Rating: 
Summary: To Heal the Earth
Review: The Lair of Bones is the fourth novel in the Sum of All Men series, following Wizardborn. In the previous volume, Averan learns that she is an Earth wizard and is tutored by Binnesman. Moreover, she gains the capability of reading the Reaver scent and learns a path to the Lair of Bones. She cannot describe it to Gaborn, but can lead him there.Borenson saves Myrrima's life by immersing her in water and Myrrima learns that she is a Water Wizardess and can go live in the sea with other Water Wizards, but she stays to be with Borenson. Erin, with her husband Celinor, is "escorted" by troops from King Anders, who now insists that he is the new Earth King. Raj Ahten sends men to destroy the Mystarrian Rune Lord's Dedicates, but the men, women and children in Carris prevail against the Reavers anyway. In this novel, Raj Ahten returns to his palace in triumph, which is interrupted by "advice" from his uncle. Ahten silences him by having the crowd cut out his tongue. Wuqaz Faharaquin watches this event with other Ah'Kellah and they determine that Ahten must be taken down. Gaborn and Averan prepare to enter the Underworld to find and destroy the Seals of destruction. Gaborn also takes Binnesman and his Wylde and Iome forces herself into the company, for she knows Gaborn will not protect himself, so she will be his protection. She starts by telling the facilitators to vector as many Dedicates as possible to him, for she knows that this is essential to complete his mission; yet she keeps this information from Gaborn as long as possible, for he would not elect to do this for himself. Gaborn, Averan, Binnesman, Iome, and the Wylde start down the wide tunnel, trampled flat by the tens of thousands Reavers who had passed that way not long before. Vines and other vegetation have been shredded, stalactites broken off, and stalagmites crushed underfoot. They find Reaver hunter way stations along the route. Soon they hear the thunder of a new army of Reavers coming toward them. Borenson and Myrrima travel as Gaborn's emissaries to the powerful Marquis de Ferecia, who had sat out the last invasion, and to the Inkarrans, who have sealed off their land from Mystarria. On the way, they fear that an unknown rider in Inkarran gear is an assassin following them. Before they reached Batenne, where the Marquis' castle is located, they pause to rest and Myrrima proves her love for him is greater than for Water by taking him deeply into a moor pool, making love and bestowing the serenity of water upon him. Erin is brought before King Anders and soon learns that Celinor has been acting as Anders' spy. She wonders how much Celinor really loves her and she is worried that Anders is possessed by a locus, a dark and immortal spirit. She finally confronts her own dreams and learns that she has a spiritual helper. This novel is the conclusion to the series. However, it leaves room for subsequent series featuring Averan and other characters in this one. What will the author do next? Highly recommended for Farland fans and for anyone else who enjoys complex and complicated epic fantasies with a mythic feel and a somewhat different approach.
Rating: 
Summary: Over so soon?
Review: The last(?) book in the series. There are a few threads that seemed to be glossed over but the main part of the story is pretty good. Gaborn finally gets to the Reavers and the true enemy is revealed. He ends the story of the invasion of the Reavers but leaves the possibility for more. I give it a B/B- on the StuPage Reviews.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible Conclusion to a fantastic series
Review: The Runelord series began a few years ago visiting Fantasy from a totally different perspective. I admit that it took a bit to get used to -- for me at least -- but once I did, I found myself totally absorbed by what I was reading. As I write this, I can think of NO OTHER FANTASY SERIES that uses magic as creatively as does this series of novels. The ability to donate one of your own personal attributes to another is absolutely a stunning piece of creativity in the world of fantasy literature. Everything from your voice, wit, strength, stamina, metabolism, smell and even sight -- all can be transferred from one person to another. The VERY interesting part about doing this is once you have donated, either by force or willingly, ANY attribute to another, you then become a dedicate of the Runelord who is using you. It is up to them to keep you safe, and take care of you as much as possible, and should you happen to die, the Runelord will lose that attribute instantly. Our resident bad guy, Raj, has the attributes of literally thousands of people and animals and is therefore as close to immortal as a human can get. But even though Raj represents an incredible threat to the peace-loving people of the Earth King Gaborn, they both face an even bigger threat from the hoardes of Reavers who have begun to spew forth from the very bowels of the earth to wreak catastrophic chaos and death wherever they go. Virtually each and every character is treated as though they are absolutely pivotal to the plots progression -- because they are. We have more than just a small group of people who take center stage surrounded by many supporting characters, no almost everyone is a main character in their own right. I found this to be incredibly facinating as I began this series, and realized that I enjoyed it very much. Just when you start to wonder what is happening to one person, Farland switches gears and gives us more insight into yet another main character and suddenly the focus of where you THOUGHT the novel was heading goes into a totally different direction. This is what I loved MOST about this entire series, while I could speculate and guess where certain portions of the book would end up, the vast majority of the time I was absolutely unaware of what would happen next. Not on the explosively unpredictable level you might find in George R. R. Martin's 'Song of Ice & Fire' series, but close. The Lair of Bones is where this story takes you. Into the earth (literally) to find the One True master. What more of the mystery behind the Reavers does Averan discover? Do the Reavers prevail? What happens to Raj Ahtan? What is in store for the Earth King and his people? ALL of this is answered in fine fashion within the pages of 'The Lair of Bones'. Farland ties up the loose ends nicely and unlike Robert Jordan who seems to have created such a complex and convoluted storyline that even HE doesn't know where to go next, The Runelord Series has been guided by a steady hand from the beginning and comes to an incredible conclusion wrapping up the major storylines in my opinion quite nicely. Will there be more from the world of The Runelords? I have it on good authority that there WILL be more from Farland in the not-too-distant future. You can COUNT on the fact that I definitely WILL be following whatever comes next. Kudos to David Farland for giving this particular reader an exciting and quite unpredictable experience. One that I plan on re-experiencing again soon.
