The Dreamers (book series)
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The Dreamers is the title of a fantasy series by David Eddings and his wife Leigh Eddings. The story revolves around four beings known as The Elder Gods residing in the land of Dhrall: Dahlaine of the North, Veltan of the South, Zelana of the West and Aracia of the East. They must recruit the help of outlanders to destroy the fiendish Vlagh and prevent its attempt at world conquest. The Vlagh is a creature whose more remarkable power is the ability to consciously direct the evolution of its minions, adapting them to the situation as required (the evolution is not instantaneous, but it takes months or even just days, as it is seen in the second book, The Treasured One). Most of Vlagh's creations are vaguely insect-like, venomous and violent, although some creatures have been bred human-like enough to pass as humans (and are used as spies). The creatures also share an Overmind (like the Zerg in video game franchise StarCraft) in which all of them know and see what the others do. Despite these major advantages, the Vlagh and the creatures of the Vlagh are not intelligent. They can't even understand the meaning of death which causes many defeats early on but as they fight more they begin to avoid simple traps like arrows and poisoned spikes that the protagonists use. As the Vlagh realizes this, the heroes have already designed new traps and strategies to confuse their enemy. However, the Elder Gods are not permitted to use their powers to kill, but the young Dreamers, infant forms of the Younger Gods: Eleria (originally Balacenia), Yaltar (originally Vash), Lillabeth (originally Enalla) and Ashad (originally Dakas), can use the powers of their dreams to foresee visions of the future as a warning to an attack and cause great natural disasters capable of mass destruction and killing.
The books are written in sections each with about 4-6 chapters and each time a new one is started, it usually gives background information on a specific character and then tells the story from their perspective. On occasions, it will have a new character in every chapter, such as in the section titled "Many Voices" in The Treasured One.
The series includes four titles:
- The Elder Gods (2003)
- The Treasured One (2004)
- Crystal Gorge (2005)
- The Younger Gods (2006)
Contents |
[edit] Plot Summary
[edit] The Elder Gods
| Author | David and Leigh Eddings |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Dreamers |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Released | 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 480 (hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-446-61333-9 |
| Preceded by | none |
| Followed by | The Treasured One |
The first volume of the series, The Elder Gods, is about the invasion of the unsuspecting Zelana's Domain by the hordes of the Vlagh inhabiting the Wasteland center of the Land of Dhrall.
The Elder Gods are each given an infant told to be a Dreamer and are supposed to save the world and defeat the Vlagh. When Eleria, Zelana's child, has the first dream, the Elder Gods go out in search of mercenaries to hire with gold (found useless and common in the land of Dhrall).
Zelana takes to the East of Dhrall to the land of Maag where she forces a storm to bring the ship and crew of Sorgan Hook-Beak to her domain. Hook-Beak is shown that she will pay a large quantity of gold to hire an army from Maag and fight a war. He takes the native archers Longbow and Red-Beard as well as Zelana with her child Eleria to Maag in search of more crews. They find much success but when the Vlagh sends an agent out to convince a crew to destroy Sorgan Hook-Beak and steal the gold, the are stopped thanks to a vision of Eleria. The night they came to attack, Longbow and the small Maag smith of Hook-Beak's crew, Rabbit, destroy the enemy fleet and the Vlagh agent responsible. A tight friendship is made by Rabbit and Longbow.
Meanwhile in the Trogite Empire, south of Dhrall, Veltan has managed to hire a retired army general, Narasan, and his companions Padan, Gunda, Keselo and Jalkan.
The two armies meet in the western domain in surprise due to their extreme dislike for one another but Hook-Beak and Narasan become friends quickly as they plan to stop the forseen attack in the Ravine above the Dhrall village of Lattash. Yaltar, the Dreamer of Veltan forsaw that the Vlagh would attack there and that there would be much killing on both sides. As the armies of Maag and the Trogite Empire built their baracades and planned their assault after the warm ocean air melted the snow where the Vlagh's servants were waiting, thus creating flooding and winning most of the war then.
Sure enough, Eleria's dream brought forth an extremely warm wind and many servants died in the flood. The native archers dipped the arrows in the venom of the dead servants washed down to Lattash to ensure their victory, but the venom was also used with spears and wooden stakes. The remaining creatures of the Vlagh in the ravine met their unfoturnate ends with their own poison.
After the Vlagh's first wave of minions were obliterated, the outlander armies moved north to the top of the ravine and built a fort to prevent the continuous coming of the servants. However, as the fort was finished and the domain of Zelana was seemingly impregnable, the Vlagh's servants revealed their clever trick. They were using creatures to climb the mountain to the fort as decoys so that the bulk of their army would walk through tunnels in the mountain to end up far down in the ravine. The Vlagh had successfully trapped the outlanders as the earth began to shake. Veltan came and warned the outlanders to reach safe ground as Yaltan was having a dream that was about to unleash a behemoth. The outlanders evacuated as two volcanoes of massive power eradicated the Vlagh's creatures by filling up the tunnels and burrows with molten rock. The war had been won by the outlanders.
Zelana was afraid of the capabilities of the Dreams and fled but when she returned, Lattash had to be moved due to the twin volcanoes and the chief of the people of Lattash passed on is title to Red-Beard as the natives and outlanders pondered the next location of the Vlagh's attack.
[edit] The Treasured One
| Author | David and Leigh Eddings |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Dreamers |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Released | 2004 |
| Media type | Print ( ) |
| Pages | 480 (hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-446-53226-6 |
| Preceded by | The Elder Gods |
| Followed by | Crystal Gorge |
The Treasured One is another thriller by Eddings. This book, unlike The Elder Gods, gives a background of each of the characters including Narasan, Longbow, Redbeard etc. We also are given a perspective of one of the servants of the Vlagh. The book twists into itself when someone more powerful than all of Zelena's family begins to help fight the war against That-Called-the-Vlagh and uses Longbow to deliver her messages. The Younger Gods (Eleria, Ashad etc) realize where they are and that they are Gods themselves and they start to fight the war through their dreams.
[edit] Crystal Gorge
| Author | David and Leigh Eddings |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Dreamers |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Released | 2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 496 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-446-53227-4 (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | The Treasured One |
| Followed by | The Younger Gods |
[edit] The Younger Gods
Publication in August 2006
[edit] External link
| David and Leigh Eddings | |
|---|---|
| Garion novels | The Belgariad • The Malloreon • Belgarath the Sorcerer (prequel) • Polgara the Sorceress (prequel) • The Rivan Codex (supplement) |
| Sparhawk novels | The Elenium • The Tamuli |
| Other fantasy novels | The Dreamers (series) • The Redemption of Althalus |
| Other works | Regina's Song • High Hunt • The Losers |
