The Elder Gods: Book One of the Dreamers [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

The characters lack any depth, are overly agreeable with each other and with new situations, and generally fail to draw you in. The attempt to add some depth and minor internal conflict to Rabbit seemed very forced and just didn't work.

The plot is predictable, plodding and has no real subplots of interest. The book is only as thick as it is because Eddings found it necessary to have characters repeat things over and over verbatim when explaining to other characters.

The only character that really seems to be typical Eddings is Eleria, and her overt cuteness and personality sticks out like a sore thumb among the other flat characters, making her more than a bit contrived.

I can only hope that the second book is better written. I'll definitely wait to find out before buying a copy, though. If it's anything like this one, this will be one of the only times I drop a trilogy after the first book.

Overall, this is just not compare with any of Eddings duo's previous work. If you buy this book based on the authors' reputation, you will be as disappointed as I was.

I made the mistake of buying The Redemption of Althalus and found that the writing style had changed completely: excessive use of "There is" and "There are", too many filler words, and the narrative told me what to think of these characters rather than showing me what they were like. Either David (who I believe has a masters degree in English) got hit hard on the head, or Leigh took over writing (and it's not her strong suit!)

Now onto this drivel. Unfortunately, my fiancee bought the hardcover for me at full price, knowing I love Eddings. I can't read this crap. The grammar errors alone are so distracting I can hardly get involved in the story. When I do, I find the first main character to be a very pale and annoying shadow of Polgara. I got to the second "mini-book" within the book and gave up, angry that I spent my hard-earned money on this book, bewildered that no editor turned it red and sent it back, and dumbfounded that it was published.

The overarching story is a great idea. The execution is horrendous. And as an avid reader, I consider the mechanics of writing to be most important... otherwise, anybody with a good idea should be published.

PLEASE: don't waste your money. We must somehow send a message to the Eddingses that their name alone won't make them money.

Without getting into too much detail, I approached this book with a bit of trepidation: recent Eddings books had started to become pale imitations of his earlier works. The characters all seem to have the same character traits, the same speech patterns, etc. The only thing different is the name of the character from book to book. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like every Eddings series has the one woman who knows everything, who repeatedly says either "don't worry I'll explain later" or "see I told you so," and generally runs around putting everyone else into their cute little places.

Unfortunately, this book is no different. I even caught one character who's name starts with "Bel" - reminiscent of the tell-tale from the Belgariad for "important person who knows everything." I finished the book, but I admit I lost real interest around the second or third chapter.

If you've never read Eddings before, do yourself a favor and go read something else of his first. Preferrably the Belgariad series.