The Wyrmling Horde: The Seventh Book of the Runelords [Hardcover]

David Farland (Author)

Book Description

Series: Runelords | Publication Date: September 16, 2008

The Saga of the Runelords is written in the finest tradition of Tolkien and other works that rise above the fantasy genre to special and individual heights.

Now the epic story continues: at the end of Worldbinder, Fallion Orden, son of Gaborn, was imprisoned on a strange and fantastic world that he created by combining two alternate realities. It's a world brimming with dark magic, ruled by a creature of unrelenting evil who is gathering monstrous armies from a dozen planets in a bid to conquer the universe. Only Fallion has the power to mend the worlds, but at the heart of a city that is a vast prison, he lies in shackles. The forces of evil are growing and will soon rage across the heavens. Now, Fallion's allies must risk everything in an attempt to free him from the wyrmling horde.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The breathless third installment of Farland's second Runelords quartet opens with the cliffhanger from 2007's Sons of the Oak: flameweaver wizard Fallion Orden, son of the Earth King, is trapped by fiendish Lord Despair in a savage new world Fallion himself had made by melding two realities. Fallion has rejected endowments, transfers of power or skill that leave the donor drained of the attribute they bestow on the recipient, but his lover, Rhianna, her foster sister, warrior maiden Talon, and Talon's noble idol, the Emir Tuul Ra, accept numerous endowments, vowing to pay any price to rescue Fallion from Rugassa, where torture is an art. Oscillating between lurid depictions of blood-soaked vistas and heroic tales of noble adolescent saviors, Farland attempts to leaven the violence with enchanting parallel-world landscapes and charming minor characters, but the atmosphere overall is unrelentingly gloomy. Nonetheless, this series promises to continue as long as stalwart-stomached readers can keep turning its grisly pages. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Fallion Orden, the son of the hero Gabon, discovered a way to unite two alternate realities into one world. Now he is imprisoned in the world of his creating, tortured by a creature calling itself Lord Despair, who is raising an army of wyrmlings for a war of conquest. Fallion's allies face the daunting task of freeing him before he is broken and forced into the service of the forces of evil. Farland's latest installment in his popular Runelords series continues where Worldbinder left off, following the fate of Fallion and his allies as they seek an end to the evils that terrorize their world. Strong storytelling and vital characters as well as an ingenious system of magic make this a good addition to most fantasy collections.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765316668
• ISBN-13: 978-0765316660
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #754,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Disappointing Addition to a Good Series, October 18, 2008

By 

Critical Mind "Bins" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Wyrmling Horde: The Seventh Book of the Runelords (Hardcover)

The eighth book of well-done Runelords series, Wyrmling Horde just came out, and I was excited. Despite the fact that Tor set a word-count restriction on the author, resulting in a much smaller book starting with the previous Worldbinder (which resulted in a truncated feel to that ending), the series has been a good, solid read. So i delved in.

A few chapters in, I was horrified. The recap from book seven was contrived and forced. Very disappointing was the questionable cast of characters asked to carry the story. Fallion, by far the strongest character of an already weak cast is left sidelined, which may have been forgivable if his comrades took up the challenge and blossomed. Not only did they fail to do so, they backlogged an already floundering plot with chance run-in's, a cheesy romance, and another encore of the all-too-convenient magic system that hasn't evolved or deepened since Book One.

The plot, the plot! Wyrmling Horde is a lisping fraction of a novel, only 1/6th of actual story content compared to the earlier books. Which is simple to understand; starting with Worldbinder, the remainder of the plot is spread over the last books, scraped thin and unsatisfying. If you read the back of book blurb, you have read the entire story; Fallion is captured by Lord Despair and his friends try to rescue him. (Insert a few unbelievable and distracted attempts for rescue). By the merciful end of the book, our characters are in the same exact situation as at the very beginning. Unless someone accidentally runs smack into a facilitator in the beginning of the next book, who happens to be holding some ready-to-use endowments (recycling the all-too-familiar magic system... which is entirely plausible), everyone is going to die and there will be no characters left to carry the story. The hard, bitter truth is that absolutely Nothing happened in this book.

