Pants
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Listen to all the other reviews of this(except the 5star), This book and for that matter series is Pants. If your just starting the series give up now before you waste precious hours of your life that could be best spent reading something better (Ian Irvine for example)
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Such a disappointment
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I too have read all of Eddings previous books, and have been a huge fan of all his previous works. The Dreamers series however is so inferior, I have to question what on earth his publishers were thinking. I read somewhere that some people believe it was actually Leigh that wrote these books and that David just lent his name for credibility. Having read these books and found that the style is so different, I have to agree that this is entirely possible.
The character development is incredibly poor. With all his other characters you feel a sense of attachment and you want to learn more about them. The characters in this series feel like they are hastily thrown together, and the story suffers for it. None of the characters are likeable, and in fact feel like a tired regurgitation of all his other characters, using the same expressions and the same type of actions to get what they want. Danae in the Tamuli and Eleria in this series are almost the same character, except for the fact that Eleria is only half as likeable.
The plot itself, up until this book, was a good premise, and had they planned the story more carefully, could have really run with it. This last book makes you feel like they had an idea in mind, but changed their mind at the last minute and just threw something together. The ending leaves you feeling completely cheated as it totally obliterates the whole point of the previous three books. The repetition throughout all the books is not only frustrating, but incredibly annoying. Whoever wrote these felt the need to re-write whole chunks of the story from different characters perspectives, so you end up reading the same component several times. This is such a waste of space and you truly feel that if they hadn't done this, the series would have been over much sooner. By book 4 I found myself skipping through whole sections because I'd just read the same thing several pages before!
All in all, if you have read the previous Eddings books, I would recommend avoiding these as you will be left feeling incredibly cheated. And if you haven't read any of his previous series, I'd recommend avoiding these and sticking with his earlier works.
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The worst series of books I have ever read, and I've read some stinkers
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As a prolific reader of fantasy books I now wait until all the books are out in a series before buying and reading them. This usualy avoids the frustration of waiting a year for the next installment and realising you have forgotton what has happened in the mean time.
I did the same with this series and wished I hadn't as reading the first book made me seriously think whether I wanted to go any further. However, as I had already bought all four, and because I was sure it must get better, I persevered and now wish I hadn't. The books seemed to be aimed at young children the stories are repetitive and the conclusions are trite with the gods solving the problems without the need for the humans. It seemed that the Eddings lost interest two thirds of the way through each book and ended it in the quickest most simple way possible, like an adults version of a childs 'and then I woke up' ending to a story that they have lost interest in. As for the final ending I am with others it left me feeling that the last four books I had read were completely pointless.
As a great fan of Eddings previous works it makes me wonder whether I have grown up significantly since reading his first books and would find them less enjoyable if I read them again or whether writing in collaberation with his wife has added a more simplistic childish element to his writing.
With the recent sad losses of Robert Jordan and David Gemmell in this field of writing. I can only hope that David Eddings will sack his wife and start writing good books again.
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Terrible ...from a good author
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I am a big fan of Belgariad/Mallorean and Elenium/Tamuli but this whole series is awful. I get the impression that David & Leigh have tried to identify the success of previous books and then written a book with a distilled version. It's awful from the start of the series but the ending is dire ....don't read it ...it's not worth the cash!!!
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Dissapointed to say the least.
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I can only agree with other reviewers. I have read Eddings other works and enjoyed them all. This book, which I'm glad to say I got from a library and didn't waste money on, is a very poor imitation of his other works. Characters with no depth and plots that seem to consist of "this could be a tricky situation..oh it's all right, the Gods just snapped their fingers and made it all better...". Lazy writing. If you haven't read Eddings earlier work please do so, you won't be disappointed, but give this one a miss.
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