If Thomas Covenant’s abrupt passage into the Land hooked you, you’ll love how five students from Toronto are drawn into Fionavar’s ancient struggle in The Summer Tree. Like Covenant’s bewildered arrival by the Mithil and his uneasy summons to Revelstone, Paul Schäfer and his friends must adapt fast to a realm ruled by deep lore and a dark power—Rakoth Maugrim—whose menace echoes Lord Foul’s. The book leans into outsider status, ritual, and sacrifice, delivering that same mix of awe and dread you felt as the white gold’s “wild magic” became the fulcrum of a world’s fate.

If you were riveted by Covenant’s transgressive choices—his refusal to play the savior, the way his trauma twists his actions from Lena to his balking at the Lords’ pleas—then Jorg Ancrath’s ruthless voice in Prince of Thorns will grip you. Jorg, like Covenant, is scarred and dangerous, driving events with a will that’s as compelling as it is troubling. Where Covenant’s white gold erupts unpredictably, Jorg leverages sheer will and brutal cunning; both narratives dare you to follow a protagonist who may do the wrong thing for reasons you can’t quite dismiss.

If Covenant’s ceaseless self-interrogation—his denial of the Land’s reality, his guilt after Lena, his fraught rapport with Saltheart Foamfollower—was what pulled you in, Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer offers a haunting parallel. Severian, expelled from the torturers’ guild in Nessus, narrates with dazzling introspection and philosophical digressions that challenge what you can trust, much as Covenant’s disbelief colors every encounter from the Bloodguard’s oaths to Lord Foul’s threats. The psychological depth makes every step of the journey feel riddled with moral weight and ambiguity.

Covenant’s terror of misusing the white gold—and the Lords’ warnings about consequences—find a kindred echo in A Wizard of Earthsea. Ged’s true-named magic is potent but ethically constrained; a single reckless act unleashes a shadow that hunts him, much like how Covenant’s choices reverberate across the Land from Revelstone to the wild places. If you appreciated how every act of power in Lord Foul’s shadow carried a cost, Ged’s long reckoning with responsibility will resonate powerfully.

If the Land’s grim undercurrent—the creeping corruption, Ravers and ur-viles, perilous treks toward Mount Thunder—kept you tense, The Black Company matches that grit. Through Croaker’s blunt annals, you’ll march with mercenaries under a tyrant’s banner, where choices are murky and survival trumps chivalry. The tone mirrors the harsh calculus Covenant faces when every skirmish and bargain exacts a price, and moments of wonder arrive edged with danger.