by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright October 2012
The Runelords series has been a hot one for David Farland. It's a New York Times bestselling series. I'm happy for David that this series is selling well. It is wonderful, truly wonderful, to be connected to such a large audience. It's a blessing and I congratulate you, Dave.
But for me the inconsistencies of scale -- physical and magical -- are interest killers. I did not find this first book in the series engaging. There were too many inconsistencies in how the magic was handled, and the environment and lifestyles of the people depicted did not reflect this neat technology they were living with.
I notice these kinds of things as I'm reading and these inconsistencies, plus the book's long length, made me lose interest. I gave up on it two thirds of the way through.
This is the second or third David Farland/Wolverton novel I have read. I like David's command of language when he is creating environmental imagery, but I find his stories unmemorable. As evidence, I can't remember any details of the one or two other works of his I have read.
In this case we have classic swords and sorcery. The magic in this case is the runes that allow one person to pick up essentially D&D-ish attributes from another person. It's an interesting premise, but Dave has not thought it through well enough to come up with a good supporting economy or the interesting surprise uses.
The first part of the story proceeds conventionally enough. We meet the principles and explore a bit of the landscape and get some feel as to how this society is structured and how this attribute-taking ability fits in. Runes are widespread and used to take attributes from another person which is where the Runelord title comes from.
Dave has given this some thought -- I'm not saying he's given it no thought. He does have the attribute transfer depend on the donor being alive, and Dave has his people investing infrastructure in caring for the donors. I heartily applaud the effort he has taken. This kind of effort is the heart of new kinds of stories. I just feel he hasn't gone far enough on exploring the ramifications.
In my eyes the story falls apart badly about a third of the way in when the Wolf Lord, Raj Athen, comes to Castle Sylvarresta, the castle/city being attacked which is the heart of this story. When he gets there he essentially shouts at the defenders and they all just roll over and give up. His enhanced Voice is that powerful.
Whoa! And this is one of his minor attributes!
So here's the catch that bothers me: If he knew his Voice was that powerful why did he bother to bring an expensive, comparatively clumsy army with him as well? Why be constrained by the army's ability to move? Why isn't he more like Superman, moving from place to place, righting wrongs in a few minutes, and then moving on again. Why doesn't he have five or six second-in-commands who handle the "people issues" such as marshalling armies and negotiating peace treaties to follow up on his successes.
In the same vein, since this is a technology, with many users, not a unique blessing, how has it shaped commerce? Where are the rune merchants? The attribute matchmakers? The good and bad customs surrounding rune use? Dave has a bit of this, but not enough.
In sum, this hyper-marvelous technology hasn't been well thought out by Farland. It's slapped on a sword-and-sorcery lifestyle that would not sustain it. I find this disappointing and it will make the story unmemorable.
Well... I will retract a bit. Mid-book Dave explores the moral side of the enhancement process. And this may be what attracts readers. He's still not dealing well with the economic side, but interest in that is partly what sets me apart from the average reader.
About the middle of the book we have more slippage -- Dave is giving the runes some new powers such as vectoring (letting enhancements flow through a person from the primary donor to some way-downstream recipient) and having a single rune convey secondary powers as well as the primary one. Slippage in general is not good, and this second one opens the door to runes becoming works of art and exceedingly complex. Once again, the problem is that these are showing up in mid-story and the ramifications that have not been thought through by Dave.
In mid-book the characters start dealing with many runes, not just a handful. In effect, the number of runes available seems to grow to very large as the story progresses. This changes things: Because these runes are produced in large numbers, this is becoming more technology than magic, and if it's technology it will affect the lifestyles of entire communities. How would runelording affect agriculture, industry and commerce? For example: would there be courier services offered by people/horses with speed/stamina enhancements?
Half way through the book we have hints of a scale problem. The Wolf Lord and his army attacking Sylvarresta may be a diversion: The big attack with the main force is happening somewhere else. The scale problem is: Just how big is the Wolf Lord's military? How much tactical sleight of hand can this king indulge in? One of the consistent lessons that has to be taught to young officers about large-scale maneuvering is: KISS -- Keep it Simple, Stupid. In the words of the German General Staff of the 1800's, "If a teenager can't figure out your grand plan, it's too complex."
Adding to the scale issue is that the protagonist reads this from a book written about the Wolf Lord's tactics by a diplomat specifically for his father, the king. Having a diplomat comment is a great concept, it's just that he shouldn't be the only one who can figure this out, and a book would be a hopelessly outdated way of communicating it. This book was years old by the time the protagonist got his hands on it.
The scale issue continues to bug me as I read about the morning diversion attack on the castle. Here the problem is that armies described as being of thousands are maneuvering like they are armies of a hundred or less. And once more the Wolf Lord seems oddly cautious for a man who just yesterday disabled an entire castle with just his voice, and today is even stronger because all night he's been picking up endowments.
Why "The Days" are around remains a mystery. So far they remain just some kind of plot device. And, the more I think about runes and endowments the less satisfied I am with Dave's world building. The abilities and techniques he describes keep changing a bit as the story progresses. And the social ramifications are not well thought out. Are there, for instance, "outlaw" or "pirate" endowments, or endowment holders?
