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Author Notes
Stephen Donaldson, 1947 - Novelist Stephen Donaldson was born on May 13, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio to James R. Donaldson, a medical missionary, and Mary Ruth Reeder, a prosthetist. His father was an orthopedic surgeon that worked with lepers in India. He lived in India between the ages of three to sixteen and while listening to one of his father's lectures on leprosy, he conceived the legendary Thomas Covenant. Donaldson attended the College of Wooster, Ohio and graduated in 1968. Afterwards, he spent two years being a conscientious objector doing hospital work in Akron and then attended Kent University where he received an M.A. in English.
Donaldson's publishing debut was with "Lord Foul's Bane" (1977), which was the first book in the fantasy trilogy entitled The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. It was named best novel of the year by the British Fantasy Society and received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, in 1979. He followed with the sequel series The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, also set in The Land, starting with "Daughter of Regals," and then the Mordant's Need series with "The Mirror of Her Dreams" and "A Man Rides Through." Donaldson is also the author of the Gap Into series of science fiction adventure that began with "The Real Story" and followed with "Forbidden Knowledge," "A Dark and Hungry God Arises," and "Chaos and Order."
In addition to the awards he received for his first novel/series, Donaldson has also received the Balrog Fantasy Award for Best Novel for "The Wounded Land" in 1981 and for "The One Tree" in 1983, the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Novel for "The One Tree" in 1983, the Balrog Fantasy Award for Best Collection for "Daughter of Regals and Other Tales" in 1985, and the Science Fiction Book Club Award for Best Book of the Year for "The Mirror of Her Dreams" in 1988 and "A Man Rides Through" in 1989. He also received The College of Wooster Distinguished Alumni Award in 1989, the WIN/WIN Popular Fiction Readers Choice Award for Favorite Fantasy Author in 1991, the Atlanta Fantasy Fair Award for Outstanding Achievement in 1992 and the President's Award, The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts in 1997.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Drawing on a rich vein of science fiction, Donaldson brings to a resounding, though not triumphant, conclusion his Gap series, begun with The Gap into Conflict (1992) and continued through The Gap into Madness (1994). The struggle between Warden Dios, director of the United Mining Companies Police, and Horst Fasner, CEO of United Mining Companies itself, reaches a climax here. So does the tension between the human race and the alien Amnion, exacerbated by human development of a drug that prevents people from being mutated into the aliens. Meanwhile, much-victimized Morn Hyland and her motley crew are heading for Earth and arrive at the same time as an Amnion warship. The first third of the novel wins no marks for pacing, but later portions pick up speed, with the final battles near Earth satisfying all requirements for logic, excitement and catharsis. Donaldson's usual weaknesses are in evidence: substitution of scenery-chewing and angst for characterization, and an abundance of prolix passages. Too, this volume may confound those new to the series. But it's a crowd-pleasing story told on a grand scale, SF adventure with a genuinely galactic feel. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Fifth and final part--maybe--of Donaldson's hypercomplicated galactic Gap saga (Chaos and Order, 1994, etc.). The power struggle between corrupt but enlightened United Mining Companies police boss Warden Dios and the malign, manipulative UMC chief executive Holt Fasner has reached a critical stage. Meanwhile, the Amnion, aliens who intend to conquer human space by mutating humans into Amnion, close in on Dios's pawns, raging cyborg Angus Thermopyle, brutalized cop Morn Hyland and her clone/son Davies, and biology whiz Vector Shaheed. The latter has invented an antidote to the Amnion's mutation--inducing infection--but will he survive long enough to tell Dios about it? Not that Donaldson provides a summary of these events--you're supposed to remember all this, or else pick it up as you go along. Anyhow, eventually the threat posed by Fasner (he's done a deal with the Amnion, betraying the human race in return for immortality) will be neutralized, and the human power struggle resolved; but the Amnion, despite a temporary setback, remain, leaving plenty of scope for further sequels. Not quite as apocalyptic as the title suggests, though there's more than enough anguish, woe, and screeching metal to keep addicts hooked; for Donaldson, it's almost an upbeat conclusion.
Booklist Review
The reliably best-selling Donaldson concludes his sf saga about threats within and without to the universe-spanning United Mining Companies and, ultimately, to all humanity with a book that is more talk than anything else. Gone are the nasty S & M high jinks of the saga's early volumes. Gone, for the most part, too, are the intramural brawling and bashing (friends in this epic seem far deadlier to themselves than to enemies) of the middle parts. Instead, there is page after page of tense, beleaguered, suspicious conversation interspersed with glimpses of the various speakers' unspoken thoughts. This is presented predominantly in tiny, one-and two-sentence burps rather than sensible paragraphs; even single speeches are split into several little paragraphs that make the characters seem dyspeptic. Description of places and persons is virtually absent; the whole thing reads more like a vast script than a novel. Fans who've stuck the saga out will be pleased to know that Morn Hyland, the tough-cookie damsel either in distress or under stress in the first four volumes, gets out of it all alive. Lord knows, they might be pleased with the rest of it, too. (Reviewed Feb. 15, 1996)0553071807Ray Olson
Library Journal Review
Donaldson closes out his best-selling "Gap" series with this sf tale. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.