Well, I truly enjoyed this one. It is old school traditional fantasy with some interesting elements, notably the use of runes and the endowment system. The latter, which is the driving factor of this world’s magic system, makes for a truly unique dynamic and directly affects the narrative. As such, although there is lots of familiar territory, there is also a lot here that you are extremely unlikely to find anywhere else. Having been published in the 1990s this is a product of that era. That’s t...

“When you behold the face of pure evil, it will be beautiful.” There was an interesting use of magic and augmentation of power(s) in David Farland's The Runelords. Characters can essentially become 'the sum of all men' by coercing or forcing others to give up attributes like intelligence, stamina, strength or vision. For all practical purposes, this gives them superhuman or godlike abilities. In some cases, the augmentation process Farland describes feels more barbarous than an execution. Howeve...

I will admit that Dave is a personal friend of mine and I read this book in manuscript form about a year and a half before its publication. From what I remember, the draft I read was a bit more dark and gritty than the book that eventually came out in print. I think I liked his original draft more than the finished product. It seemed the editors at TOR kinda had him lighten the tone and ending a bit. I could be wrong, it's been about 13-14 years since i read both the manuscript and the published...

Man versus Nature. Writ large. Or larger, if you consider we're dealing with whole armies concentrated into a single man or the Earth in the other.This is an epic fantasy that's competent in characters if not in extensive worldbuilding. But more importantly, it runs with a very, very cool idea. And cool ideas are COOL. The skinny? Attributes can be given or taken from people and added to other individuals. Use runes plus guile, absolute force, or desperate pleading, and then you've got some insa...

I read this one a long time ago - probably very close to when it was published in 1998. I'm prompted to review it by David Farland's untimely death a few months back.It's a fun fantasy story that centres on one strong idea and runs with it ... apparently for 9 books!I don't tend to stick with series for the long haul and I think I only read the first two in this one.The magic that drives this story is clever in that it not only provides all manner of super-powers to our heroes and villains, but

We have here what (I hope) is to be the opening book of a new epic fantasy series. This is another series I've "been meaning to get to" for years. It lay waiting as I read other things.The world here is built around a society that has grown up since a devastating past war (have we seen that before?) with a race of creatures called Reavers. They were not human...in the least. They came from deep underground and from a source of life unlike any surface life. It was a near thing but just before hum...

3.0 stars. One of the more original "systems" of magic I have read about in some time. I thought the author did a decent job of exploring the results of the system as well though I thought the story and the prose were just okay. Still, a pretty good read.

9% done:So, I first came across David Farland way back in the day writing as Dave Wolverton with Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia. It was a perfectly adequate Star Wars adventure notable more for the people, places, and things that it introduced to the then-fledgling Star Wars Expanded Universe than for actually being a good book. At the time, there was the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn, which were probably the best 3 books that the SWEU ever had to offer, and Truce at Bakura by Kathy

QUICK STORY: As various nobles fight it out, Raj Ahten, the villain, takes over various lands one by one. Prince Gaborn and his father try to stop him and in the process involve another kingdom called Silvanesti. But, there is a greater need . . . the Earth is rejecting humanity and only one such as Prince Gaborn can fully protect and extract the powers/mysteries of the Earth.SHORT WORD FEELING: Good prose but characters weren't entirely fleshed out as much as they could; great idea on endowment...

Interesting and engaging novel by Farland to be sure. This is the beginning of the sprawling Runelords saga, first published in 1998, and am planning on reading the next. The events in TR take place in only about a week, but Farland puts a lot of action into that week. TR reads as epic pulp fantasy, and that is not a bad thing; this is not a deep read, but, as far as popcorn reads go, you could do a lot worse.The world Farland builds here is complex and vast; clearly, he is laying the groundwork...

It was "okay" but I didn't "like it". Two stars seems a bit harsh but going by the goodreads guidelines here.I hadn't heard of this series before it kept cropping up on twitter. I thought it would be another Jordan clone of the eighties and nineties and in that aspect anyway I was surprised. It has a unique magic system reminiscent of Brandon Sanderson and must have seemed very new at the time. Rulers enhance their abilities, their looks, speed, power, voice, hearing, sight etc., by taking the s...

This was a reasonably good swords-and-sorcery type of fantasy adventure, well thought-out and with a very unusual magical system, and popular enough that it's a series of eight books so far. But I just could not with the way that their magic worked. It was highly disturbing, and it ruined the entire book for me. The magic functions on a system of "endowments": using the magical spells, one person permanently (until either the giver or the recipient dies) gifts another with his or her personal at...

This following review was an assignment for a fantasy literature course at BYU.The RunelordsAuthor, Title, Facts of Publication The Runelords was written by David Wolverton and published in 1998. The author used the pseudonym David Farland to market the book because he wanted it on store shelves in the F section as a marketing strategy. David Farland is a Mormon and LDS themes such as covenant making and sacrifice thread through his work. Setting The book takes place in the fantasy kingdom of Ro...

Rating 3.0 stars. If I had to describe this book in one word it would probably be "meh". I think the author was trying to hard to create an epic fantasy novel. The story was "okay", the magic system "okay", the character "okay". There seemed to be 2 kinds of magic in this world, one was called giving endowments. In this world a person could give a personal quality to someone else making the other person stronger. Some of the possible traits that could be giving were: sight, stamina, metabolism,...

As a writer who reads rather critically, I often find myself guessing the ending of a book, and sighing in disappointment as the plot plays out exactly as I'd expected, or worse, falls apart into meaningless mush. Well, not so with this book! Farland really is a master writer. There's no wasted exposition. The setting is alive with details. Each character was expertly drawn and different from every other character in ways important to the story. Their lives intertwined with purpose, and their re...

As I said in my review of On My Way to Paradise, I don't know how I missed Dave Wolverton back in the late 1990s, but I'm sure it had something to do with starting college, doing more homework and reading fewer novels, and, probably, girls. Whatever it was that distracted me at the time, I've found Wolverton, or Dave Farland as he goes by for his fantasy novels (and which name I'll use from here on out since this is a fantasy novel), and I feel like I've discovered some kind of not-so-hidden loc...

The Runeloards was everything I wanted in a fantasy. David Farland's world really blew me away. It feels ancient and believable in all the right ways, without clinging to racial tropes of the genre. He is one author that I could say surprises me with the decisions he makes throughout the story. I kind of ran through reading this without even realizing how fast I was devouring the tale. I'm already moving on to the second book now with an eagerness that excites me.

I don't know at all what to think about this series. There's its basic concept of people being used like livestock to give superpowers to a few boneheads. It does dwell on the...DUBIOUS morality, but not in a way that really provokes any thought or reaction.There's the naturalist religion that is SORT OF a counter to the rampant rune use and possibly a stand-in for christianity. But then it veers off into fairly arbitrary moral standards and inconsistent miracle-work (okay, maybe that reinforces...

*NOTE: SPOILER*Overall it wasn't that bad, but left me very disappointed. I think this was mainly due to the fact that I thought the author had some very promising ideas with a good plot, making a bad final quarter of the book leaving me feeling empty and dissatisfied. The original 'Endowment' concept was pretty interesting. The book was too long for what the storyline required, consequently, a lot of it was a tad boring. And i didn't like how there was no victory for the 'hero'. The blurb promi...

An Amazon Review:The Runelords is that rare book that will remind you why you started reading fantasy in the first place. Much of the setting--and even some of the story--is conventional fantasy fare, but David Farland, aside from being a masterful storyteller, has built his world around a complex and thought-provoking social system involving the exchange of "endowments." Attributes such as stamina, grace, and wit are a currency: a vassal may help his lord by endowing him with all of his strengt...