Product Description
The first book of the saga of The Runelords
Young Prince Gaborn Val Orden of Mystarria is traveling in disguise on a journey to ask for the hand of the lovely Princess Iome of Sylvarresta. Armed with his gifts of strength and perception, Prince Gaborn and his warrior bodyguard stop in a local tavern along the way. Immediately, they spot a pair of assassins who have their sights set on Princess Iome's father. As the prince and his bodyguard race to warn the king of this impending danger, they realize that more than the royal family is at risk, the very fate of the Earth is in jeopardy.
Orson Scott Card - "David Farland is derivative of no one, yet he writes within a tradition that is as old as storytelling. The tale is set in heroic times, in a land glimpsed only from a distance, but serves only to clarify and magnify tales that are also true for us in our relentlessly unheroic times.
“Now he begins a new series, set in a world of mages and earth wardens, kings and knights equitable, glamours and Voices, endowments and Dedicates, force horses and reavers. Swords flash. Cruelty abounds. Men and women obey their lords and die for it, or worse, do deeds so terrible they cannot bear to live with them.
“Farland explores the very nature of virtue and finds disturbing contradictions at the heart of every moral question. Good men and women find themselves serving evil for good reasons; people who long served evil waken and discover their honor. Love can be noble and self-sacrificing; it can be lusty and filled with pleasure. Life must be cherished except when death must be welcomed.
"And this above all: When Farland tells you that all human beings are of equal worth, he does not mean that kings and queens should be torn down to the level of peasants, but rather that peasants must be seen as bearing within them all the possible virtues of the noblest king or queen.
"When I reached the end of this first volume, The Runelords, and saw grace arise from a devastating battelfield where too many great hearts lay dead, Farland had earned the tears that came to my eyes. It was not sentiment, but epiphany."
About the Reviewer: Orson Scott Card is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ender’s Saga and is one of America’s most beloved storytellers. Among his many awards are the John W. Campbell award for best new writer in America, the World Fantasy Award for best fantasy novel. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both of science fiction's top prizes in consecutive years.
Algis Budrys - "David Farland is the single greatest discovery of my professional career!"
About Algis Budrys: Algis Budrys is one of the world’s most respected novelists, editors and literary critics. As a critic, he wrote for the Chicago Sun Times and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for more than 20 years. In addition, for 25 more years he served as a judge for the world’s largest science fiction and fantasy writing contest, where he helped to mentor hundreds of today’s bestselling, award-winning authors. For example, in his book On Writing, Stephen King cites Algis Budrys as the first editor to offer him hope and inspiration when he was only a teen.
John Jarrold - "The world of fantasy has a new king. David Farland is already one of the best fantasy writers there has ever been!"
About John Jarrold: John knows fantasy. He hails from England, the home of such fantasy greats as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and J. K. Rowling. There John is considered one of the seminal fantasy critics of our time.
Terry Brooks - "The Runelords is a first-rate tale, an epic fantasy that more than delivers on its promise. Read it soon and treat yourself to an adventure you won't forget."
About Terry Brooks: Terry Brooks is #1 New York Times Bestselling fantasy author and is the first fantasy author to ever hit the New York Times list, where his first novel remained for an astounding 27 weeks!
Kevin J. Anderson - With The Runelords, David Farland breaks new ground in fantasy fiction and wakes up anyone who thought they'd read everything the genre had to offer. Definitely a great new series to watch!”
About Kevin J. Anderson: Kevin J. Anderson has the distinction of being perhaps the best-selling science fiction working today. Though he is currently noted for his work on the masterful Dune series, Kevin has worked in a wide number of genres and mediums, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror both for young adults and adults, along with comic books and graphic novels. Kevin has either edited or published more than 75 book-length works at this point in his career.
Michael Stackpole - "THE RUNELORDS heralds the arrival of a serious contender for the Jordan crown. This massive tale is woven together with the skill of a superior storyteller, making it the start of a series that will thrill readers for years to come."
About Michael Stackpole: Michael Stackpole is a New York Times Bestselling Author, game designer, and fantasy critic with over forty novels published to date.
David Drake - "In THE RUNELORDS David Farland has created a vivid, detailed, different world that becomes perfectly believable. The characters are real, the action fast, and the sum a brilliant and engrossing novel."
About David Drake: David Drake is a New York Times best-selling author and editor who has penned an astonishing 80 novels. While he is renowned for his taut military fiction, David is also wildly popular for his Lord of the Isles series.
