title: The Runelords: The Sum Of All Men (The Runelords, Book 1)
author:  David Farland 
description: <I>The Runelords</I> is that rare book that will remind you why you started reading fantasy in the first place. Much of the setting--and even some of the story--is conventional fantasy fare, but David Farland, aside from being a masterful storyteller, has built his world around a complex and thought-provoking social system involving the exchange of "endowments." Attributes such as stamina, grace, and wit are a currency: a vassal may help his lord by endowing him with all of his strength, for instance, and in turn the vassal comes under the lord's care as his "dedicate," too weak to even walk. A Runelord might have hundreds of such endowments, giving him superhuman senses and abilities, but he then must care for the hundreds that he has deprived of strength, or beauty, or sight.
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  “A new series, set in a world of mages and Earth wardens, kings and knights
  equitable, glamors and Voices, endowments and Dedicates, force horses and
  reavers. Swords flash. Cruelty abounds. Men and women obey their lords and die
  for it, or worse, do deeds so terrible they cannot bear to live with them.
  
  
  “[Farland] explores the very nature of virtue and finds disturbing
  contradictions at the heart of every moral question. Good men and women find
  themselves serving evil for good reasons; people who long served evil waken
  and discover their honor. Love can be noble and self-sacrificing; it can be
  lusty and filled with pleasure.
  
  
  “When I reached the end of this volume, _The Runelords_ , and saw grace arise
  from a devastating battlefield where too many great hearts lay dead, Farland
  had earned the tears that come to my eyes. It was not sentiment but epiphany.”
  
  
  —Orson Scott Card
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **T OR BOOKS BY DAVID FARLAND**
  
  
  _The Runelords  
  Brotherhood of 