Most disturbing was the level of disinterest within the writing itself. Horde choked full of word repeation, halting dialogue, unnecessary and ill-timed descriptions, and half-hearted try-fail cycles. I found myself increasingly confused, flipping to the cover page every paragraph or so, disbelieving whose name was on the cover. It was like the author had asked some of his more dubious college writing students to collaborate their amateur hands at the manuscript, then sent it unread and unedited to the publisher. I was a bitter reader, bitter at having paid $14 for the book that didn't deliver. Before the halfway point was even reached, I was gnashing my teeth, demanding a refund, but still torturing myself with the read, like staying on a bad amusement park ride to just to see how jolty the end would be.

It was jolty, obliterating any last shreds of respect like a resounding fart after being booed for a bad speech.

Conclusion: There's a reason Tor put a word-count limit on the rest of the Runelords series. Bookshelf space is an earned commodity these days; if your editor is cutting your word limit, it means you're not selling well enough to warrant bookstore space.

All in all, Wyrmling Horde reads like a thin half-cooked soup with a random carrot floating by if you were vigilant enough to spoon it. What a disappointment. You have been warned: Read at your own risk.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Despair as earth-king but serious middle-book slowdown, December 2, 2008

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Wyrmling Horde: The Seventh Book of the Runelords (Hardcover)

After bringing together two of the millions of millions of world into which the one true world splintered, Fallion is captured by the man who would have been his father--but whose brain is controlled by Lord Despair--the immortal responsible for the true world's disintegration. Despair wants the power to bring the worlds together--but only under his control. Unfortunately for Fallion, Despair seems fully capable of doing just that, especially as his Earth King abilities provide him ample warning of any threat.

Fallion is not without friends and this new world has an abundance of the blood-metal used to become a Runelord, to borrow attributes from one person or being and give them to another. Fallion's friends are able to gain control of thousands of runesticks and a small group are named, given hundreds of attributes (intelligence, speed, stamina, brawn, sight, beauty) for their assault on Despair. Meanwhile, Despair has come up with a new torture. Rather than use the runes to transfer ability, he uses them to transfer pain--vectoring dozens of tortures to Fallion. Even if the rescue is successful, what will the heroes find?

Author David Farland continues his intriguing RUNELORDS series with a story that's clearly transitional. Fallion, the main protagonist for the last several books, becomes a bit player as a pair of women and the alter-ego of a man who was the great evil on Fallion's original version of Earth combine forces in their attempt to save him. In earlier books, Farland dealt with the moral issues in taking attributes--essentially snuffing out a part of the life of the dedicates from whom these attributes are taken. Here, Farland touches lightly on this, having his characters justify their decision as necessity.

I really enjoyed the concept of Despair as an Earth King--something his alternate self showed from the other side. I also appreciated Farland's decision to show that extreme violence does not always offer the best path, and that the ends cannot always justify any means. And Farland's capable writing kept me involved in the story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A So-So Read, February 17, 2009

By 

Dawnofday "Dawnofday" (Roanoke, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wyrmling Horde: The Seventh Book of the Runelords (Hardcover)

While still enjoyable enough, I find myself disappointed as this series continues. A large part is that Farland simply isn't convincing me to care about his characters. I think he has trouble believing in them, especially the women characters, so they are rather thin and cardboard.

His magic system needs to be expanded upon as well. In the first Runelord books it was original, but it hasn't grown or changed at all. He has even abandoned the moral debate of whether it is right for powerful people to use those more vulnerable for their own ends. It has devolved to a purely "the ends justify the means" mentality. And I have to question whether with the changes in the world WHY the magic has really not changed beyond having added the ability to cause pain.

At the same time, although this could have used a slightly firmer hand in editing because of repeated words and a few line-level glitches, it is an enjoyable read. Farland is a good enough writer that he probably couldn't write a BAD book if he tried.