Enchanter's End Game by David Eddings

Finally! I think I started rereading this series two years ago. Why would a relatively short, simply written series of books take me, generally a quick reader, so long to get through? Part of it was the way I chose to read it. I decided to break up entries in The Belgariad with other reading and after a few books I just kept a copy by the bed to read a bit of a night before turning in. I didn't read every night, either. The other thing was that it is just so poorly written that I had problems forcing myself to read bits of it.

The first book in The Belgariad (Pawn of Prophecy) is, while cliched and simplistic, a relatively light hearted and fun read. It was somewhere in Magician's Gambit (the 3rd book) that things started to go badly wrong and the deficiencies of David Eddings as a writer became painfully obvious.

I struggled with Castle of Wizardry and things did not improve in Enchanter's End Game. Somewhere along the line Ce'Nedra turned from a bratty and self centred princess into a military genius and a female commander to rival Joan of Arc (although she never rode into battle herself). There was no bridge or explanation for this transformation. It just happened, and as Eddings so often asked his readers to do, we had to suspend disbelief and accept it.

Most of the book concerned itself with the tedium of the enormous host the charismatic Ce'Nedra had assembled, gearing itself for a huge battle. The commanders sat around and squabbled with each other, and readers were supposed to be amused by the differences between the various races and their leaders insults at each other. We were also supposed to be amazed by how 'ingeniously' they solved logistical problems by applying common sense to them. Seriously it's a wonder that these people ever even discovered fire, let alone progress to a pseudo medieval society.

The three most interesting characters in the whole mess: Garion, Belgarath and Silk, appear infrequently and are mainly moving into position for the big takedown of the demi God Torak at the book's climax.

After Torak is taken out, fairly easily considering how much effort went into just getting to confront him in the first place. The book goes on for about 40 pages too long as the author goes about dotting his i's and crossing his t's so he can wrap everything up neatly and still leave it open ended enough that he could continue the story if he were so minded. He also had to resurrect a character in a totally unbelievable manner, because it just wouldn't be an Eddings story if one of the major characters could do so much as stub their toe and sustain a bruise, let alone actually die.

When I started this I believe I advised people that they should read the series if only as an exercise to see how far the genre has come since The Belgariad. I'd like to take that back. If you're young or haven't read much fantasy and want an easy going entry into the field that won't tax your mind this is probably okay, but if you get past the first book and find it too lightweight you're really not missing much if you decide to skip the rest and move onto other authors and generally much better written works.

Magician's Gambit

Magician’s Gambit contains pretty much everything that is both good and bad about The Belgariad and David Eddings writing as a whole.

I’ll start with the bad and to be honest that will be the longer list.

Garion and Co spend most of their time wandering around trying to get their hands on some magical artefact called the Orb of Aldur. Big Fat Fantasy authors seem to love aimless wandering through their worlds, fans don’t for the most part like it. Eddings breaks up the meandering with regular explosions of violence. Sometimes the fights add to the narrative, but mostly they seem to be there to try and hold the reader’s interest. A particularly pointless and ridiculous example featuring Mimbrate knight Mandorallen taking on a lion springs to mind immediately.
While I’m on Mandorallen; his accent slips throughout Magician’s Gambit. When the character was introduced in Queen of Sorcery he spoke an exaggerated form of ‘old English’, peppering his speech with thees and thous, either it got too hard or the author just forgot at times, because sometimes he does it other times he doesn’t.
You never worry about anyone important to the plot being killed off when reading Eddings, he simply will not do it, he won’t even let his major characters get scuffed up too badly. An example is fan favourite Prince ‘Silk’ Kheldar of Drasnia. He is captured and put in a prison made of natural rock, awaiting a pretty nasty execution. His prison is virtually impenetrable, the only way in is to go directly through the rock. How fortunate that the newest member of the team (the religious zealot Relg) can phase through rock and even take someone with him. Later in the book Garion finds himself in a spot of trouble with Brill (whose real name was Kordoch and he was some sort of ninjaesque assassin) and Silk comes to his rescue. Silk’s always been good with throwing knives and creeping up on people unawares, but apparently he’s also The Belgariad’s answer to Jackie Chan. All of this completely ignores the fact that by now, with his growing magical talent, Garion should be able to kill Brill/Kordoch before the assassin even gets close to him.
You can’t think too deeply when reading any of Eddings work, if you do you ask yourself why when the group contains two members with godlike power (Belgarath and Polgara) is any of what you’re reading necessary. They also meet two actual Gods in Magician’s Gambit who appear to be completely powerless to help them in any way shape or form.
I think a lot of people quite liked Belgarath’s sorcerer ‘brothers’. I have to admit I didn’t mind Beldin, he occasionally crosses the line from humourous into parody, but he’s rather amusing. The twins who speak for each other were absolutely cringe inducing, though.

