Such a good author and such a disappointing series. The Dreamers (The Elder Gods, The Treasured One, Crystal Gorge, The Younger Gods) is a fantasy series by a very good author, David Eddings. Unfortunately, for every good thing I have to say about this author, there are as many bad things I can say about this particular series.
I have read every fantasy book by David and his late wife Leigh. All of them at least twice, and most of them in two languages. Well, not really all of them. In The Dreamers, I only got to the middle of the third book (The Crystal Gorge). I don’t think that I have ever stopped reading a fantasy book in the middle of it. This time I had to, it was so bad.
Seems to me that Mr. Eddings just gave up on being creative and wrote this series because he didn’t have anything better to do… or to pay the bills. I mean the books are so repetitive, they all follow the same format: an evil nation surrounded by four good ones. One book, one war. Every book the “evil nation” attacks and right when it seems like they’re about to win, the divine Dreamers dream up some divine power that annihilates the enemy army.
Aside from the schematic way the plot works, there is also the issue of characters. They are pretty much a repetition of different characters for Eddings’ other books. They are very shallow. They repeat the same jokes over and over and do the same things throughout the whole series. I’m not even going to go into the predictability of the books, they should have a big “I’ve seen that coming” warning printed on the front cover.
All in all very disappointing. As good The Belgariad, The Malloreon, The Ellenium, etc. (other series by David Eddings), as bad The Dreamersare. I was a die-hard fan of Eddings (I still am as a matter of fact), but even I couldn’t get through his newest creation. I read on some fan forums, that most of the people quit after the first book, the second at the most.
My ranking for the series: 3/10 (Huge disappointment – of you’re a big fan you may read the first book or two, if not fugetaboutit)
Fantasy Book Reviews 
I couldn’t agree more. Eddings did say in a fairly recent interview that he will not be writing any more series. Stand alones only from now on.
http://www.sffworld.com/interview/170p0.html
Sad. Its hard to beat the magic of his earlier books.
so true. i was always told by my friends that eddings was the best of fantasy… this was the first series of theirs i read… dismal.
If you want to read Eddings’ works The Dreamers is not a good start. Try with the Belgariad or The Elenium – it’s worth it! Dreamers… not that much 🙂 I even liked Redemption of Althalus, though some people were complaining that it was too similar to the other books…
The Dreamers was a retched waste of paper and life of any reader! I’ve read other good Eddings books (Belgariad, Belgarath) but he just couldnt have written this book any worse.
You nailed it. Surprisingly enough, I also got to the middle of book three (page 259 of 526 to be exact) when I got fed up and decided to see what others thought of this garbage.
The silly author’s trick of having the God’s wave their hands and solve all of the problems at the end of each book. Could have just done that in the first chapter and saved me a whole lot of time. But then Mr. Eddings would not have met his page count requirement.
The ceaseless repetition of the same old jokes and witticisms from the same characters. The first time they are amusing, the second cute. After that they quickly degenerate to annoying and then to obnoxious.
The insistence on retelling every sequence of events from the perspective of every character in the book. An excellent way to increase page count without additional creative work. And an excellent way to drive away your fan base.
If I had not read every one of Eddings’ prior books, I would have quit much earlier. A book should be a pleasure to read, not a chore. The Belgariad, Mallorean, et. al. were a pleasure. The Dreamers is a chore.