Rating: 
Summary: What The *^&%#!+?**$!
Review: There is all this talk out there about Authors drawing out the story line longer than it should be. I won't name the two that released this year. Well that's not the problem here. I liked the story, the action, the Hero's dedication. But, if there ever was a story that needed to be stretched it was this one. I like the book for what it was. David Farland was sick of writing and tried to wrap it up in short order. He left alot of things unanswered,unfinished and unsaid.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Ending to Enjoyable Ride
Review: This 4th book in the Runelords series does a thorough job of bringing everything to a close. I enjoy a good never-ending fantasy saga as much as the next geek, but it is pleasant to occasionally have a story all wrapped up in a neat little bow. Lair of Bones does that comprehensively--personally, I could only think of one dangling plot line that I would have liked to see closed. And all done in a way that leaves natural room for more books later without leaving nagging questions unanswered. To me, that is a satisfying conclusion. The one criticism I have is that after a well paced storyline for 3 books, the second half of Lair of Bones seems rushed compared to the other books. There was a lot to resolve and another 50-75 pages could have made some of the resolutions feel more fleshed out. I enjoyed the series, would suggest it without hesitation and hope there will be more. If the movie makes it to theaters, I'll be there!
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Ending to Enjoyable Ride
Review: This 4th book in the Runelords series does a thorough job of bringing everything to a close. I enjoy a good never-ending fantasy saga as much as the next geek, but it is pleasant to occasionally have a story all wrapped up in a neat little bow. Lair of Bones does that comprehensively--personally, I could only think of one dangling plot line that I would have liked to see closed. And all done in a way that leaves natural room for more books later without leaving nagging questions unanswered. To me, that is a satisfying conclusion. The one criticism I have is that after a well paced storyline for 3 books, the second half of Lair of Bones seems rushed compared to the other books. There was a lot to resolve and another 50-75 pages could have made some of the resolutions feel more fleshed out. I enjoyed the series, would suggest it without hesitation and hope there will be more. If the movie makes it to theaters, I'll be there!
Rating: 
Summary: A far cry from the previous books
Review: This book provides an ending (seemingly) to the Runelord saga in a very concise and short book. It would appear to me as though the author had created a fantastic land with multiple storylines of varying complexities and just simply grew bored of it and wanted to give it an end. The story lines of all the main characters are ended with minimum of fanfare. The good guys win; the bad guy(s) are defeated in a minimum of pages(the reaver queen and raj ahten) and that is about it. I think I would classify this book as a let down. I think the author had a lot of good ideas (the runelords, endowments, the history of the land) and just really let that whole thing go to a waste. I am not saying there should have been more books in the series (overall I think the series took 10 real days for completion) but I think that a lot of storylines should have been fleshed out a bit and completed. The book ends somewhat suddenly and doesn't realy set the reader up in regards to later books in the series. There are some storylines that could be continued, but since they weren't well constructed in this book, I am not so sure I would go and read them. (spoiler) the last 10 pages of the book take place over a few months time (a longer stretch of time than teh entire three books took up)... I think this book could have been great, the only reason I gave it the three stars instead of 2 or 1 was because the previous three books were good, and I wanted to see how the series ended. David Farland: you can do better!
Rating: 
Summary: Zero stars would be more appropriate
Review: Ugh. I had such high hopes for this series when it first started. Great premise, great ideas, just needed a more technically sound writer, or better editors. Didn't matter in the long run, however, as nothing could save this last book. Guy Gavriel Kay, Steven Erikson and George Martin couldn't save this book. Pity too, because now my view of the first book is lessened by having read this hopefully last book in the series. Other people have summarized the characters well enough and frankly, each one to an eyelash is dreadfully boring, or became boring after the first book. Even Raj is a dullard. Maybe it is because there isn't a law of diminishing returns on endowments... I wish Farland had taken an endowment of restraint and not written this book.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible, just horrible
Review: What an awful book. Everything from the cover art to the writing has gone downhill from the first Runelords book to the point now where none of it is worth reading. David Farland has always been a marginal writer, but stupid me, I hung in there to see where it would lead. Hopefully it really is over now. I can't believe I wasted my time and money on this awful series.
Rating:
Summary: Nice Break from Endless Epics
Review: Yes, the other reviews were right in that it has a very abrupt ending, and the final chapter has a pace that leaves the reader wanting an endowment of metabolism, but there IS an end. How many fantasy series coming out of the '90s can say that? The pace leaves the characters a little less developed than I would have preferred, but not so much so that you can't cheer for them. I was pleased with this book for its intense action and closure (I'm not saying more isn't forthcoming, but this story line is done).
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