Now the good. Unfortunately there’s not a lot. One is that large parts of this book were told from the point of view of the tiny half dryad Tolnedran princess; Ce’Nedra. Of all of Eddings’ creations Ce’Nedra would have to be my favourite, and I appreciated seeing things from her naïve, self centred, bratty perspective. Ce’Nedra really should have been the central character, she’s far more interesting and multi dimensional than the drippy farmboy Garion.
No one reads an Eddings for character development, it’s non existent for the most part, they're all walking cliches, but there was a little bit of it in Magician’s Gambit and from a most unlikely source. Durnik actually shows a ruthless streak if pushed. Up until that point I’d barely even noticed him. He’d only really been mentioned when they needed someone to chop firewood or get angry when Beldin threw a particularly offensive insult at Polgara.
There were a couple of interesting magical creations. The carnivorous horses; Hrulgin, were both nasty and tough, as was the ogrelike Algrak; Grul. Shame that Grul perished, because he was a more interesting villain than the stereotypical Ctuchik.

Side note: I was a little disappointed to find that the term ‘magician’ in Eddings’ world is an insulting way of saying ‘sorceror’, because the title of Magician’s Gambit is my favourite of the five books in the series.

I’ll keep going, but only because I’ve promised myself that I will.

Pawn of Prophecy

The first of the E's and one of the better known works of recent fantasy.

Pawn of Prophecy is the first volume in the Belgariad and came out in 1983. It caused an instant stir when it hit the market. The Belgariad was a little unusual in that it contained 5 volumes not 3, although that may have been a publisher initiative to make more money out of the reading public.

It's been criticised as being derivative of Lord of the Rings, but in this case, as in others, it seems that saying a work is inspirired or influenced by Tolkien's ground breaking epic means that it is derivative. At the heart of it Pawn of Prophecy is a coming of age quest adventure.

Garion is a somewhat clueless young farm boy who grows up on a remote holding (Faldor's Farm), he is raised by the farm's cook, a lady he knows as Aunt Pol. Another influence on young Garion is Mister Wolf; a rogueish old story teller who visits Faldors from time to time. As it appears that a dangerous shadowy presence is stalking Garion he leaves the farm in company of Pol and Mister Wolf, the farm's blacksmith Durnik also joins them. They link up with the giant Cherek warrior Barak and his fox faced companion Silk. As they journey on Garion discovers more about himself, his destiny and the two constants in his life; Aunt Pol and Mister Wolf.

Despite the criticism Pawn of Prophecy, and the Belgariad as a whole, has received about being lightweight, it's a fun romp. Yes, it is very light and the world building is fairly shallow, but it's a fun easy read. It's a good introduction for a young reader or someone who doesn't want anything too involved, into fantasy.

The main characters are largely stereotypes. Garion is the wide eyed young man who has a destiny to fulfil. Aunt Pol is a motherly nurturing type, who hides her great power behind that facade. Mister Wolf is the great sorcerer Belgarath and largely follows the benevolent, bearded magic user storyline that's been around since Merlin in the original King Arthur legend. The presence of Durnik has always puzzled me. I think he's meant to represent the everyman view, but he's so totally unremarkable that you could replace him with a statue and I doubt anyone would notice. Barak is the big dumb muscle and Silk is there for comedy relief. He actually seems to be the best rounded character and is I believe many people's favourite.

You can't really read Pawn of Prophecy without reading the rest, in fact it's only really starting at the end of that book. So in the coming weeks I will be reading and reviewing each book in the Belgariad.

If you wanted to read on David Eddings wrote a 5 volume sequel called The Malloreon and also Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress.