![\"druss_chronicles\"](\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/druss_chronicles.jpg\")
Before Dros Delnoch, before Skeln Pass, before the Legend there was a seventeen year old woodsman and his young bride Rowena. \u00a0They lived a happy, simple life until slavers attacked their village and carried her away.<\/p>\nBefore Dros Delnoch, before Skeln Pass, before the Legend there was a seventeen year old woodsman and his young bride Rowena. \u00a0They lived a happy, simple life until slavers attacked their village and carried her away.<\/p>\n
But Druss would stop at nothing to save her. \u00a0With the demon-cursed blade Snaga, he crossed oceans and continents, fighting corsairs, brigands, armies, empires, even chaos beasts to find her. \u00a0And with each battle, the legend grew.<\/p>\n
But the greatest challenge Druss would face was not a warrior or a monster, but an old family curse from beyond the land of the living.<\/p>\n
Oh man, it’s been far, far too long since I’ve read a David Gemmell book. \u00a0Far too long. \u00a0And this one was\u00a0perfect<\/em>. \u00a0It had\u00a0everything<\/em> you could possibly ask for in a book by David Gemmell: honor, glory, blood, war, mystics and evil sorcerers, monsters from beyond the grave, great empires and epic sieges, and even a good deal of romance. \u00a0And Druss himself is such an awesome character, an unassuming, simple hero who may be brash and may have a temper, but is never completely corrupted by evil.<\/p>\n That said, this is a brutal, brutal book. \u00a0The pithiest way I can describe it is Taken meets Lord of the Rings. \u00a0People get killed. \u00a0Women get raped. \u00a0In fact, I think most of the women in the book get raped. \u00a0Certainly, more than 50% of the characters die, most of them in a grisly, violent way. \u00a0And not everyone is redeemed. \u00a0In fact, some of the noblest characters fall.<\/p>\n But\u00a0man<\/em>, this is a good book. \u00a0Where other fantasy books start off with the lore of the world, painting an exquisitely detailed picture of the world and the magic and the history, Gemmell just throws you right in and grabs you with the story. \u00a0Things happen, and they happen quickly. \u00a0From the beginning, he snags his hooks in you.<\/p>\n But more than anything, the story\u00a0means<\/em> something. \u00a0Not in the sense that there’s some kind of underlying moral, or the characters are all black and white. \u00a0They aren’t. \u00a0People do good things for the wrong reasons, and bad things for the right reasons. \u00a0Some of the most despicable characters rise up to do heroic things, while some of the noblest and most honorable characters end up fighting for evil through no fault of their own. \u00a0But through it all, there’s so much truth, so much insight, that you can’t help but come away feeling like you’ve been through life and death, and seen the best that both have to offer.<\/p>\n I’m gushing, I know. \u00a0This book is INCREDIBLE. \u00a0Definitely on par with Gemmell’s best. \u00a0I wish he could have written a hundred novels just like it. \u00a0I would have read them all.<\/p>\n This is the second to last book in the Drenai series that I’ve read. \u00a0The only one that I haven’t gotten to yet is\u00a0The Legend of Deathwalker,<\/em> and I plan to get to that one right away. \u00a0After that, I’ll probably move on to the John Shannow novels, and then the Rigante series. \u00a0In three years, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve read every book that David Gemmell has ever written. \u00a0He’s just that kind of an author to me. \u00a0And if he were still alive, you can bet I’d be ravenously devouring every new book that comes out…<\/p>\n Sadly, the number of David Gemmell books in the world is finite. \u00a0But still, there’s quite a few left before I read them all. \u00a0And one day, somewhere in the far-off future, I hope to write books as incredible as his. \u00a0To one day surpass him would be an impossible dream…but as the Ventrians say, may all your dreams come true save one, for what is life without a dream?<\/p>\n Awesome, awesome book. \u00a0If you’re a fantasy reader and brutal stuff like rape doesn’t trigger you, you definitely need to give the Drenai Series a try. \u00a0Start with\u00a0Legend<\/em>, but get to this one shortly thereafter. \u00a0It’s an amazing, incredible read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before Dros Delnoch, before Skeln Pass, before the Legend there was a seventeen year old woodsman and his young bride Rowena. \u00a0They lived a happy, simple life until slavers attacked their village and carried her away. But Druss would stop at nothing to save her. \u00a0With the demon-cursed blade Snaga, he crossed oceans and continents,… Continue reading The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend by David Gemmell<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"If I could summarize this book in one word, it would be SQUEEEEEE!!!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[113,403,1005,87,711],"class_list":["post-8062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-david-gemmell","tag-death","tag-heroic-fantasy","tag-heroism","tag-rape","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-262","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8062"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8066,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062\/revisions\/8066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}