Belgarath the Sorcerer

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The characters are all fun, well defined and the plot is clear but has some unexpected turns and twists. My wife challenged me to read the first hundred pages to see if I liked it and it resulted in me reading the whole set from start to finish without a break.

He doesn't seem to care all that much for consistency, and alters things in later books with no apparent regard for the earlier ones. Thus began the extraordinary adventures that would mold that youthful vagabond into a man, and the man into the finely honed instrument of Prophecy known to all the world as Belgarath the Sorcerer. It is, however, possible that he was surprised that Garion came to the same conclusion, and although Belgarath says he has never thought about it that way before, he may still be reffering to his relationship with Garion, as opposed to his ancestors.Join them as they chronicle that fateful conflict between two mortally opposed Destinies, in a monumental war of men and kings and Gods. Born in Spokane, Washington, and raised in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1954, and a master of arts degree from the University of Washington in 1961. He was most known for his ostentatious displays of Will to get others to listen or as distractions — the most memorable example being his illusion of the sun rising, convincing enough that thousands of Morindland magicians lost control of their demons and were killed.

Eddings manages pace very well--speeding through centuries in a paragraph, and then spending whole chapters on the events of a few weeks--without leaving the reader dizzy from wondering what just happened. To an extent I could just go along with this, particularly because Eddings tends to be fairly clear on the differences between military and civilian, and make sure the military side at least of his enemies have shown themselves to be atrocious enough that we as readers don’t need to feel too sorry for them getting blown away (a good idea in fiction at least, albeit a terrible one in reality).

On the one hand, this can create some wonderfully engaging moments, such as when Belgarath details far more quirky and far less doom-laden retellings of the mythological events previously only heard in highly stylized versions as prologues to the main books of the series, along with some jaded complaints on the need of priests to over-dramatize a narrative. He was sent on a number of missions throughout the world, dealing with issues that Aldur wished a human representative to see to. Of course in a book like this in which prophecies play an important role, many of the characters and events are fated to occur. Personally, I especially liked reading about the characters I already know from the Belgariad, which made the final part, leading up to Garion's birth, my favourite. While the first part of the book was quite good in revealing the younger Belgarath it wasn’t exactly revelatory and just a rehash of the first 10 books.