Publication Order of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever Books
Lord Foul’s Bane
1977
The Illearth War
1977
The Power That Preserves
1977
Publication Order of The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Books
The Wounded Land
1980
The One Tree
1982
White Gold Wielder
1983
Publication Order of The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Books
The Runes of the Earth
2004
Fatal Revenant
2007
Against All Things Ending
2010
The Last Dark
2013
Publication Order of Mordant’s Need Books
The Mirror of Her Dreams
1986
A Man Rides Through
1987
Publication Order of The Gap Cycle Books
The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story
1990
The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge
1991
The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises
1992
The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order
1994
The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die
1996
Publication Order of The Man Who Books
The Man Who Killed His Brother
1980
The Man Who Risked His Partner
1984
The Man Who Tried to Get Away
1990
The Man Who Fought Alone
2001
Publication Order of The Great God’s War Books
Seventh Decimate
2017
The War Within
2019
The Killing God
2022
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
Gilden-Fire
1981
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Daughter of Regals and Other Tales
1984
Reave the Just and Other Tales
1998
The King’s Justice: Two Novellas
2015
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Epic Fantasy in the Modern World: A Few Observations
1986
About Stephen R. Donaldson
Stephen R. Donaldson is an American author of fantasy, science fiction and mystery novels, best known for “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant”, a ten-novel fantasy series published between 1977 and 2013. His other work includes the five-book science fiction sequence the Gap Cycle and the fantasy trilogy “The Great God’s War”.
Donaldson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947 and lived in India until 1963, where his father was a medical missionary who worked with leprosy patients. He graduated from the College of Wooster in 1968, spent two years doing hospital work in Akron as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, and received an MA in English from Kent State University in 1971. He dropped out of a PhD programme and moved to New Jersey to write fiction. He now lives in New Mexico.
His debut, “Lord Foul’s Bane”, appeared in 1977 and opened the first Covenant trilogy. Its central figure is Thomas Covenant, a leper shunned by his own society who is drawn into another world, the Land, and expected to save it from Lord Foul. A second trilogy followed between 1980 and 1983, and a four-book conclusion, “The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant”, ran from “The Runes of the Earth” (2004) to “The Last Dark” (2013). Its second volume, “Fatal Revenant”, reached number 12 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2007.
“Mordant’s Need”, a two-book fantasy in which mirrors are the medium of magic, came out in 1986 and 1987. The Gap Cycle (1990 to 1996) is a space epic that Donaldson wrote in part as a reworking of Wagner’s Ring cycle. He also wrote four detective novels about the private investigators Mick Axbrewder and Ginny Fistoulari. The first three were issued under the pseudonym Reed Stephens at his publisher’s insistence and later reprinted under his own name.
Donaldson won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the British Fantasy Award for “Lord Foul’s Bane” in 1979, and the World Fantasy Award in 2000 for the collection “Reave the Just and Other Tales”. The University of St Andrews gave him an honorary doctorate in 2009. His most recent novel is “The Killing God” (2022), the final volume of “The Great God’s War”. In February 2024 he reported on his website that he had finished a novella, “The King’s Emissary”, a sequel to “The King’s Justice”, which was then looking for a publisher.
