Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful fantasy novel, first in a trilogy. Buy it!
Review: A Breach in the Watershed is a wonderfully written, gripping
novel. It's full of interesting characters who engage the
reader and make him or her really care about them. Most
fantasy and science fiction is very poorly written, as the
action drives the book, not the writing. This book has the
best of both worlds. It's an exciting read and it's very
well written to boot! The dialogue sounds like the way real
people talk, not like somebody trying to hack out phony
medieval speeches.
It's a fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy. The usual
fantasy races are present, but with enough twists and
differences to make them fresh and exciting. Humans,
fantasy creatures, and evil creatures live in three separate
realms, physically separated. The novel begins with the evil
guys quietly penetrating the barriers. This sets into motion
a series of avalanching events that take the human hero of
the novel across the breadth of his land and into that of
the fantasy creatures.
Throughout the action, you get glimpses behind-the-scenes
in the evil realm, which gives you insight into the motivations
for the bad guys. They're not just cardboard cutouts like
in so many other fantasy novels. Parts of the novel are
told from the bad guys' points of view, which is kinda fun.
The second book in this trilogy, Darkenheight, just came
out. I grabbed a copy as soon as I saw it (in the Waldenbooks
booth at the GenCon game fair, as it happens) and read it
right away. It's just as good as the first one.
My favorite book in the whole world is The Hobbit. I've
read literally thousands of other fantasy books and nothing
has ever topped that one. The writing is generally too poor,
the characters too uninteresting or hackneyed, or the plot
is just a rip-off of Tolkien or another author. Douglas
Niles' book suffers from none of these problems. It's about
as close as any fantasy book has ever come to being as well-
plotted and well-written as The Hobbit, in my opinion.
I heartily recommend this book for any fan of fantasy
books or anyone who wants to support good writing over bad
regurgitation of tired plots and characters.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful fantasy novel, first in a trilogy. Buy it!
Review:
A Breach in the Watershed is a wonderfully written, grippingnovel. It's full of interesting characters who engage thereader and make him or her really care about them. Most fantasy and science fiction is very poorly written, as the action drives the book, not the writing. This book has the best of both worlds. It's an exciting read and it's very well written to boot! The dialogue sounds like the way real people talk, not like somebody trying to hack out phony medieval speeches. It's a fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy. The usual fantasy races are present, but with enough twists and differences to make them fresh and exciting. Humans, fantasy creatures, and evil creatures live in three separate realms, physically separated. The novel begins with the evil guys quietly penetrating the barriers. This sets into motion a series of avalanching events that take the human hero of the novel across the breadth of his land and into that of the fantasy creatures. Throughout the action, you get glimpses behind-the-scenes in the evil realm, which gives you insight into the motivations for the bad guys. They're not just cardboard cutouts like in so many other fantasy novels. Parts of the novel are told from the bad guys' points of view, which is kinda fun. The second book in this trilogy, Darkenheight, just came out. I grabbed a copy as soon as I saw it (in the Waldenbooks booth at the GenCon game fair, as it happens) and read it right away. It's just as good as the first one. My favorite book in the whole world is The Hobbit. I've read literally thousands of other fantasy books and nothing has ever topped that one. The writing is generally too poor, the characters too uninteresting or hackneyed, or the plot is just a rip-off of Tolkien or another author. Douglas Niles' book suffers from none of these problems. It's about as close as any fantasy book has ever come to being as well- plotted and well-written as The Hobbit, in my opinion. I heartily recommend this book for any fan of fantasy books or anyone who wants to support good writing over bad regurgitation of tired plots and characters.
Rating:
Summary: Niles is Great
Review: After brousing through my local store I saw this book; its golden cover had caught my eye. You can't judge a book by its cover. Well thats true, the cover does not even begin to show the greatness of this book. Niles, my favorite author (maybe second to Goodkind now), pulls three stories together. The plot is rich in twist and character. The characters, who seemingly have no reference to each other, are pulled into an exciting and breathtaking adventure. The start can be a little boring and I must admit it took sometime to get through, but once into the book there is a hidden story that will capture the reader and bring you head first into the story of suspense, mystery, and hope. I find myself sorry for not getting the second book soon enough, or I would have definitly have read it by now. I highly recomend anything written by Niles, whom I would read most anytime I found.
