The Sum of All Men
The Runelords, Book One

This was a decent book good enough that I ordered the sequel. But I thought it was dragged out near the final third of the book

I dont normally write reviews, I think this is my 2nd one ever, but this book was worth it. After reading some of the other reviews I was skeptical about this book but it is one of those books that actually surprise you with how engaging it is right from the start. I think the biggest surprise was a semi unique brand of magic with the runes. It took me a bit to get over the feeling of how incredibly unethical such magic is and granting of endowments, but getting past that and really letting that part go and let the story take me it turned into a great world.The action and war and intrigues and spys and kings/princes etc are all what you expect but it still makes for a great story. I havent listened to the others, but I am adding more and look forward to the next. Great book!

I read this one a long time ago - probably very close to when it was published in 1998. I'm prompted to review it by David Farland's untimely death a few months back. It's a fun fantasy story that centres on one strong idea and runs with it ... apparently for 9 books! I don't tend to stick with series......more

This was a reasonably good swords-and-sorcery type of fantasy adventure, well thought-out and with a very unusual magical system, and popular enough that it's a series of eight books so far. But I just could not with the way that their magic worked. It was highly disturbing, and it ruined the entire......more

Well, I truly enjoyed this one. It is old school traditional fantasy with some interesting elements, notably the use of runes and the endowment system. The latter, which is the driving factor of this world’s magic system, makes for a truly unique dynamic and directly affects the narrative. As such,......more

Man versus Nature. Writ large. Or larger, if you consider we're dealing with whole armies concentrated into a single man or the Earth in the other. This is an epic fantasy that's competent in characters if not in extensive worldbuilding. But more importantly, it runs with a very, very cool idea. And......more

This following review was an assignment for a fantasy literature course at BYU. The Runelords Author, Title, Facts of Publication The Runelords was written by David Wolverton and published in 1998. The author used the pseudonym David Farland to market the book because he wanted it on store shelves in......more