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Loading... The Elder Gods (2003)by David Eddings, Leigh Eddings
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I could not get past page 70 in this book. Terrible writing, awkward plot development, and the characters are just cheesy. ( ) While most continents float freely on the face of Mother Sea, the Land of Dhrall survives anchored by the will of the Gods. All Gods, Elder and Younger, share the people and the land of Dhrall equally. But the one place they never enter is The Wasteland: a barren and hideous wilderness ruled by the Vlagh--a god-like creature whose young are evil spawn. Now, as the Elder Gods are about to transfer their power to the Younger Gods, the Vlagh plans to take advantage of their weakened state and neutralize them, eventually conquering the world. To do so, it is breeding a terrible force borne of monsters and demons. But one ray of hope shines through the darkness: four children called the Dreamers. They alone hold the power to change the course of history...and stop the Vlagh in its quest for total world domination. This review is for the entire series, because all four books suffer from the same flaws. Ye gods, this was a pile of rubbish. The Eddingses must have been writing on autopilot, because all the elements from previous series were here, but none of the enjoyment. The one-trick "races", the "precocious" child-goddess, the "warfare" between the "races" whose individual representatives all get along famously, the "clever" plans after a "setback" that always work, the "witty" sardonic sense of captain-obvious-humour that a few characters default to, ... it goes on. The previous series by this duo had all of these -- but in moderation! They worked because there were different characters, plans and plot devices strewn in between the Eddingses' favourite tropes. Here, the clichés are all that's left, and the text is just filler, inserted to move the readers soullessly from one eddingsian trope to the next. It's as if no prior thought or planning went into this series, and these books are really a first draft with minimal editing. The trick of following one (set of) character(s) for a couple of chapters before turning to another set is another reason why these books are so godawfully boring! It could have worked as a way of creating tension (it did for Robert Jordan), but the technique is not put to any use -- say, switching between fast-moving and slow-moving storylines, or heightening the tension by cutting between several climaxes. None of it works because the groups reunite every so often, and then the Eddingses treat us to painful sequences where the characters retell everything that happened to them to the others, and it goes on for a couple of pages. And what's worse, they do so in the most annoying way possible: faux-humble and pretend-cool, with only one sense of humour and one voice to go around a fairly large cast. Entire sequences of these books are dull repetition of events that happened two or three chapters ago, where characters stand around congratulating each other on how clever and brave and witty they are. So whenever a character is off having adventures on their own, you can be certain to be reading the Cliff's notes version in a couple of chapters' time. Ugh. At this point most other reviewers here have warned you not to buy these books and to spend your time and money on something else. I can only agree with that sentiment, because I couldn't recommend this lazy excuse for a book to anyone. no reviews | add a review
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While most continents float freely on the face of Mother Sea, the Land of Dhrall survives anchored by the will of the Gods. All Gods, Elder and Younger, share the people and the land of Dhrall equally. But the one place they never enter is The Wasteland: a barren and hideous wilderness ruled by the Vlagh--a god-like creature whose young are evil spawn. Now, as the Elder Gods are about to transfer their power to the Younger Gods, the Vlagh plans to take advantage of their weakened state and neutralize them, eventually conquering the world. To do so, it is breeding a terrible force borne of monsters and demons. But one ray of hope shines through the darkness: four children called the Dreamers. They alone hold the power to change the course of history...and stop the Vlagh in its quest for total world domination. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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