by James Sanghyun Han (Tay Trefenwyd)

written Wednesday, 18 November 1998 © (steal this and DIE ;P)

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So I finished - for the second time - Pawn of Prophecy and Queen of Sorcery (the first two books of David Eddings' Belgariad) last week... and I must say that I still wasn't impressed. Eddings has some cool ideas, but there are MANY sci-fi/fantasy authors who are much better, including Terry Brooks. :P Of course, I think Anne McCaffrey is much better than Brooks, and I think Piers Anthony sucks cause he's quite sexist in his writing, but oh well, I'll shut up now and talk about that later. *g*

It's not that I disliked Pawn and Queen - I did enjoy them, but I just couldn't see what all the fuss over Eddings was about. The background story was so convoluted it truly seemed it like it was convoluted for the sake of convolutedness, and ironically, for a saga with such a complex, tortuous background, the language of the rest of the book was mind-dullingly plain, even predictable.

Now, I think authors like Brooks and McCaffrey can be predictable sometimes in their writing styles, but hey, I've read about ten of Brooks' books and about two dozen of McCaffrey's. If I consider Eddings predictable/repetitive or whatever before the first book is even over, I think there's a problem. *g* Not to mention the fact that Eddings' foreshadowing was about as subtle as a hammer, and the fact that Garion's inner thoughts were really Eddings' blatant attempts to spoonfeed us the inner workings of the story instead of letting us figure it out for ourselves. Brooks and McCaffrey are like that sometimes - hell, all authors are SOMEtimes - but Eddings does it too much for my taste.

I guess that's why I couldn't see what the fuss was about: reading Eddings was like being spoonfed, like reading a bad step-by-step guide on how to make a novel - no suspense, no interesting language, and no opportunity to be able to figure things out on our own (which is especially vital in a novel which holds no suspense).

It also amazed me that someone as smart and as long-lived as Belgarath couldn't figure out how Zedar had stolen the Orb until the second half of the second book when I guessed it in the beginning of the first book. I'm not saying that I'm some smart know-it-all; what I am saying is that if I could figure it out that quickly, it is VERY implausible that it would take someone like Belgarath so long to solve the same question.

*lol* Eep, I know I'm sounding bitchy, but I can't help it. It's just that I read Eddings because I wanted to see what the fuss over him was about, and I wasn't expecting to be disappointed. *L*

I guess part of my problem is that I couldn't connect with ANY of the characters: protagonist Garion was totally unadmirable in both Pawn and Queen (case in point: his argument with Polgara in Queen while they were in Nyissa), while Silk, Barak, Hettar, and Durnik were one-dimensional to the point of caricature. The only characters I even half-liked were Polgara and Belgarath.

I am gonna check out the other books in Eddings' Belgariad though - now that I've started getting into the story, I can't just stop reading it and die without knowing what happens just cause I have a problem with the dude's writing style and characterization and plot. *lol* Besides, I liked Queen better than Pawn, so perhaps I'll like the other books even better. When I do read the other books, I'll add more to this page and tell you if my opinions have changed in any way.

addition, written sometime in January of 1999:

I read almost all of Magician's Gambit (the third book of the Belgariad) yesterday morning, and I finished it up this morning... and now I'm almost done with Castle of Wizardry (the fourth book).

Even now I still think the foreshadowing is so damn obvious (so far, no plot twists in the books have surprised me or given me any real thrill even though I'm well into Castle of Wizardry), and Eddings continues to "spoonfeed" his readers the plot and the inner workings of the story as if we can't figure it out for ourselves.

I dunno, maybe I have a problem, but I find Eddings' writing style so boring, and when it's not boring, the drama and tone aren't worked out well enough to keep it from being corny or lame. I literally laughed out loud while reading the book, not because it was funny, but because it was so damn sappy. :) Other sci-fi and fantasy authors handle fight scenes, angst scenes, and drama scenes much better than Eddings.

Again, I'm not a Eddings hater, but a lot of sci-fi fans worship him and I'm just saying that I don't understand why.

However, I do think Magician's Gambit is MUCH better than the first two books of the Belgariad, even if it's not good enough to make me become an Eddings fan. Basically the only reason why I continue to read Eddings is because the plot sucked me in - and some might think that that is a confirmation of Eddings' talent, but frankly, I sometimes watch trashy, inane soap operas just because the plot sucked me in. :P

The stuff that made Magician's Gambit better was that it was set at a better pace than the first two books, and it also had some good moments, like when Beldin insulted Polgara's hips. *hehe* Plus I liked Beltira and Belkira cause I just like twin guys in general, and UL's lecture to Relg was something a lot of people should learn to take to heart.

After having read the first four out of the five Belgariad books (seven if you include Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress), I realized that one of the main problems I have with Eddings is the repetitive quality of his language. It sounds nitpicky, but I dislike such language, at least to the degree that Eddings uses it.

second addition, written the day after the first addition:

The problem with Pawn of Prophecy is that the pace is so slow it makes you want to cry. I will admit that it's a realistic pace if nothing else, and it's a good way to set a foundation and emphasize the growth in Garion in the later books, but it's a very bad way to start out a series. I just finished the fourth book (Castle of Wizardry) and the difference between it and Pawn is quite a big one.

Eddings has good ideas, and he conveys imagery in a way that's very easy to understand, but I dunno, I just don't like the rest of his presentation. The lack of foreshadowing and suspense is my biggest problem. Maybe I'm becoming a psychic or something, *g* but I guessed and predicted so many things that happened in later books, and then there was a whole bunch of other things that even a lamebrain could predict. I predicted in the beginning of Pawn that a child was used to steal the Orb, yet Belgarath didn't figure it out till the second half of the next book; I predicted that Ce'Nedra would marry Garion even before she slipped out of Tolnedra with Jeebers and even though it was two books before the actual betrothal; and I even predicted right away that the guy who tried to kill Garion in Riva was either Brand or one of Brand's sons, and I was right: it turned out to be Olban, Brand's youngest son.

I'm not saying that I'm cool or something just cause I keep figuring out some plot twists before I'm supposed to. I'm just saying that Eddings hasn't given me surprises, and the foreshadowing is nil. I mean hello, anyone can tell from the first few pages of the first book that Garion is gonna be the Rivan King, yet it takes four books to actually get to that point. It was actually a feeling of relief I felt - not wonder or excitement or even "hey, this is cool!" - when Garion finally became king. It's like reading something where some idiot has already told you the ending to the book, and in this case that person is Eddings. :) Even on the first reading I was not surprised or stimulated by Eddings, yet whenever I reread Brooks or Anne McCaffrey they still manage to get my heart rate up and my emotions going even though I know the endings and plot twists.