Runelords

David Farland's acclaimed Runelords series introduces a world where the social structure is based upon the magical exchange of “endowments” such as stamina, grace, and wit. The Runelords are those who receive these endowments from their vassals, becoming superhuman in exchange for the responsibility of caring those they have deprived of strength, or beauty, or sight. Young Prince Gaborn of Mystarria is traveling in disguise on a journey to ask for the hand of the lovely Princess Iome of Sylvarresta. Armed with his gifts of strength and perception, the prince and his bodyguard stop at a local tavern, where they spot a pair of assassins who have their sights set on Princess Iome's father. As they race to warn the king, they realize that more than the royal family is at risk—the very fate of the Earth is in jeopardy.

David Farland delivers the second in his high fantasy Runelords series, featuring a complex system of magic and a wondrous, expertly realized world. Raj Ahten, ruler of Indhopal, has used enough forcibles to transform himself into the ultimate warrior: The Sum of All Men. Ahten seeks to bring all of humanity under his rule, destroying anyone in his path. But young Prince Gaborn has fulfilled a two-thousand-year-old prophecy and become the Earth King, a mythic figure who can unleash the forces of the Earth itself. He has managed to drive off Raj Ahten, but Ahten is far from defeated. Striking at far-flung cities and fortresses, Ahten seeks to draw out the Earth King from his seat of power and to crush him. But as they weaken each other's forces in battle, the armies of an ancient and implacable inhuman enemy issue forth from the very bowels of the Earth.

Wizardborn continues the story of the struggle of Gaborn, now the Earth King, who has lost his powers but continues to lead his people. He must contend with the threat of the huge, inhuman Reavers, whose myriads Gaborn and his forces must now pursue across the nation. It has become Gaborn's fate to follow, even into the depths. Raj Ahten, the great warlord endowed with the strength and qualities of thousands of men, once the primary threat to Gaborn, now struggles to retain his own empire. His war of conquest thwarted, his very life is now threatened by the Reaver thousands. And a young girl, Averan, who has eaten a Reaver and absorbed some of its memories, becomes a keystone in the search for the dark Reaver lair.

Prince Gaborn, the Earth King, has defeated the forces arrayed against him each time before: the magical and human forces marshaled by Raj Ahten, who seeks immortality at any cost and has given up his humanity in trade; and the inhuman, innumerable, insectile hordes of the giant Reavers from under the Earth, whose unknowable motives are inimical to human life. Now there must be final confrontations, both on the field of battle, with the supernatural creature that Raj Ahten has become, and underground, in the cavernous homeland of the Reavers, where the sorcerous One True Master who rules them all lies in wait—in the Lair of Bones. The survival of the human race on Earth is at stake.

Certain works of fantasy are immediately recognizable as monuments, towering above the rest of the category. Those of such authors as Stephen R. Donaldson, Robert Jordan, and Terry Goodkind come immediately to mind. Add to that list David Farland, whose epic fantasy series continues in this fifth installment. The story picks up eight years after the events of Lair of Bones and begins a new chapter in the Runelords saga focusing on Gaborn's son, Fallion. Gaborn, the Earth King, has been traveling far from his home, to strange and unknown places. While beyond the edge of the earth, he finally succumbs to accelerated aging, the price of all the endowments he has taken. His death is the signal for a revolution, an attack from the supernatural realms by immensely powerful immortal beings. These forces have discovered that Gaborn's son is the resurrection of an immortal—one whose potential power is so great that he might be able to reorder the entire universe. Fallion's enemies have decided that they must control him or, failing that, destroy him. He is only a child, but he is the heir to Gaborn's kingdom and so must flee to the ends of the earth to avoid the destruction of all that Gaborn accomplished. One of the mightiest of contemporary fantasy epics continues.

The bestselling epic breaks new ground. After the events of Sons of the Oak, Fallion and Jaz, the sons of the great Earth King Gaborn, are living as fugitives in their own kingdom, newly invaded and secretly controlled by supernatural beings of ultimate evil. The sons are hiding until they can regain their rightful places in the land. Fallion seems destined to heal the world and feels the supernatural calling to act. When he summons his powers to do so, though, two entire worlds collapse into one, and every living thing in both worlds is transformed into an entirely new being—yet still somehow the same. Evil is certainly still the same—and may have influenced all of this for a terrible purpose.

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 and ruled by a creature of unrelenting evil, one 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.

The world of the Runelords has been combined by magic with another one parallel it, the beginning of a process that may unify all worlds into the one true world. This story picks up after the events of The Wyrmling Horde and follows two of Farland's well-known heroes, Borenson and Myrrima, on a quest to save their devastated land and the people of the new world from certain destruction. But the land is not the only thing that has been altered forever: in the change, Borenson has merged with a mighty and monstrous creature from the other world, Aaath Ulber. He begins to change, becoming a berserker warrior with a huge new body. Thousands have died. Lands have sunk below the sea and, elsewhere, risen from it. And the supernatural rulers of the world are part of a universal evil yet play a byzantine game of dark power politics among themselves-a game in which Aaath Ulber is now the most significant pawn.