I had many seeds to my daydreams. Stephen R. Donaldson was one who fed my imagination with his anti-hero Thomas Covenant. Like Covenant, I did not belong to the small puritanical community where I lived. When I didn’t—or couldn’t—participate in the activities the community considered important, they called me a faggot, threatened, and beat me. I had a refrain that saved me; Be true.

Right now, gods are ruling your life, and those gods must die. It is inevitable. From the beginning of the The Gap Cycle the gods of the UMC and UMCP have been pulling the strings of our characters. The brutal rape and humiliation of Morn Hyland in the The Real Story was nothing compared the rape of humanity committed by the UMC on human space. From the forming of the United Mining Corporation to events in Forbidden Knowledge humanity was enslaved to Holt Fasner’s desire for immortality. Warden Dios was the hand that shaped Holt’s vision, but it became too much, and Warden decided to kill the Dragon.

We never visit the giant's point of view. What joy to see this world through eyes of Pitchwife, or even brave and capable Honniscrave? An odd choice since it is the giants who move the story forward. Without them the story would grind to a halt on Linden's old-world misery that is so awful that even when she does act, she does so out of regret. The weight of it is too much for this lengthy novel. However, when The One Tree is good, it is spectacular.