Lord Foul’s Bane

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Book 1

By: Stephen R. Donaldson

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Thomas Covenant is a leper, a bitter and solitary pariah who is mystically transported to another Earth where time moves differently than ours, one in which magic takes many forms. The Land is threatened by many evils, the most immediate of which is a maddened Cavewight whose subterranean excavations have unearthed the ancient and puissant Staff of Law.

More dangerous to the free people of the Land is the Gray Slayer, Lord Foul, the Despiser, who intends to destroy the actual foundations of the Earth that he might wage war against the universe’s creator. And Foul’s intended weapon in this conflict? None other than Thomas Covenant himself.

©1977 Stephen R. Donaldson (P)2020 Brick by Brick Audiobooks

Presentation great, story meh

the one thing you expect in a fantasy story is a hero and villain that are clear. in this story the hero is a whiner, useless, raping scumbag. The villain is vague and not really engaging until the very end and only then laughs. The minor villain turns out to be almost as whiney as the hero. Maybe this sets the stage for further books, but by itself is pretty weak IMO.

An excellent telling of the UnBeliever’s tale

Book one of the series. The narrator does a wonderful job of not only telling the story but keeping the listener excited to hear more.

Awesome series @

one of my all time favorite series and Authors . I would recommend it to anyone.

Narrator did not do this book justice.

Hard to listen to because of the narrator and way it is written. It was difficult to multitask because it took the narrator 10 minutes to finish a single sentence. all the voices were identical, and the whole book was read as if he was about to cry. The material however, was good and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I will be buying the next books to read to myself. I believe that will provide a better experience.

Amazing performance of a classic

Brick is definitely one of the best in the business. He really brings the characters to life, and makes the emotions that they are feeling palpable and relatable. As for the writing itself, Donaldson is at the top of the genre. I have read many of the great fantasy novels, but this is my favorite. World building inspired by Tolkien, but more focused. Characters fleshed out with gritty realism like Martin. Top tier fantasy, not for the feint of heart

Mr. Bricks weining over dramatic narration...

very hard to listen to Brick's Nasal, weining aver dramatized narration . the only good thing about him is... he had good diction otherwise painful ...
the story is good , a bit repetitive at times.... written to be an epic like lord of the rings.
falls short on that point but a good story non the less.

Great story

Very unique story. I read the series in high school and remembered it well. So now I’m 59 years old and got the audio book and it’s still a great story and unique. The voice actor is great and easy to listen to. There are the usual overused devices and laborious descriptions, but the series is still one of my favorite fantasy stories in my life. Written and subject matter Id say aimed at older teen or adults. Donaldson does a good job of finding a way for his protagonist to curse without actually swearing.

interesting dream/reality conflict

unorthodox main characters internal conflict is what I found the most interesting aspect of this book. It also seemed to utilize many of the tropes from lotr, but also seemed an inspiration to later authors...I recognized what I felt was many associations with characters/situations with Robert Jordan.

ugh, this narrator is killing me

The story is good and the narrator's voice and characterization is good, but the entire book is read in quick, breathless preachy manner. Even when it's a calm, no action scene. it's like listening to an over excited Captain Kirk blurting out 8 word sentences as if your life depended on every word. It's exhausting. I'm 6 hours in.....I'd like to finish the story, but this guy is killing me.

best fantasy series ever

This is among the very best fantasy i have ever known. The writing is obviously donaldsons earliest efforts, with some over used metaphores and such, but the quality of charachters and especially world building, sets the chronicles in a league of thier own. The narration took me some time to get used to, but in the end I feel Scotts dramatic tone was well suited to the tale he was telling. stick with this series and you will note be disappointed.