Runelords 2: Brotherhood of the Wolf [Paperback]

David Farland (Author)

Book Description

Series: Runelords 2 | Publication Date: May 4, 1999

In the aftermath of the first great battle against Raj Ahten, southern Wolf Lord, who would take godlike powers to himself, Gaborn Val Orden, Prince and Eath King, realizes that the main threat to humanity may come from elsewhere - the Reavers. This is a sequel to "The Sum of All Men".

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

David Farland's "Runelords" fantasy sequence began in 1998 with The Sum of All Men, a career-relaunch novel whose sales far outstripped earlier SF published under his real name Dave Wolverton. Runelords are supermen whose strength, stamina, and vision, and other physical abilities are multiplied by magical "endowments" transferred from unfortunate donors who are crippled by their loss: the archvillain in the story is virtually invincible thanks to tens of thousands of endowments.

This second book avoids middle-volume doldrums by introducing a vast onslaught of still tougher and memorably unpleasant nonhumans who even the villains must oppose. Meanwhile, various characters skirmish on different parts of the map, and the hero struggles with unreliable powers conferred on him when he was chosen as Earth King to save the land and humanity--or maybe only a tiny part of each.

Farland maintains a steady flow of new situations, reversals, gambits, and surprises ... it's a real shock when one chap who has incurred a dreadful penalty for virtuous reasons is not spared (as expected in the normal chivalry of fantasyland) but rather pays the full, eye-watering price. One small criticism: the writing contains occasional sloppiness and repetition. Nonetheless, this is a rousing, painfully gripping story. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Continuing the fantasy saga he began with The Runelords, Farland's latest novel takes place immediately after its predecessor, and in the same quasi-medieval world. Earth King Gaborn and his rival, Raj Ahten, continue their deadly war until reaversAgruesome crab-shaped elephants with formidable magical powersAcompel them to join forces against a common enemy. Amid all the battles and intrigues, Farland explores the political and ethical dilemmas created by the rune system of magic, in which runes can transfer "endowments" of various qualities, such as glamour or wit, from one human to anotherAoften leaving the donor crippled or dead. In addition, Farland interweaves, with mixed success, several subplots, the best of which concerns the long journey of Averan, a nine-year-old girl who is traveling in the company of Baron Poll, Roland the Dedicate and a green-skinned wylde, a woman of potent magic able to literally eat a reaver for dinner. Also auspicious is the off-again, on-again courtship of the drunken Prince Celinor and the formidable Princess Erin. Farland's action-packed climax is gripping, even if it involves too much luck. Though not yet in the first tier for narrative technique, world-building or characterization, Farland continues to show considerable promise, suggesting that his next novel may carry the Runelords to a yet higher level in the fantasy pantheon.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Earthlight (May 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684860554
• ISBN-13: 978-0684860558
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,569,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite an improvement on the pervious book., October 31, 1999

By 

Kazi Arif Anwar (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brotherhood of the Wolf (The Runelords) (Hardcover)

This book is much better than the last book, and it is developing into a true epic unlike some other series (*cough Goodkind cough*).

I have to say though, the whole concept of endowments and such grew tiresome halfway thorugh the first book. While it is a novel concept, Mr. Farland seems to be using it like a gimmic and I wish he would focus on it a bit less.

I have to congratulate the author for avoiding the trap of the caricature fantasy novel characters in his books. I like the fact that Geborn is an ordinary person, but he is a little hard to sympathize with, I found him a little two dimensional. Raj Ahten is much more interesting, hopefully the promising development of his character we saw in the second book will continue in the future installments.

Another thing I like about this series is the non traditional enemy, mainly in the form of Reavers, the battle between the reavers and humans is very interesting and adds to the already impressive depth of the series, hopefully Mr. Farland will provide more clarification on Duskin and Toth history in future books. Unfortunately, Mr. Farland has chosen to follow the unfortunate tradition established by Tolkien and Lewis of polarizing his world into the good being represented by the Northern (read caucasian) regions and evil being concentrated in the south (by the darker skinned races) this trend in fantasy of representing evil by the eastern and southern races is unfortunately ubiquitous, so I can hardly be upset with David Farland, but it is a little disappointing nonetheless, I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this trend, but perhaps I'm a little more sensitive to this phenomenon being of an asian origin. However, Mr. Farland, if you are reading this, I would like to congratulate you on an excellent series so far and keep up the good work!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I really loved this book., March 3, 2000

By 

Kevin White (Pennsylvania, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brotherhood of the Wolf (The Runelords) (Hardcover)

First off, I absolutely loved this book. It has all the basic necessary elements of fantasy: magic, heroes, evil wizards, and terrible monsters, and each one of these elements is presented in a new and unique way. The magic is limited in an ingenious way, the heroes are faced with horrible and blatantly unfair obstacles, the evil is practically unbeatable, and never does the story truly lose its believability.

Secondly, the plot is very good, and many times is completely unpredictable, and even the least unique aspects of the plot, the environment, and the characters are presented in a method which makes them not only enjoyable, but thought provoking.

Finally, despite the incredibly entertaining storyline and great writing style, the novel communicates a commentary on basic human emotion, life, and death. In the novel there is many degrees of good and evil, there are characters of greatly varying degrees of morality, from characters who believe they are moral but are evil, to characters who are neither good nor evil, to characters who are morally neutral but also definitely evil.

So, whether you read books for enjoyment and entertainment, or to discover new ways of looking at life, or a little of both, like me, Brotherhood of the Wolf is an excellent choice. I bought this book, started reading it, and didn't stop until I finished it at 2:00 in the mourning on Sunday night.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Drops the pace, but still good, June 8, 2000

By 

David Rasquinha (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brotherhood of the Wolf (The Runelords) (Hardcover)

Novelty was a key positive for the first book of Farland's series (Runelords) and obviously this novelty of the endowments concept is no longer there for the second book (Brotherhood). To that extent, book 2 drops in pace and the series shifts closer to the run of the mill variety. In fact, the magic of the elements is more to the forefront in this book, than endowments, despite some half-hearted attempts to debate the issue. The battle scenes are surprisingly well done, especially the climactic fight between humans and reavers before the walls of Carris. But Farland seems to be going the Jordan way with exploding sub-plots, large gaps in the story line and pathetic excuses for maps. We have no real idea of the reavers and their motivation (why did they emerge suddenly now? What do they want?) but now out of nowhere, the child skyrider Averan develops an understanding by eating their brains - sheesh. The green woman was obviously the wylde, but where was she between her creation and now? Why was she falling from the heavens? And where do the "world-worms" fit in all this? For that matter, Farland never clearly outlines what drives Raj Ahten to his excesses and the motivation of most of the characters is extremely vague. I had feared while reading Runelords that Farland would be tempted to extol his philosophy instead of letting it flow with the story and my fears seem to have come true. By the end, if Gaborn and the Earth both seem confused as to what he is expected to do, the reader is no less bemused. It still is a book with promise and hence the 3 stars, but I do hope Farland knows where he is heading; I for one am not sure at all and considering the way he started, that is a shame.