Robert Sawyer - “David Farland is a consummate stylist, and his characters are so alive they walk right off the page. The Runelords is a wonderful fantasy novel!"
About Robert Sawyer: Robert J. Sawyer is one of the most award-winning novelists in the science fiction with an astounding 41 national and international awards, including the Campbell, Hugo, and Nebula awards. With nearly twenty novels to his credit, he is best known for such hard-edged science fiction thrillers as The Terminal Experiment.
Paul Hughes - The Runelords is that rare book that will remind you why you started reading fantasy in the first place. Much of the setting--and even some of the story--is conventional fantasy fare, but David Farland, aside from being a masterful storyteller, has built his world around a complex and thought-provoking social system involving the exchange of "endowments." Attributes such as stamina, grace, and wit are a currency: a vassal may help his lord by endowing him with all of his strength, for instance, and in turn the vassal comes under the lord's care as his "dedicate," too weak to even walk. A Runelord might have hundreds of such endowments, giving him superhuman senses and abilities, but he then must care for the hundreds that he has deprived of strength, or beauty, or sight.
Runelords excels because this novel idea is not mere window dressing—Farland uses it to explore fundamental questions of life and morality. The story's hero, the young Runelord Gaborn, struggles to define his role in this "shameful economy" while keeping his commitments to himself, to his people, to the woman he loves, and to the earth itself. We end up asking ourselves the same questions: Should you choose your friends based on insight or virtue? Is it better to be just or good? Competent fantasy lets you escape to adventure in faraway lands, but exceptional fantasy makes sure you have something to think about when you get back. Runelords accomplishes the latter.
About Paul Hughes: Some reviewers have only limited experience with fantasy. As a result, they may become excited about books that are rather standard in the genre, or may disparage an entire genre based upon a book that is poorly written. As the lead reviewer for Amazon.com, Paul Hughes doesn’t read fantasy just as a hobby, he studies virtually everything that gets published.
Romantic Times BOOKreviews - “Imaginative use of magic and detailed world-building. . . . Fans of Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind will enjoy Farland’s Runelords.”
About The Romantic Times BOOKreviews: The Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine serves all fans of purveyors of romantic literature, including fantasy fans.
Booklist - “Farland gets a prospective series off to a dynamic start with a compelling, action-packed story set in an intricate created world in which magical powers are unusual and convincing.”
About Booklist: Booklist is a review column used by the American Library Association to educate librarians about upcoming books in order to make decisions about which to buy.
Publisher’s Weekly - “The intriguing hook behind Farland’s first novel—and launch of a new fantasy series—is a complex magical technology whereby abilities such as wit, brawn, and stamina are transferable from person to person. The magic is basic to Farland's story, not just painted on, and it and the society in which it plays out are rigorously and imaginatively elaborated.”
About Publisher’s Weekly: Publishers Weekly is the perhaps the oldest and most respected new magazine for the publishing industry.
The Library Journal - Prince Gaborn's visit to the Kingdom of Heredon becomes a frantic race against time as he seeks to warn Heredon's royal family of the approach of an invincible warlord whose might threatens to consume the world. Farland launches his epic series with a powerful story of a prince's transformation from a Runelord who steals his abilities from others to a ruler dedicated to the preservation of life.
About The Library Journal: The Library Journal provides book reviews for librarians in cities and schools around the world to use in considering what books to purchase.
Locus Magazine - “Farland uses his magic system to great effect, both in terms of its moral ideas and in generating powerful suspense. Even though the novel reaches a satisfying conclusion, Farland leaves enough loose ends to keep me wanting to read the sequel.”
About Locus: Locus magazine is the premier magazine for the science fiction, fantasy, and horror industry, containing the latest news in the publishing industry and reviews of most new books that are released.
Kirkus Reviews - “Thoughtfully devised magics . . . a well-turned plot . . . satisfying and involving.”
About Kirkus Reviews: Kirkus is an American book review journal founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893-1980). It serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. It part of Nielsen Business Media's US Music & Literary Group.
Barnes and Noble Preview Magazine - . . . a wonderfully entertaining world filled with some unlikely heroes and truly despicable villains.... If you're into topnotch epic fantasy, get this book!
About Barnes and Noble Preview Magazine: Barnes and Noble Preview Magazine serves customers of America’s largest bookstore chain by alerting them to the most exciting new releases in each genre.
