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The Elder Gods (The Dreamers, Book 1)

The Elder Gods (The Dreamers, Book 1)

List Price: $25.95
Your Price: $17.13
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Defintely a flop for Eddings!
Review: Defintely a flop for Eddings! His previous series' promised a great future! I am just confused as to why he ran with this book, it is very second rate, with such incredible success from Belgarion and Sparhawk.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Intelligent.
Review: Satiric, sardonic, epic, magical - another great hit by David & Leigh Eddings. It won the annual award of the national Fantasy Club of Bulgaria for International Book of 2003.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Charming
Review: Very well-written book. I have never read Edding before, but definetly will read his other stories. This is excellent. Love it! It has nice characters, big bad villain, magic... only the works of Mr. Robert Stanek are better.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Alas, the Eddings' have burned out
Review: It is a sad day in which I must write a poor review of a book by David and Leigh Eddings, since I consider myself one of their biggest fans. However, I feel that in this case, today is that day.

This book has a cast of one character. That's correct, this book features the exploits and interactions of ONE character. There is absolutely no difference among ANYONE in this book. Every person (or god) featured here is an exact replica of each other. Were you to randomly select snippets of conversations from various parts of this book, you would not be able to tell them apart. There are only so many times you could read "I'm shocked at you. Shocked!" before it becomes cloyingly annoying. Where in their earlier sagas, the Eddings' treated us to the naive Garion, the arrogant and flighty Ce'Nedra, the stoic Durnik, and the marvels that are Belgarath, Polgara, and Beldin, we are now presented with Longbow, Red-Beard, Hook-Beak, and everyone else; all linear, dull, and utterly indistinguishable from one another. (Please forgive my omission of the wonderfully colorful characters of the Elenium and Tamuli, but I simply did not wish to bore new readers with unfamiliar names).

I could not bring myself to care for these people. Their "exploits" meant as little to me in the end of the book as they did in the beginning. The plot itself could have been interesting, but its predictability made an already-dull book almost completely unreadable. I gave this book one star because I could not figure out how to give it zero.

For die-hard Eddings fans that have not yet read this book I say this - go home and re-read the Belgariad from the beginning. Avoid this book like the bubonic plague, lest it forevermore destroy your regard for what has been one of the best fantasy writing teams of our time. For those who have never read anything by the Eddings' - see above.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Lacks the whit that made me love Eddings previous work
Review: In David and Leigh Eddings previous works, their use of ironic situations and witty dialog leaves me unwilling to put the books down. These staples of their early works are strangely absent in the Elder Gods. The characters in the Elder Gods are likeable, but lack the wit of Althathus or Belgarath. Rarely in the Elder Gods did I laugh, but picking up Redemption of Althathus (which I have read four times) I still find amusing tidbits on nearly every page.
Pros:
1)New Ideas that could be implimented well in the next three books.
2)Likeable characters.
Cons:
1)Characters similar to characters in their other books without their charm.
2)Story pace is very slow
3)Not very funny, which is out of character for Eddings

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great!
Review: Well, I'm a die hard fan of Eddings and really enjoyed his previous works, such as The Belgariad, The Malloreon and the two Sparhawk series. This starts slowly, but promising, I can't wait for the next one! The characters are classic Eddings, but the world is very original. Cool!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Time For a Change
Review: I've been an Eddings fan all the way back to the days when only one of them was writing, and remember dearly his first two series - The Belgariad, The Malloreon, and the Elenium. If you liked slow moving, tongue in cheek stories with quirky, well-developed characters, it was hard to beat Eddings. Since those days, however, output has slowed down considerably and the writer (now co-authoring with his wife Leigh, seems stuck - more focused on style than plot. I was hoping that The Dreamers would be the series to signal a new taking off point, but I'm afraid this is not to be.

Let me state right out that I don't believe the addition of Leigh is what caused the problem. More than likely she is the source of what is novel about this story of four gods that are anxiously trying to keep their part of the world from falling under the spell of a mass mind called the Vlagh. It is the end of a divine cycle and these four are at their weakest, preparing to be replaced by their alternates for the next eon or two.

Each of the deities sets out to recruit mercenaries to the defense of Dhrall. In general appealing to greed as a motivation. While none of them have any particular need, one goddess, Velana, seems to have a knack for accumulating it. In short order Trogites, Maags, are unites with the Dhrall tribes in a war that starts out deceptively easy and then takes a mean turn when they discover that the Vlagh has developed unexpected subtleties over the millennia.

The characters are classic Eddings' characters. If you have been a long time reader, though, then you will notice that they are a bit too similar, and that they are beginning to tell the same old jokes. In addition, the plot doesn't quite leap up and grab the reader the way it did ten volumes ago.

Personally, I still enjoyed the book, but it never grabbed me. It would not surprise me to find that people who are new to these authors or less familiar with the older work are going to wonder that all the to do is about. Hopefully the series will improve as it progresses through what currently appears to be four volumes. Nothing would please me more than to see the Eddings writing at full strength again.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Didn't Think it could get worse after Athalas Book
Review: David Eddings has sunk even further. I really enjoyed reading the belgariad and Mallorean as well as the two Sparhawk series. I have been waiting for him to release another good series. This one is not it. The characters are bland, the story line is restated over and over. There are even chapters that have actually no point and should not have been included. You know nothing of the bad guy, the heros sail to an unknown land for "promised" gold to fight a war. How convient that a couple of 100,000 people will just go fight a war for an unkown people in an unknown land for "promised" money. This is just sad and the good guys easily get out of every bad situation way to easily. What is the problem is you can just "dream" your way out of it. Please David.... get good again.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: So terribly dissapointing......
Review: When I discovered my favorite fantasy author (Three guesses as to who that is..) was publishing a new series, I was elated. However, once I was 20 pages into the first novel, that excitement was promptly quelled. There wasn't a single drop of that magic that was present in his previous works.
All of the characters in The Elder Gods are flat and one-dimnsional. Furthermore, said characters are practically recycled from Eddings' other series! Zelana is suspisicously similar to Polgara, Longbow to Durnik, Eleria to Ce'Nedra, and Rabbit to Silk. This isn't the first time Eddings has tried to 'pull one over' on his readers. He commits a similar set of vile crimes in The Redemption of Althalus, though TRoA is a far better read than his latest release.
A majority of this book is spent preparing for battle. Not a single shred of excitement can be found witin The Elder Gods; Even the climax is rather dull and drab. I could barely bring myself to finish this book.
Without Eddings' trademark brand of humour, endearing and sarcastic characters, and intriguing plot, this book is nothing bu a simple children's book.
Eddings fans will be crushed.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not like the Belgariad, but still cool.
Review: This book is the first volume of the projected four books-series, called the Dreamers. Author is the famous best-selling writer David Eddings, known mainly with his classic saga "The Belgariad".
Well, this book is no "The Belgariad", true, but it is still very enjoyable. As Eddings-fan I feel familiar with the characters and the adventures, but still I found them enjoyable. Truly, I'm not dying for the next book, but will buy and read it with pleasure.
Because of it's nice, cosy atmosphere this book is also a good present for any kids you might know.


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