chronicles...

[Prince of Amber]

I must be in a minority here, but I really do prefer the 2nd Chronicles, my least favorite book is TIW, and I still Love that book, TOT would be the book I would take with me on a desert Island (but don't know if I could stand to read any of them in isolation )

I don't like Elena - but I think she was an essential character, I don't know if we need to get into too much detail about the relationship between her and TC (it is only a book ) and I had no real love for Troy, and I got a little bored with the march of the army.

[Hile Troy]

Oh man, I love all of the books! This is hard but I guess I would say TOT because it really begins to slow between the companion's ship journey to Elemesnedene to Bhrathairain to the One Tree. Some of the Linden/Thomas introspection gets abit redundant. But the actually landing on these lands and what happens afterwards is marvelous.

BTW, I love Elena because she is fascinating and well drawn-out. This character is necessary. And I like Hile Troy because he is another character from earth. In addition, I love the TC/Troy relationship and it's conflicts, they are nearly an antithesis of one another in representing figures of Earth though they are driven by the same desired goals for the Land.

[Landwaster]

From my own opinion, my least loved book of the 6 is The Power That Preserves.

Although TWL is depressing, cor blimey isn't the whole series depressing? Isn't that the point? But TPTP held for me much more downcastness than TWL, and I think it wasn't meant that way. The whole book was cold, wintry, icy, windy, dreary ... what I wouldn't pay for a little Sunbane!

Favourite is probably WGW.

[duchess of malfi]

Donaldson is just describing Michigan in the wintertime. Sometimes we don't see the sun for weeks on end!

[Guest]

Maybe it's not Michigan's winter. Maybe it's Ohio's. An Ohio winter would be a big shock to someone who spent a bunch of time in India. Cold, snow, not seeing the sun for weeks/months at a time. I knew a guy who moved to Ohio from Colorado and he thought he'd lose his mind because you never see the sun during the winter. Very, very cloudy and dismal. Dreary as hell.

[Zahir]

What I usually tell people is that, unlike most series, each novel (imo) is better than the last. So, by default, the worst one (or least good) is <i>Lord Foul's Bane</i>.

[[Syl]]

I think I might be in the minority on this one, but LFB has to be my favorite. We get introduced to Covenant, The Land, Saltheart, etc. You can also feel how heavily loaded the first several chapters are, like a horse charging straight out of the gate.

I'm a sucker for the narrative hook.