Description:

From Publishers Weekly

According to Farland's Web site, the Runelords series, of which this is the fourth book after 2001's Wizardborn, was inspired by a hallucination. It also reads like one at times, full of rich and brilliant descriptions, but not always making much sense. Magical endowments-attributes such as sight, brawn or endurance transferred between people, leaving one crippled and the other superhuman-permit Averan, a nine-year-old wizard-in-training, to keep pace with the Earth King, Prince Gaborn and his cohorts as they search underground for the Queen of the Reavers. As those above ground prepare for war, Gaborn learns that his elemental powers are nothing compared to those of the Glories, forces of light who exhort their followers to love all men equally and beware the corrupting powers of the One True Master of Evil. The author rushes the action in the final chapters, the last one so condensed it reads almost like the summary of another complete book. Hopefully, the strength of the setting will help Farland to find a better pace for future volumes; this one, despite its promise, is strictly for the fans.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The apparent conclusion of the Runelords brings the saga's conflicts to a resounding climax in a three-cornered confrontation. For Raj Athen has given up his humanity for immortality and has marshaled hordes of magicians and sorcerers; Prince Gaborn has been victorious as the Earth King and is holding his ground; and the insectoid Reavers have found their ruler, lurking deep underground in the Lair of Bones and wielding its subjects against everyone else. The suspense is real, the action is nonstop, and the characterizations continue to convince. The amount of explicit violence and gore delivered by natural and supernatural means remains as high as ever in the Runelords--high enough, perhaps, to have cost Farland some of the saga's initial readers. Readers not put off thus far, however, surely will hang on to the end of a series that has put Farland on high-fantasy readers' maps. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

SUMMARY: Certain works of fantasy are immediately recognizable as monuments, towering above the rest of the category. They have been written by the likes of Stephen R. Donaldson, Robert Jordan, and Terry Goodkind. Now add to that list David Farland, whose epic fantasy series began with The Runelords, continued in Brotherhood of the Wolf and the New York Times bestseller Wizardborn, and reaches its peak now in The Lair of Bones.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 motives are unknowable, but 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. SUMMARY: The stars fall from heaven and thevery earth trembles in pain. With Gaborn's kingdom ofMystarria in ruins, four powerful kings march to claimits spoils, even as a vast army of reavers sallies forthfrom the underworld, intending to put an end to mankind.In one last-ditch effort to heal the earth, thewizardborn Averan leads the Earth King, Gaborn Val Orden,far below the surface to the Lair of Bones, to face theleader of the reaver hordes. There Gaborn must confrontan ancient evil - before the world is torn apart. ..