Young Prince Gaborn Val Orden of Mystarria is traveling in disguise on a journey to ask for the hand of the lovely Princess Iome of Sylvarresta. Armed with his gifts of strength and perception, Prince Gaborn and his warrior bodyguard stop in a local tavern along the way. Immediately, they spot a pair of assassins who have their sights set on Princess Iome's father. As the prince and his bodyguard race to warn the king of this impending danger, they realize that more than the royal family is at risk, the very fate of the Earth is in jeopardy.
Reviews
Orson Scott Card - "David Farland is derivative of no one, yet he writes within a tradition that is as old as storytelling. The tale is set in heroic times, in a land glimpsed only from a distance, but serves only to clarify and magnify tales that are also true for us in our relentlessly unheroic times.
“Now he begins a new series, set in a world of mages and earth wardens, kings and knights equitable, glamours and Voices, endowments and Dedicates, force horses and reavers. Swords flash. Cruelty abounds. Men and women obey their lords and die for it, or worse, do deeds so terrible they cannot bear to live with them.
“Farland explores the very nature of virtue and finds disturbing contradictions at the heart of every moral question. Good men and women find themselves serving evil for good reasons; people who long served evil waken and discover their honor. Love can be noble and self-sacrificing; it can be lusty and filled with pleasure. Life must be cherished except when death must be welcomed.
"And this above all: When Farland tells you that all human beings are of equal worth, he does not mean that kings and queens should be torn down to the level of peasants, but rather that peasants must be seen as bearing within them all the possible virtues of the noblest king or queen.
"When I reached the end of this first volume, The Runelords, and saw grace arise from a devastating battelfield where too many great hearts lay dead, Farland had earned the tears that came to my eyes. It was not sentiment, but epiphany."
About the Reviewer: Orson Scott Card is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ender’s Saga and is one of America’s most beloved storytellers. Among his many awards are the John W. Campbell award for best new writer in America, the World Fantasy Award for best fantasy novel. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both of science fiction's top prizes in consecutive years.
Algis Budrys - "David Farland is the single greatest discovery of my professional career!"
About Algis Budrys: Algis Budrys is one of the world’s most respected novelists, editors and literary critics. As a critic, he wrote for the Chicago Sun Times and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for more than 20 years. In addition, for 25 more years he served as a judge for the world’s largest science fiction and fantasy writing contest, where he helped to mentor hundreds of today’s bestselling, award-winning authors. For example, in his book On Writing, Stephen King cites Algis Budrys as the first editor to offer him hope and inspiration when he was only a teen.
John Jarrold - "The world of fantasy has a new king. David Farland is already one of the best fantasy writers there has ever been!"
About John Jarrold: John knows fantasy. He hails from England, the home of such fantasy greats as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and J. K. Rowling. There John is considered one of the seminal fantasy critics of our time.
Terry Brooks - "The Runelords is a first-rate tale, an epic fantasy that more than delivers on its promise. Read it soon and treat yourself to an adventure you won't forget."
About Terry Brooks: Terry Brooks is #1 New York Times Bestselling fantasy author and is the first fantasy author to ever hit the New York Times list, where his first novel remained for an astounding 27 weeks!
Kevin J. Anderson - With The Runelords, David Farland breaks new ground in fantasy fiction and wakes up anyone who thought they'd read everything the genre had to offer. Definitely a great new series to watch!”
About Kevin J. Anderson: Kevin J. Anderson has the distinction of being perhaps the best-selling science fiction working today. Though he is currently noted for his work on the masterful Dune series, Kevin has worked in a wide number of genres and mediums, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror both for young adults and adults, along with comic books and graphic novels. Kevin has either edited or published more than 75 book-length works at this point in his career.
Michael Stackpole - "THE RUNELORDS heralds the arrival of a serious contender for the Jordan crown. This massive tale is woven together with the skill of a superior storyteller, making it the start of a series that will thrill readers for years to come."
About Michael Stackpole: Michael Stackpole is a New York Times Bestselling Author, game designer, and fantasy critic with over forty novels published to date.
David Drake - "In THE RUNELORDS David Farland has created a vivid, detailed, different world that becomes perfectly believable. The characters are real, the action fast, and the sum a brilliant and engrossing novel."
About David Drake: David Drake is a New York Times best-selling author and editor who has penned an astonishing 80 novels. While he is renowned for his taut military fiction, David is also wildly popular for his Lord of the Isles series.
