Rating: 
Summary: "The Losers" and a strange trip
Review: I read this book in one night. My girlfriend at the time had picked it up in a store before our trip to Washington. Amazingly enough, the book had in a VERY surreal way outlined our trip thru Oregon, thru Portland, around Seattle, over to Sequim, and Port Angeles. Little did we know that the book contained a story about these places. Apart from the strange coincidence of the story and relevance to my personal life, the book added a new dimension for me in what it means to survive hardship, and keep continuing on. Life is good, even when it's bad. I would recommend this book to anyone. I've never read a book until dawn but I've also never read a book quite like this, with such striking similarities between my own life and the character in the story.
Rating:
Summary: "The Losers" and a strange trip
Review: I read this book in one night. My girlfriend at the time had picked it up in a store before our trip to Washington. Amazingly enough, the book had in a VERY surreal way outlined our trip thru Oregon, thru Portland, around Seattle, over to Sequim, and Port Angeles. Little did we know that the book contained a story about these places. Apart from the strange coincidence of the story and relevance to my personal life, the book added a new dimension for me in what it means to survive hardship, and keep continuing on. Life is good, even when it's bad. I would recommend this book to anyone. I've never read a book until dawn but I've also never read a book quite like this, with such striking similarities between my own life and the character in the story.
Rating:
Summary: We fall to temptation and rise again.
Review: I remember reading this and wondering if Raphael was an angel and Damon the demon sent to temp him and destroy him (the names are a giveway). In other words this was heaven and hell fighting in the bodies of men. This seemed to be the trancendental level of the book while on the more mundane level we watch the hedonism, disinegration and rebuilding of Raphael and the 'programs' of assistance that feed his dependency on them. I like the multilevel interpretation that is possible here. It suggests you can get as much as you'd like or as little as you'd like from this book. I would disagree that this is a vehicle for Eddings to moralize on the ills of social welfare. Personally I think he is probably just a little left of center anyway, so no, while it may be an indictment of the system there and then (Washington STate, 1993), I don't think this is moralizing about it (some people like to layer on or transfer their agenda on to the words of others, such as one reviewer here). I think it is more like demonstrating the hypercycle of need-dependence-despair that welfare can create (as well as helping many people as well - which is it's purpose!). The message I think is that help is both a blessing and a curse, because too much help becomes a hand that presses you down, not lifts you up. Ultimately you have to do it on your own. The drama in this book is driven by characters that are richly realized, multilayered and take eddings out of his comfort zone. And this is a good thing. I think the humanity of the story is truly accessible. WHile the 'angel'-'demon' motif only emphasizes the battle that contiually rages within us: desire and lust, selfishness and egocentricity versus right and morality and selflessness. Personally, it can be said as such: We fall to temptation and we suffer for it. When we transcend our baser nature then we become what's best in humanity: we are reborn. Sometimes when we pick ourselves up, we need help...but sometimes we have to let go of the helping hand (given often for motives that aren't strickly altruistic) and walk our own two feet. The angel falls to earth and learns to be again. A good story...a great read. It's not fantasy per se. More a tale of reality with deeper spiritual underpinnings and an allegory of self-inflicted good and evil, in the hedonistic sense. And as always the choice to fall to temptation is ours...
Rating: 
Summary: Blah!
Review: If you want a good plot that won't let you put the book down, look elswhere. Throughout "The Losers" it appears that David Eddings is continually looking for places to insert his own personal philosophy on the social system. The title refers to those who begin to greedily rely on social handouts, giving up all hope and ambition for their lives--simply living for the next welfare check. The description makes it sound like there would be a supernatural/fantastical element to the story, but there is none whatsoever. I'm not surprised they tried to cover up the real plot though, because I doubt there is much of a market for fiction about social welfare. Go read something else unless you need to know what David Eddings thinks about the social welfare system....
