Tom's Reviews > The Runelords

This following review was an assignment for a fantasy literature course at BYU.

The Runelords

Author, Title, Facts of Publication

The Runelords was written by David Wolverton and published in 1998. The author used the pseudonym David Farland to market the book because he wanted it on store shelves in the F section as a marketing strategy. David Farland is a Mormon and LDS themes such as covenant making and sacrifice thread through his work.
Setting
The book takes place in the fantasy kingdom of Rofehavan where wights haunt the forests, frowth giants trample the underbrush, wizards cast ancient spells, and an unstable feudal society struggles for order. Farland, as I shall call the author, creates an extremely unique world, even for fantasy standards. It is a medieval world with swords, axes bows and arrows, and other primitive weaponry. Electricity does not appear to play a part in their technology. Magic is their source of energy.
The book begins just before Hostenfest, a holiday honoring the Earth King. The action covers five days from the nineteenth day in the month of the harvest (sometime in the Fall season) to the twenty third. Most of the story takes place in the province of Heredon distinguished by the giant forbidding Dunnwood forest.
Of great importance to the story is its political setting. Rofehavan is a large kingdom made of smaller provinces each governed by a family of Runelords. The political situation is unstable due to a lack of central government. Runelords are constantly in conflict over power. This instability is augmented by inequalities produced by the giving of endowments. Runelords receive endowments such as strength, wit, stamina, vision, and metabolism from their subjects making them many times stronger, faster, smarter, and healthier than normal men while their subjects become derelicts, fools, and mutes. Commoners sacrifice their attributes to their Lords in return for money or protection. Besides creating many ethical questions, this practice causes a political dilemma similar to a modern day nuclear arms race. Every lord must take endowments to be strong enough to fight his enemy. They continually try to one-up their opponents taking more and more endowments until eventually a lord may become so powerful and destructive that he threatens the entire world. With this political debacle, the stage is set for war.

Plot

The story begins with Prince Gaborn Val Orden of Mystarria. He and his father, King Mendallas are traveling to Castle Sylvarresta just north of the Dunnwood forest to celebrate Hostenfest and arrange Gaborn’s marriage with Princess Iome Sylvarresta thereby uniting the provinces of Mystarria and Sylvarresta. This is an important political union to unify provinces against the inevitable threat of Raj Ahten, King of Indhopal. In his travels north, Gaborn stumbles across Raj Ahten’s army marching towards Sylvarresta. With haste, Gaborn races through frowth giants, nomen, and enemy scouts to warn King Sylvarresta that his castle will soon be under attack. The king organizes his forces in defense, but Raj Ahten easily conquers the castle without force using his voice and glamour endowments to convince Sylvarresta’s forces to open the draw bridge and serve him. Knowing that Raj Ahten will kill him if caught, Gaborn flees the castle. He does so with the help of the earth wizard Binnesman who makes him covenant to serve the earth in return for great powers. Meanwhile, Raj Ahten pillages the city and takes endowments from hundreds including the king and princess who are left stupid and ugly respectively. Gaborn helps them escape Sylvarresta and swears to protect them. He loves Iome even though she has lost her beauty.
Meanwhile, King Mendallas Orden marches his troops to defend the fortress of Longmot and the forty-thousand crucibles there hidden. He also sends his guard, Borenson, to slay all of the innocent dedicates of Sylvarresta who are providing Ahten with super powers. Raj Ahten conquers Longmot killing everybody but one soldier. With the death of many of his dedicates, he is weakened and flees to the south. Gaborn and Iome reach Longmot to find it in ruins and King Orden dead. The spirits of the Dunwood visit Gaborn and christen him “The King of the Earth”. He marries Iome and prepares to confront Raj Ahten in future novels.

Characterization

Fantasy characters are usually categorized into races such as elves, humans, or orcs, and then into classes such as knights, barbarians, wizards or clerics. Farland invents several new races and classes not seen in traditional fantasy. For example, some new races are the sixteen-feet-tall Frowth Giants, the ape like nomen and the deadly reavers. He develops the new classes of runelords, flameweavers (fire wizards who I think are of the human race), and the Days. The days are perhaps the strangest new characters. They are a network monk-like people who follow nobles’ and document their lives.
To me, the most interesting character is Borenson. Early in the book, he is developed as Gaborn’s impeccably loyal body guard. Farland uses a comment made by Gaborn’s Day to foreshadow that he may not be that good of heart, “If I may be so bold, I fear that he has all of a dog’s finest virtues but loyalty…He’s an assasin. A butcher, your Lordship. That is why he is captain of your guard. (pg. 59).” Borenson laughs in battle and seemingly takes great delight in killing. The climax of his violent nature occurs when he follows King Orden’s order to slay all of the innocent dedicates in Castle Sylvarresta. His conscience overwhelms him and he is thrown into near insanity later killing King Sylvarresta himself. He is considered one of the good guys, and the reader feels sympathy for him. Borenson is a fascinating character faced with terrible decisions.

Point of View

The book is written in third person omniscient. The narrator jumps each chapter to describe the perspective of a different character so the reader knows the thoughts and actions of the heroes and villains.

Theme

The work suggests various possible themes. For instance, the adversary makes evil look good. Raj Ahten conquers Castle Sylvarresta by tricking the defenders into believing he is good. The defenders were, “overwhelmed by a monster’s glamour and voice,” and did his bidding. Ahten commanded them to surrender “with great force, with a sound of gentleness that slid past all of Iome’s defenses.” Raj Ahten is a type of the great deceiver, Satan, who “gently slides” past our defenses until we are under his complete and utter control. Surely, that is how Lucifer led away a third of the hosts of Hell.
Another theme, religious in nature is that power comes from making and keeping covenants.

Style

Farland uses a matter-of-fact style. The novel is a literal narration with relatively limited figurative language. He develops the story through narration and dialogue between characters. He presents complex, thought provoking ideas through his narration of events and circumstances without straying far from the plot to address them. He allows the reader to do that on his own after introducing the reader to an alien world with different rules and ethics. An important characteristic of his style is the abundance of vivid descriptions of violence.

Personal Reactions

Upon completion of the book, my most obvious reaction was, “hey, where’s the closure!” It was a gripping tale keeping me turning the pages in expectation of a satisfying ending that never came. Fantasy often does this, but with The Runelords it was unusually unsettling.
I found the concept of giving endowments of stamina, metabolism, and intelligence very clever. In video games (which I consider the most widespread medium of fantasy adventure in modern times), a character gains levels and strength based on mathematical formulas using a set of statistics. The statistics always include strength, stamina, intelligence, speed (metabolism), and so on. By the end of the game, the character is super-human. To me, it is obvious that Farland knowingly incorporated the common statistical attributes from role-playing video games into his novel.