Eddings' "The Dreamers"

[Mouseferatu]

The recent passing of David Eddings has gotten me in the mood to read his stuff again. I've long been a big fan of his--I know that his plots tend to all be the same, but I've enjoyed his writing--but I never read his most recent series, "The Dreamers." I'd heard some negative reviews, but I finally decided to give it a try.

Having now gotten over 100 pages into the first book, I'm honestly not sure I'm going to keep reading. Part of it is that the characters don't appeal to me as much as his others, but if that were the only issue, I could work with it.

It's just... There's something off about the actual writing of this series. Those of you who have read his stuff doubtless know how he always writes his prologues in a sort of formal, "ancient tales" sort of prose, before switching to his far more informal, conversational style for the book proper.

It feels like, with this book, he forgot to keep going after taking half a step out of his prologue formality. The rest of the book so far hasn't been quite as formal as the prologue, but it certainly hasn't reached his normal style of writing. And because of that, there's an added layer of distance between the reader and the material (or at least for me there is). It's as though, rather than being immersed in the story the way I usually am, I'm reading about someone who is, in turn, relaying the events to me. There's no immediacy, almost like I'm getting a summary of the tale. Not only is that not the style I prefer, but it clashes with his dialog, which--for some characters--keeps to the same casual tone as his other works. The whole thing feels a bit schizophrenic, and it's completely ruining my ability to immerse myself in the book.

So, for those who have read "The Dreamers," am I making any sense? And if so, is this something that improves later on?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

No, you are spot on. I struggled through the first book, but had no desire to read further. It's sad, because I've read ALL of his other books multiple times, including the his early non fantasy works.

 

[Orius]

Never read it (The Dreamers that is) myself, but I'd say Edding's writing peaked at Belgarath the Sorcerer. Both the Elenium and Tamuli made good use of his usual formula (though the Tamuli used a recently published academic paper rather than ancient mythological writings for the first two intros instead). Belgarath went differently, probably because the main storyline WAS the myths and history, so instead we have stuff happening after the Mallorean bookending the story as Prologue and Epilogue.

Anyway, Belgarath switched to a more informal first-person narrative rather than the typical third person view he used in the other books. However, I think it ended up being one of the best written of all the books he did, weaving together the grand scope of the world's history with Belgarath's personal experiences through that history. He did nearly the same thing with Polgara the Sorceress, but while that book had some good moments, it felt weaker overall. Not just because it rehashed a lot of the stuff from the previous book, but there was some stuff that just felt weaker.

 

[Mort]

I love much of Eddings work, but this series was horrible. All four books have the problem you mentioned (the dialogue just seems off). Even worse, I noticed that while the details were different all the books read like the exact same story (I caught a podcast where Eddings says this is intentional, he was trying to show the same story from different perspectives, even though the books have different events. The problem is that the perspectives are so similar that he may as well have written only 1 book).

And the worst thing, if you do slog through all the books, is the series ending - I'll use spoiler tags(but it's bad):

Spoiler

one character says to another "you're a god right? why not just go back in time and fix everything?" other character "great idea!" and goes ahead and does just that. Long story short - nothing in the previous books matters because it now hasn't happened! - worst ending of any series I remember reading.

I still re-read the Belgariad (and Malorian) as well as the Elenium (and the Tamuli) every once in a while - fun great reads that I would recommend to anyone who likes epic fantasy. But I would never recommend the Dreamers to anyone, I can't see how they wouldn't form a horrible opinion of Eddings writing from it.

The recent passing of David Eddings has gotten me in the mood to read his stuff again. I've long been a big fan of his--I know that his plots tend to all be the same, but I've enjoyed his writing--but I never read his most recent series, "The Dreamers." I'd heard some negative reviews, but I finally decided to give it a try.

Having now gotten over 100 pages into the first book, I'm honestly not sure I'm going to keep reading. Part of it is that the characters don't appeal to me as much as his others, but if that were the only issue, I could work with it.

It's just... There's something off about the actual writing of this series. Those of you who have read his stuff doubtless know how he always writes his prologues in a sort of formal, "ancient tales" sort of prose, before switching to his far more informal, conversational style for the book proper.

It feels like, with this book, he forgot to keep going after taking half a step out of his prologue formality. The rest of the book so far hasn't been quite as formal as the prologue, but it certainly hasn't reached his normal style of writing. And because of that, there's an added layer of distance between the reader and the material (or at least for me there is). It's as though, rather than being immersed in the story the way I usually am, I'm reading about someone who is, in turn, relaying the events to me. There's no immediacy, almost like I'm getting a summary of the tale. Not only is that not the style I prefer, but it clashes with his dialog, which--for some characters--keeps to the same casual tone as his other works. The whole thing feels a bit schizophrenic, and it's completely ruining my ability to immerse myself in the book.

So, for those who have read "The Dreamers," am I making any sense? And if so, is this something that improves later on?

 

[Merlin's Shadow]

I haven't read The Dreamers, yet. My biggest Eddings disappointment was The Redemption of Althalus. I couldn't get into the main character at all and I never felt any sort of drama. The heroes never seemed to be struggling and, in fact, seemed to be laughing at the inept bad guys most of the time. I barely made it through that one. It was definitely not as strong as his Belgariad and Elenium stuff.

 

[Hypersmurf]

So, for those who have read "The Dreamers," am I making any sense? And if so, is this something that improves later on?

I managed to reach the end of book one. No motivation whatsoever to pick up book two.

And this is from someone who rereads the Belgariad every couple of years (I've even read the whole thing aloud, twice). I'm a great fan of the Malloreon, Elenium, and Tamuli.

Althalus was awful, and Dreamers 1 was worse.

-Hyp.

 

[Zog]

Unfortunately, The Dreamers is probably Eddings worst creation.

It started as an interesting idea, and developed some interesting plots in book 2 & 3 - but never really became good. And then - well, see post above. Worst ending EVER. Ruined entire Series. How, you ask, can an ending actually ruin a series? Read the spoiler text above.

And I can see, in hindsight, where it came from. Eddings wrote about ideas - The Will and the Word, the cyclic nature of events, the conflict between two titanitc forces, and in Althaus and the Dreamers, he started to play with time. He took some of his ideas from Althaus and expanded on them for the Dreamers. Unfortunately, in my opinion, they were the ideas that made for a much poorer story.

The Elenium remains his best work, I believe. With the Belgariad a close second.

I've read and reread those soooooooo many time. And now he's gone.