Robert Sawyer - “David Farland is a consummate stylist, and his characters are so alive they walk right off the page. The Runelords is a wonderful fantasy novel!"
About Robert Sawyer: Robert J. Sawyer is one of the most award-winning novelists in the science fiction with an astounding 41 national and international awards, including the Campbell, Hugo, and Nebula awards. With nearly twenty novels to his credit, he is best known for such hard-edged science fiction thrillers as The Terminal Experiment.
Paul Hughes - The Runelords is that rare book that will remind you why you started reading fantasy in the first place. Much of the setting--and even some of the story--is conventional fantasy fare, but David Farland, aside from being a masterful storyteller, has built his world around a complex and thought-provoking social system involving the exchange of "endowments." Attributes such as stamina, grace, and wit are a currency: a vassal may help his lord by endowing him with all of his strength, for instance, and in turn the vassal comes under the lord's care as his "dedicate," too weak to even walk. A Runelord might have hundreds of such endowments, giving him superhuman senses and abilities, but he then must care for the hundreds that he has deprived of strength, or beauty, or sight.
Runelords excels because this novel idea is not mere window dressing—Farland uses it to explore fundamental questions of life and morality. The story's hero, the young Runelord Gaborn, struggles to define his role in this "shameful economy" while keeping his commitments to himself, to his people, to the woman he loves, and to the earth itself. We end up asking ourselves the same questions: Should you choose your friends based on insight or virtue? Is it better to be just or good? Competent fantasy lets you escape to adventure in faraway lands, but exceptional fantasy makes sure you have something to think about when you get back. Runelords accomplishes the latter.
About Paul Hughes: Some reviewers have only limited experience with fantasy. As a result, they may become excited about books that are rather standard in the genre, or may disparage an entire genre based upon a book that is poorly written. As the lead reviewer for Amazon.com, Paul Hughes doesn’t read fantasy just as a hobby, he studies virtually everything that gets published.
Romantic Times BOOKreviews - “Imaginative use of magic and detailed world-building. . . . Fans of Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind will enjoy Farland’s Runelords.”
About The Romantic Times BOOKreviews: The Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine serves all fans of purveyors of romantic literature, including fantasy fans.
Booklist - “Farland gets a prospective series off to a dynamic start with a compelling, action-packed story set in an intricate created world in which magical powers are unusual and convincing.”
About Booklist: Booklist is a review column used by the American Library Association to educate librarians about upcoming books in order to make decisions about which to buy.
Publisher’s Weekly - “The intriguing hook behind Farland’s first novel—and launch of a new fantasy series—is a complex magical technology whereby abilities such as wit, brawn, and stamina are transferable from person to person. The magic is basic to Farland's story, not just painted on, and it and the society in which it plays out are rigorously and imaginatively elaborated.”
About Publisher’s Weekly: Publishers Weekly is the perhaps the oldest and most respected new magazine for the publishing industry.
The Library Journal - Prince Gaborn's visit to the Kingdom of Heredon becomes a frantic race against time as he seeks to warn Heredon's royal family of the approach of an invincible warlord whose might threatens to consume the world. Farland launches his epic series with a powerful story of a prince's transformation from a Runelord who steals his abilities from others to a ruler dedicated to the preservation of life.
About The Library Journal: The Library Journal provides book reviews for librarians in cities and schools around the world to use in considering what books to purchase.
Locus Magazine - “Farland uses his magic system to great effect, both in terms of its moral ideas and in generating powerful suspense. Even though the novel reaches a satisfying conclusion, Farland leaves enough loose ends to keep me wanting to read the sequel.”
About Locus: Locus magazine is the premier magazine for the science fiction, fantasy, and horror industry, containing the latest news in the publishing industry and reviews of most new books that are released.
Kirkus Reviews - “Thoughtfully devised magics . . . a well-turned plot . . . satisfying and involving.”
About Kirkus Reviews: Kirkus is an American book review journal founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893-1980). It serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. It part of Nielsen Business Media's US Music & Literary Group.
Barnes and Noble Preview Magazine - . . . a wonderfully entertaining world filled with some unlikely heroes and truly despicable villains.... If you're into topnotch epic fantasy, get this book!
About Barnes and Noble Preview Magazine: Barnes and Noble Preview Magazine serves customers of America’s largest bookstore chain by alerting them to the most exciting new releases in each genre.