Rating:
Summary: Fantasy in all its Glory
Review: For someone with a short attention span it is hard to fully read a book and enjoy it the whole way through, but let me tell you that this book is the begining to the best trilogy ever. I admit that in the begining it was a little slow but after that you are absorbed in Niles's world of evil, good and a world on the brink of armaggeden. If you like fantasy you'll love this book
Rating:
Summary: Fantasy in all its Glory
Review: For someone with a short attention span it is hard to fully read a book and enjoy it the whole way through, but let me tell you that this book is the begining to the best trilogy ever. I admit that in the begining it was a little slow but after that you are absorbed in Niles's world of evil, good and a world on the brink of armaggeden. If you like fantasy you'll love this book
Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: I just finished this book today, and was VERY sad to see it end! I wanted it to go on forever! When I first got it and read the back cover, I thought it wasn't going to be very good, but I was prooved wrong. I loved the way the characters were developed, and how the author created his own equivalents for things, (like having diggers instead of dwarves). I would definatly recomend this book to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: The best fantasy book that I have ever read.
Review: I picked up this book because it was on sale at the book store and I needed something to read. I couldn't put it down. I was not into the fantasy books until I read Breach in the Watershed. It is a fantastic book and I couldn't wait to read the next book. I was up until 2 or 3 in the morning reading. I loved every page. The characters were so real and life like. If I could have given more than 5 stars I would have given Douglas Niles 10. You have to read this book and you will be hooked.
Rating: 
Summary: Timing is terrible
Review: I read all the books in this series. Although the plot is good, and the world is interesting, there were several things that made me really consider stop reading.
First is passing of time is terribly unrealistic. A trip which was taking 2 weeks on foot in the first book cannot take 3 days in the second book. A trip that a brutox takes in a few months is returned in one month or so, etc. There were so many examples of such trip-length inconsistencies that I had to keep forcing myself to overlook these and enjoy the rest of the book.
Fragmentation of parallel events thorughout the books could not be any worse. They are always ending too quickly and the book jumps to the next so your enjoyment of the current event is kept too short. I think the author should look at Dragonlance classics series to see examples of how this should have been done. Also, those events do not occur in a proper time order. When you start reading the next section which writes about some other hero group, you sometimes understand current time should be before the previous section, or timing is much much more unrealistic than you've previously thought (even cases such as a few months trip taken in moments). These are very amateurish in my idea and had a quite bad impact of my enjoyment of the book. Actually I'm pretty surprised how other people rated this book so high.
Rating: 
Summary: A great find!
Review: Just stumbled across the book online and decided to take a chance. I'm glad I did! This is an incredible book (and series!) I'd pretty much burned out on epic fantasy--they all run together after awhile. Cliche after cliche, ripping each other off, etc. But the ideas here are fresh and original. And the characterizations are very good. So rarely do you get inside the head of a villian, as you do here with the Lord Minion. The journal excerpts actually help the story move along rather than sorta sitting there as is too often the case. I've already recommended the series to several friends!
Rating: 
Summary: A well paced engaging read.
Review: Not a red-hot page turner, but interesting. The story is typical Fantasy fair; Good vs Evil. The Sleepstealers Minions and human traitors against the fractious and unsuspecting forces of Good. Like most such books the Hero (Rudy) has destiny thrust upon him and reluctantly accepts his role. With the help of, a dwarf, a fariy, his Niece, and an amiable Snow Lion, Rudy sets off on a mission of revenge that turns into nothing less than saving the world from the God of Evil. While not in the same league as Jordan or Fiest Mr. Niles writes a tight book that has me looking for the sequel.
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