Rating: 
Summary: Slow start, good finish
Review: This book was difficult to get into. I almost gave up because it was s slow to start. The author had to explain how his magic would work. This made for some tedious chapters that bogged down the story.However, once the premise was set, the stories became quite interesting. The action was good and fast paced. The magic and wizards were interesting, as were the various creatures the author created. As with all series, the ending leaves you wanting a more definitive resolution to the story lines. In this book, The final battle takes place, loved ones are lost and the bad guy gets away. The story was interesting enough that I purchased the second book, The Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Rating: 
Summary: wow
Review: when i first saw the book, i was in a crowded airport bookshop, and needed a book for my flight, and i stumbled upon this book by mistake. i saw the cover and was intrigued, but hey, i judged the book by it's cover and was happy. when i first started to read it i was blown away, i had never seen such wonderous writings since i read "the hobbit" when i was little. after finishing the first book i was compeled to go out and see if there was a sequel, there was, but it hadn't been published yet. so sadly i returned home and waited. the day i did get the sequel, i found out that sequels can indeed out do the origional book, and this book did by all means. the third book, which to my dismay isn't out yet, ought to be as compelling and wonferful as the first two, and i encourage everyone to read david farland's wonerful books.
Rating:
Summary: Dynamite idea, fizzled delivery
Review: Okay, here's the thing: this book has a great premise. As someone who compulsively reads fantasy, this series was startlingly original. The idea that the nobility was endowed with the best of their vassals and in that way served them was really great -- on its face and as a metaphor. But. The reason David Farland changed his name after a career as Dave Wolverton (or Wolverine or something) was because he can't write. And the Runelords is poorly written, tentatively delivered and has the usual fantasy claptrap of a young male redeemer and a beautiful heroine. YAWN. This used to be acceptable in the fantasy world with writers as plodding and convoluted as Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind, but since George Martin has raised the bar of performance with his Ice and Fire series it isn't acceptable any longer. Come on, fantasy authors and readers! Aim your sights higher than a 6th grade reading level!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting story but with a few holes
Review: This was a fascinating and interesting story which started off with promise but ended with me thinking "huh?" The story started well with a sense of realistic urgency and character struggle but ended with "superpower" men slugging it out....making you wonder why waste runes make 100 guards somewhat powerful instead of making 1 or 2 guardsmen superpowerful... Most interesting were the moral conflicts of right and wrong...is it "right" to slay innocent people if they are helping the enemy? is it ethical to take one person's talent to help the greater population... The story was intriguing with question marks but I would definitely read the next installment
Rating: 
Summary: Too familar
Review: Very poor start to a new fantasy series. Riddled with horrible cliché's such as "Time Lords "(how can anyone write that can get away with it after thirty years of Doctor Who?) and quasi-Arab/Indian races from hot climates. Details and description are handled in a fairy-tale kind of way in the usual medieval romantic vein, with little realism and nearly all characters beginning Princes, Kings and the like, with little mention of economics or government. The Rune Lords idea was the only sparkle in an otherwise poor showing and even then it was offered without any sense of wonder, mystery, or mystique. The "Days" were quite good too. It is these features which salvaged it from a one-star. Farland is going to be no match for George R R Martin, or Jordan in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Aw, c'mon, it wasn't THAT bad
Review: It's an interesting concept - the runelords can bind someone else's abilities, strength, wits, beauty, perhaps any abstract concept? Could you swipe someone's ability to have their abilities stolen? Heh heh. There's a huge debt to Covenant here, and you can only pay those in blood, and not enough blood was spilled into this book to bring it to life. But this is an adventure book and the Covenant books are literature (disagree? look it up in 100 years). An ordinary adventure doesn't grab your heart and squeeze it, or send you tossing with nightmares. This doesn't stink anything like the Sword of Truth sequels or the Sequels of Shannara, and in fact it does have a big ending full of honest emotion. Scott Card said the ending brought tears to his eyes, and since I never agree with him on anything I was surprised to find myself a bit affected there as well. sniff. But the man's right: it's the story of Berek Earthfriend dusted off and swiped and injected with scientology, and the sequels are only going to get sillier.