An interesting puzzle in this mid-section. Should Prince Orden, the protagonist, still love princess Imoden now that her beauty endowments are gone? Do you "marry for endowments"? In this society I think you should -- they make such big and absolute changes. Another way of saying this, "What else is there to a person but their endowments?" These are the kinds of ramifications Dave doesn't address in this novel... at least he hasn't yet.
Chapter 18 Duel with Deception
Inconsistency: Borenson recounts how the battle went. What he describes is his force, a raiding party, holding its own against Raj's full army -- lots of damage done on both sides. That's a pretty wildly successful raiding party!
More inconsistency: After the battle Borenson rides up to the castle drawbridge seeking to parley with Raj Ahten. Borenson insults Raj to get him to show his face. ...Weak, Raj is an unnaturally wise man. ...Weaker, Borenson can resist Raj's Voice even though no one in Castle Sylvarresta could when Raj used it to demand surrender--and Raj has even more endowments now. Dave has either overpowered Voice at the castle battle or underpowered it in this parley now.
Pfft! even more inconsistency: Borenson is going to address thousands from his position in front of the drawbridge -- thousands on the wall and thousands below and behind it. To succeed he's going to have to project like a modern stadium PA system and out-Voice Raj. This makes no sense. In sum, a nice attempt at dueling wits, but the conditions for the contest make no sense. An example of a scale problem raising its ugly head.
Chapter 19 Sifting
This chapter discusses the Wolf Lord's tactics, and it is riddled with scale problems. He talks of numerous hundred thousand man armies marching about and intricate plots of distractions. These numbers make no sense in a medieval economy. By comparison Operation Barbarossa, the biggest campaign in WWII, involved about 4.5 million and Napoleon's Russian Invasion involved about one million. Both of these campaigns required Industrial Age productivity to sustain. They were the biggest of their times and spanned much of Eurasia, Earth's biggest continent.
But it's a truth of story telling that most readers have no feel for scale in either time or distance, so this bothers few. Likewise, the over intricacy of the plotting bothers few.
A little more surprising is the "feature creep" that continues in this chapter -- runes are now doing more and doing it in different ways than previously, and they are still not well thought out by Dave. We are still not seeing surprising uses and we still are not seeing this magic change how people live. Even though he now describes there being hundreds of thousands of these runes/forcibles in existence. Another new feature: humans can put these on animals and acquire their strengths, specifically extracting scent ability from a dog.
Chapter 19
Based on his advisor's description of what is happening, Raj Ahten has violated one of the great truths of military campaigning: keep the plan so simple that a teenager can understand it. OK perhaps for a villain with super intelligence, but once again we have the inconsistency in how Raj Ahten and other runelords use their powers -- they don't exploit consistently.
Chapter 25
Oh my! These forcible runes are now described as so common and versatile that animals can use them! In this chapter we have war dogs with enhancements of brawn and metabolism. If we have those, why not cows with enhancements of lactation or beef marbling? A couple of chapters earlier in the story we were told that there are 40,000 buried in the ground near a nearby castle, not being used for anything. Forcible runes are transforming from something pretty special early in the story to something quite widespread by this chapter. This is now the kind of technology that should transform a society. It's plentiful and versatile. This is great for these people, but it means the story is inconsistent. It's suffering internally from the dreaded "creeping feature creature" that distracts many new technology developers -- instead of staying on target they get distracted by all the wondrous possibilities and nothing gets finished. When writing a story such as this one, something gets finished, but it is inconsistent from front to back.
Chapter 29
Ah well... I'm cutting bait on this book. It's just too long and elaborate. I can't sustain interest. We've just finished a long chase on magically enhanced horseback with magically enhanced hunting hounds baying in the distance. And at the end of the chase Prince Gaborn, Wolf Lord Raj Ahten, and Earth Warden Binnesmen have all meet for the first time, in the magic nexus of the Standing Stones... which have now all fallen... a sign that the end of the world is nigh.
In sum, it's been slow reading and I've seen too many inconsistencies in how the rune magic is handled. These inconsistencies keep popping me out of belief. To review some examples:
o Who can use forcibles and how they are used keeps morphing through the story. By Chapter 30 they can be "vectored", animals can use them as well as people, and they are numerous. The forcibles impact should be so dramatic that the medieval economy and military they are set in makes no sense.It should change and be something else.
o How Wolf Lord Raj Ahten conducts his military and diplomacy makes no sense.
o Farland is sensitive to the fact that horses aren't dirt bikes with feet, but he's still not consistent in how he deals with them. King Sylvarresta, who's lost most of his mind and can't direct his own horse, isn't slowing the party down enough that they can get caught by magically enhanced, high performance hunting parties.
I'll say it again: I'm happy for David that this series is selling well. It is wonderful, truly wonderful, to be connected to such a large audience. It's a blessing and I congratulate you, Dave. But for me the inconsistencies of scale -- physical and magical -- are interest killers. I will be looking elsewhere for my own "can't put it down" thrills.
-- The End --