David and Leigh Eddings, Crystal Gorge (Warner Books, 2005)
Crystal Gorge is book 3 of the Eddings' latest tetralogy The Dreamers. Briefly, Mother Sea and Father Earth are the great creative forces of the planet. One continent, the Land of Dhrall, is ruled by eight gods, four Elder and four Younger. The two groups follow a cycle of activity and rest. In the present cycle, Zelana rules the West, Dahlaine the North, Veltan the South and Aracia the East. The Wasteland in the central part of the continent is the domain of That-Called-the-Vlagh, an evil being who has created insect-reptile-human hybrids and wants to conquer the whole Land of Dhrall, and then the rest of the world. Each of the gods has been entrusted with a child, a Dreamer, who is not quite what he or she seems. To thwart That-Called-the-Vlagh, the four gods have called in people from the other continents to defeat the hordes sent against them. There will be four great battles, one for each cardinal Domain. The Elder Gods ] set the scene and told of the assault on the West. The Treasured One brought the conflict into the South . Crystal Gorge is the story of the campaign in the North.
Crystal Gorge is not nearly as confusing as The Treasured One. While there is a certain amount of telling the same story from different points of view to get to the same point in time from various directions, there's a lot less of it than in the previous volume. However, there's an oppressive amount of explaining going on.
Somebody seems to feel obligated to explain just about every natural phenomenon in the book - the seasons, the tides, and on and on. Not only that, but some of the explanations are repeated, one newly-enlightened group educating the next. Why? We know that the foreign mercenaries are more technologically and scientifically advanced than the people of the Land of Dhrall. They don't have to prove it by explaining all this stuff to the savages. This isn't a kiddie book, either, camouflaging scientific information in story form (unless I've missed the whole point of the series, in which case I had better admit to dementia and quit while I'm behind).
On the subject of dementia, we are reminded several times that the gods are nearly at the end of their cycle and growing a little senile. It seems to hit them to different degrees. Veltan is a little forgetful. Aracia has become a querulous old hag so terrified that her Domain is going to be hit next that she lies to her siblings and nearly draws their forces off from the real attack. By the end of the book, the rest of them are so angry that they are threatening not to help her at all ever again, even though they know this would be suicidal.
I've been an Eddings fan for many years, and it pains me to say this, but I think the female characters are getting worse. First, there aren't very many of them, not nearly as many as in earlier Eddings works. Second, they're too one-dimensional. They have one personality trait that gets milked for all it's worth, and that's that. To be fair, the males don't have much more depth to them, but there are more of them, and they seem to have more positive characteristics. Nowhere in The Dreamers have I found anyone with the power and complexity of Polgara the Sorceress, for instance.
It is true that the most powerful person in the whole story is female. She does seem to be quite intelligent, too. On the other hand, she has this superior "mommy talking down to little boys" attitude that grates like mad. Not all males are idiots, lady, and as Aracia and the Vlagh prove, not all females are wonderful.
Most of the humour seems to have gone downhill, too. It's almost totally confined to the snarky comment. Here again, I love snarky comments, but they're all anybody does. There's no variety.
I think we've arrived at the point in the story where it is better to have read The Elder Gods and The Treasured One to understand Crystal Gorge. It isn't essential, given the amount of retelling, repeating and recapping, but it would certainly help.
I still hold with what I said about The Treasured One. I wonder whether the Eddings could have cut some of the explaining, made this tetralogy into a duology (two Domains per volume instead of a book per Domain) and had an even better result.
But yes, I still care how it all turns out, and I am still looking forward to Volume 4.
A good starting place for information is the Eddings Chronicles. These are the series The Elenium and its sequel, The Tamuli , as well as the mega-series consisting of The Belgariad, The Mallorean and their companion volumes Belgarath the Sorcerer, Polgara the Sorceress and The Rivan Codex , as well as their stand-alone works The Redemption of Althalus and Regina's Song.