Rating:
Summary: Better than MOST people think
Review: I am puzzled at the defaming comments in regarding 'The Runelords'. I am increasingly confused at those who seem to dislike this book yet claim Robert Jordan is the fantasy equal of Shakespeare. Get REAL. Jordan is 'okay' at best (in MY opinion, of course) and doesn't even come close to being as entertaining as 'The Runelords' or even the Harry Potter books. Now I KNOW I've fuffled a few feathers by saying this, but it honestly IS how I feel. Now back to David Farland's fantastic adventure. What an amazing novel. This is a different style of fantasy, more midievel than almost anything out there, in fact I know of no other fantasy series right now written quite the same way this one is. Now, if you just realize that it is different, and not a clone of the kings of fantasy which is so vast in fantasy novels today, I think most folks can enjoy this book as it was meant to be. I don't buy a book because it's just like another by a different author, I do it because I am hoping that it'll entertain me, which is really the ONLY reason why I buy books to begin with. OVER-Analyzing storylines has GOT to be exhausting. WHY do it?? It's like sitting through a Star Wars movie and having someone next to you be critical of the plot by saying, "That can't really happen!" Just ENJOY the movie! I say the same about this book. I seriously doubt that David Farland is trying to make some kind of political statement in this story. The magic is incredibly original and I can't think of anywhere that made me totally predict what was going to happen next with any accuracy. For MY money, this book was worth every penny, and the sequel was just as good, if not better. Judge for yourself and ignore the naysayers out there who believe that they could write better (if they could, why AREN'T they??). David Farland has a fantastic beginning to a great series here. By the way, if this book isn't any good, why did Terry Brooks claim it was?
Rating: 
Summary: El Stinko
Review: I will no longer listen to the person who recommended this to me. This book is standard fantasy fare, and not very well done at that. The romance is stilted and silly, the gore overdone, and the concepts strangely familiar, borrowing from everyone from Donaldson to the Dungeons and Dragons game system. He also suffers from the same problem that Joanne Bertin and Robert Jordan do in naming them: the names are either phonetically illogical and unpronouncable, or they sound dumb--who else would have thought to name the hero Gaborn? Farland's characters are plain and washed out. They are among some of the least interesting I have ever read. In addition, the plot is predictable or implausible [especially that hokey messenger thing] Save your money and buy virtually ANYONE else: Jordan, Martin, Williams, Hobb, Haydon, Lackey--ANYONE. Just skip Wolverton a.k.a Farland.
Rating:
Summary: Ok
Review: After exhausting Robert Jordan, R.A. Salvatore, George Martin. I was on the look out for something different, when i found this runelords. The beginning looked promising, after about 100 pages, the story began to dull and you knew what was going to happen next. The characters are not strongly developed, in one page, the hero muses over his inability to find information and in the next page we find that he knows everything about it. When Salvatore pales in front of Jordan, Martin can barely keep up with him. Farland is not in the league. He doesn't take time to develop his characters. The language used in this book is almost plain. I am disappointed by his book. I would not recommend it unless you have nothing else to do.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not Great
Review: At the very least, this was an entertaining book. Plenty of action and magic, as well as some interesting moral dilemmas(sp?), which set it a step above most modern fantasy. On the down side, this novel was a little cliched; i.e., young, not so powerful prince needs to save the world from Ultra-powerful evil king. This was more than compensated for by showing us that even the villain has some good in him; everything he does, he believes he does for the good of mankind. If you are a fan of epic fantasy and feel the need to start what looks like it will be a multiple tome epic, then Farland's Runelords looks like it may be one of the better choices around. It certainly doesn't compare with Tad Williams work or George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire saga, but it's a good way to entertain yourself during a few rainy afternoons.
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