Rating:
Summary: Deep
Review: Sure- I bought this only because Eddings wrote it, I never expected it to be so good however. Not fantasy- I actually expected this book to be the start of a new path for the author. Eddings style leaves you feeling that you actually know the characters and I feel I could identify the building Raphe lived in if I ever was in Spokane. Little, unimportant details are left scattered about and really bring the story to life without slowing it down. I read this one in one setting! Occasionally depressing, but reality can be like that.
Rating:
Summary: Okay for what it is, but that's not how it was advertised.
Review: The cover of "The Losers" features David Eddings's name prominently, it depicts a man with wings, and it has the classification "fantasy" (or maybe it was "science fiction," one or the other) on its spine. It can be found in the science fiction/fantasy section of the bookstores. Maybe I'm naive or something, but I think I had the right to expect this book to have some form of fantastic element in it. The names of the main characters (Raphael, Damon) led me to believe there was some sort of literal fallen angel plot, as did Damon's seeming early recognition of Raphael as "Gabriel." Too bad none of that came to pass. What we have instead is a preachy and unconvincing work that leaves one much more resentful of the protagonist than it does of the purported antagonist or of the bad old welfare system (which I'm not here to defend; I'm not that well informed on it). Raphael came across to me as more impersonal and uncaring than the government is alleged to be. Just why were we supposed to sympathize with this man who held himself so aloof and above people who just might actually have had actual problems, if he had bothered to care to find out (as Damon at least tried to, for whatever reasons)? He looks down at people for taking government assistance and feels superior to everyone around him while he gets to just sit in his room and let his _inheritances_ pile up, disregarding the feelings of his former girlfriends, and evidently we're just supposed to let everything slide off us because this poor guy lost a leg? Shouldn't that have made him _more_ empathic to other people's problems, not less? The speechifying in the last chapter was totally implausible, and the contempt directed toward social workers, who, whatever their flaws, were contributing more to society than Raphael was, was totally unwarranted. I didn't expect a man who made such compelling statements on religious diversity, equal rights, and other major issues in his other works to write such a piece of conservative paranoica, and as a fiction writer, he's not even compelled to use actual examples....AND IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MARKETED AS A FANTASY WHEN IT WASN'T ONE! Thank you
Rating: 
Summary: This book really needs to decide what it wants to be
Review: The is the story of a sensitive boy going off to College. Or is it a fantasy/Sci Fi work? Or maybe a religious allegory? Or perhaps a social commentary on our Welfare system? Or perhaps an adventure story? Or...I think you get my point. Eddings tried to cram so much stuff in so short of a book that some of it just has to get lost. Instead of reaching a conclusion, this book just ended with a rather absurd revelation that left me confused as to why Eddings kept the whole thing so realistic in the first place. I enjoyed reading most of it, but it just left a quite sour taste in my mouth at the end.
Rating:
Summary: This book really needs to decide what it wants to be
Review: The is the story of a sensitive boy going off to College. Or is it a fantasy/Sci Fi work? Or maybe a religious allegory? Or perhaps a social commentary on our Welfare system? Or perhaps an adventure story? Or...I think you get my point. Eddings tried to cram so much stuff in so short of a book that some of it just has to get lost. Instead of reaching a conclusion, this book just ended with a rather absurd revelation that left me confused as to why Eddings kept the whole thing so realistic in the first place. I enjoyed reading most of it, but it just left a quite sour taste in my mouth at the end.
Rating:
Summary: You won't be able to put this book down!
Review: The Losers is a beautiful example of English literature at its best, David Eddings has excelled himself! The exploration of the central characters in the book is fantastic, and the twists so keen, that you will definately want to buy this. It will become your favourite book!
Rating:
Summary: Lives up to Edding's reputation!
Review: This Book is Great!....While not what I expected. I have been reading Edding's stories for years now and this one is one of the best. When I first picked up this book I believed that it was a fantasy book such as the Belgariad. While I was wrong about that i wasn't disappointed. With his ususal finesse, Eddings successfull tells another tale. The characters where amazingly interesting. I couldn't put the book down until I finished it. A must read for any Eddings fan!
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