Wizardborn

Wizardborn is book 3 in David Farland’s very popular “Runelords” epic-fantasy sequence–carrying the story forward in parallel strands of breathless action, lavishly gory battles, magical derring-do, and individual triumphs, failures, reversals or transformations. As established in The Sum of All Men and Brotherhood of the Wolf , this fantasy world is multiply threatened. Particularly original and horrific are the monstrous, eyeless “reavers” who eat people, contaminate the land, hurl curses in the form of corrosive stenches, and are building apocalyptic magics that threaten the end of humanity in mere days. Other menaces abound, the most ambiguous being the near-invincible human villain Raj Ahten who finds himself forced to battle reavers rather than people. Meanwhile Gaborn the “good” king, granted special abilities by the Earth itself, has been partly stripped of his power for misusing it. Major new players emerge, like the wizardborn girl Averan who has a special affinity with those appalling reavers. Soon she must guide Gaborn through the monsters’ sickening, tainted Underworld for a hopeless-seeming confrontation with their most powerful mage. As wizard Binnesman cheerfully explains: You cannot win this battle any more than you can hope to stamp out the fires of the sun or draw the air from the sky … Our goal is not to conquer, merely to survive. With the sky literally falling, survival won’t be easy. The 424 crowded pages of Wizardborn span just two days, during which the tension grows almost unbearable. Can Farland deliver the colossal climax that his build-up deserves? Book Four is eagerly awaited. –David Langford