Overview
Somewhere beyond the farthest pole of the world, the land of Dhrall lies anchored by the will of four powerful Gods. Able to bend reality to their whims and influence the lives of mortal men, these deities are still bound by the laws of nature and cannot take lives. Yet the Gods are not the only power. For in the center of Dhrall lives a voracious horror known as the Vlagh. A nightmare made flesh, the Vlagh has bred a massive army of hideous monsters to overrun the world. In the coming battles the people of Dhrall will be aided by a ragtag force of foreign mercenaries and pirates, but the true champions of the war will be four enigmatic children known as the Dreamers. Raised by the Gods themselves, these children can alter the fabric of reality. But, unlike the Elder Gods, the Dreamers do not hesitate to kill...
Synopsis
Somewhere beyond the farthest pole of the world, the land of Dhrall lies anchored by the will of four powerful Gods. Able to bend reality to their whims and influence the lives of mortal men, these deities are still bound by the laws of nature and cannot take lives. Yet the Gods are not the only power. For in the center of Dhrall lives a voracious horror known as the Vlagh. A nightmare made flesh, the Vlagh has bred a massive army of hideous monsters to overrun the world. In the coming battles the people of Dhrall will be aided by a ragtag force of foreign mercenaries and pirates, but the true champions of the war will be four enigmatic children known as the Dreamers. Raised by the Gods themselves, these children can alter the fabric of reality. But, unlike the Elder Gods, the Dreamers do not hesitate to kill...
Publishers Weekly
Only die-hard fans of the bestselling Eddings duo (The Belgariad series) will enjoy this slow-moving, low-tension epic fantasy, the first in a projected four-book series. The Land of Dhrall dwells under the stewardship of four gods, each oriented with one of the four compass directions. Dahlaine and his brother, Veltan, rule the North and South, while their sisters, Zelana and Aracia, rule the West and the East, respectively. Dhrall's center is a wasteland under the control of That-Called-the-Vlagh, a dark, inhuman thing of vast patience, power and ambition. Prophesy speaks of the Dreamers, children whose dreams will defeat the Vlagh by controlling the natural forces of Mother Sea and Father Earth. Dahlaine and his siblings each raise a baby Dreamer; only after the precocious children start to dream does he reveal that they are actually fellow gods in the world's life cycle, reborn with no memory of their previous lives. Dahlaine and his siblings hire human mercenaries, who eventually meet the Vlagh's forces in battle, but the dark armies prove unexpectedly resourceful. Despite a variety of characters (pirates, gods, aboriginals, soldiers, etc.), all speak in the same unlikely, bland manner, and dialogue generally replaces action. The authors will have to pick up the pace in the next volume to keep readers interested. (One-day laydown Oct. 14) Forecast: The inaugural volume of the authors' first new series in a decade, the book will hit bestseller lists initially but may have little staying power. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewThe Elder Gods is the first novel in The Dreamers, a projected four-book fantasy saga that also happens to be David and Leigh Eddings's first new series in a decade.
Four sibling gods -- Dahlaine, Zelana, Aracia, and Veltan -- rule over the realm known as Dhrall, and every 25,000 years the exhausted elders pass their duties on to four younger gods. As time approaches for another "changing of the gods," Dahlaine glimpses the future and sees That-Called-the-Vlagh -- the ruler of the Wasteland in the center of Dhrall's four domains -- conquering the realm with its armies of insect-snake-human hybrids. Dahlaine decides to reawaken the younger gods early in the form of the Dreamers -- four children with the power to change reality through their dreams but who are unaware of their true identity. But even with the Dreamers' help, the elder gods will have to somehow find an army of warriors strong enough to defeat the evil hordes.
Although the legions of longtime fans of the Eddingses' previous bestselling series (The Belgariad, The Malloreon, etc.) will surely put The Elder Gods on the charts as well, fans may be somewhat disappointed with the ending, which is really just a respite between battles. The Eddingses do, however, set the table for some potentially fantastic storytelling in the volumes to come. And because their writing style is so clean, this novel -- and, by extension, the series -- may find a broader audience with much younger readers, as well as hard-core fans. Paul Goat Allen