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.

Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings

I must have read Castle of Wizardry at some point, in fact I must have read it more than once, because I know I’ve read the entire Belgariad at least twice. Somehow in these readings I somehow managed to miss the books failings, and they are many. The nicest thing I can say about is that it is unnecessary.

I’m not sure when this started, but it seems to coincide with the advent of big, sprawling multi book series; The Belgariad at 5 volumes is one of the first of these, writers began to write what readers now seem to call ‘filler’ books. They contain roughly the same number of pages as the rest of the book in the series, but virtually none of the plot or character development. Castle of Wizardry is one such book. There are maybe 50 pages of relevant material that actually moves the plot and story forward, yet the book is 370+ pages in length. I don’t see any reason that the pertinent information couldn’t have been added to the end of the Magician’s Gambit and the start of Enchanter’s End Game, thus entirely negating the need for the wandering mess that is Castle of Wizardry.

Garion and the gang escape Murgoland, they lob up on the Rivan Isles, Garion gets proclaimed as Rivan King, much to Ce’Nedra’s distress because she now has to marry Garion and accept that she actually is in love with him. Garion, Belgarath and Silk go on a road trip for no other reason than the authors seemed to think it was a good idea at the time (the real reason is to confront Torak, but it results in some of that pointless wandering about the countryside that readers love so much) and Ce’Nedra does a tour gathering support for her soon to be husband’s cause. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell and it took David and wife Leigh Eddings over 300 pages to do this.

I’d long been aware that they tended to gloss over important social issues for the sake of a joke, but I didn’t remember them making light of Hettar the Horselord’s homicidal tendencies where Grolims are concerned, but they do. Hettar admits that most of his waking thoughts concern killing Grolims when asked by two of the other alpha males in Barak and Mandorallen. Barak does seem a little concerned, but there’s really an air of it being laughed off as ‘Oh that Hettar! What a card he is! Here, behead another Grolim old chap, that should cheer you up.’

There was also the rather bizarre relationship between the religious zealot Relg and the sheltered cave woman Taiba. It’s seriously dysfunctional and couldn’t be enjoyed by either, but it is encouraged by characters like Polgara.

So much of this seemed to be ideas that probably should have been edited out, but were left in to make up the page count. The boy detective thing that Lelldorin and Garion went on to find out who was behind the attempts on Garion’s life was one such example. Not only was it entirely ridiculous and unbelievable, it was totally out of place. That sort of thing should be left to the Hardy Boys and The Three Detectives. No, I take that back not one of the books in those series contained such badly written, amateurish attempts at investigating.

Characters were made to act entirely out of character for no real reason. Polgara’s tantrum is one such example. When finding out her father, Garion and Silk have skipped out, she flies into a terrible rage and throws a tantrum that any 3 year old would have been proud of. Of course being possessed of almost godlike power an enraged Polgara could level the city if she were allowed to keep it going. Who calmed her down? Ce’Nedra. Ce’Nedra! The queen of the tantrum herself. So we have the infuriatingly calm and self possessed Polgara, who generally sips tea serenely and offers practical advice to rulers of nations throwing a tantrum because her father, surrogate nephew and an associate have managed to escape the island and put one over her, being calmed down and settled by a fairly scattered 16 year old half dryad who is notable for throwing things and holding her breath when her every whim is not catered to? It was almost as if the Eddings’ decided to write a chapter or two of the book in Bizarroland. Truly odd. When they first came up with the idea it may have actually sounded pretty funny, unfortunately in practice it’s stupid.

In this one not even the hallmark of the books in the snappy dialogue can save them. This is mainly because there isn’t any. There’s dialogue, but none of it is particularly amusing or well written. Stilted, clunky and boring are the three words that immediately spring to mind. Honestly if you haven’t read The Belgariad and you do want to, you could skip Castle of Wizardry and not have missed anything. You may actually improve your reading experience by doing so.

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.

Queen of Sorcery

Queen of Sorcery could be subtitled How to Write a Fantasy Epic for Dummies. Right from the beginning this second volume in David Edding’s Belgariad ticks every box and while it tells a decent story with the familiar and popular characters from the opening book (Pawn of Prophecy) it also makes every mistake in the book, which tended to sometimes spoil the narrative for me.

It follows the popular middle volume tradition of having the protagonists wander around the countryside aimlessly for most of it’s length. Along the way they add to their group. A hot headed young Asturian archer, saddled with the unfortunate elf like name of Lelldorin joins the band briefly as a friend for Garion, he is unfortunately injured during one of the fights that the book is riddled with at fairly regular intervals, this forces him leave the group and have his injuries tended to by a concerned maiden. I think Lelldorin does return in a further installment of the series and I’m betting he’s married to the concerned maiden by the time he does. The somewhat pompous and very vain Mimbrate knight; Baron Mandorallen, also joins our intrepid band and like all good Mimbrates peppers his speech with plenty of thees and thous, although I understood the necessity to differentiate him like this, the courtly speech often took me out of the narrative, so in hindsight may not have been the best move. The revenge seeking horselord Hettar was introduced in Pawn of Prophecy, but played a larger role in Queen of Sorcery and was added to the roster as a permanent member of the questing group. The highlight for me was the introduction of Garion’s love interest, the half dryad Tolnedran Princess; Ce’Nedra. Ce’Nedra is my favourite character. When she’s being tantrum princess you just want to spank her, but there are other times when she’s a little lost girl who needs a hug.

David Eddings definitely ramped up the violence in this instalment. Despite that there are frequent fights and some serious injuries are sustained (never to any of the principals, Garion gets knocked out a couple of times, but that’s about as bad as it gets) it always comes across as cartoon violence. The action is well written and exciting to read at the time, but the reader is always secure in the knowledge that no one of any real importance will be killed and this effectively kills off any tension.

The first two thirds of the book meander without much of a point. Garion is still young, idealistic and frequently stupid. Polgara mothers everyone and silences any complaints with a frosty glare. Silk cheats people and makes amusing comments. Durnik continues his impersonation of a lump of wood. About the time Ce’Nedra is introduced things pick up, of course I could be thinking that because I adore Ce’Nedra’s character. The last third of Queen of Sorcery contains some genuine magic, not just the wave your hands in the air kind of thing that Eddings often employed. I thought the perception of dryads as rather childlike female warriors was rather cool, I particularly liked the one that wanted to shoot Garion because she found ‘it’, so ‘it’ was therefore hers to kill. The snake people of Nyissa were also interesting and different.

I did find myself wondering at times if Polgara and Belgarath were as all powerful as they appeared why was so much of what they did necessary in the first place? It’s rather like playing a computer game, you have to meet the swordsman before you can ascend to the next level and then you have to unlock the secret of Garion’s power before you can go to level 3, etc…

Queen of Sorcery is deeply flawed, but also strangely compelling. The adventure doesn’t end there and you find yourself wanting to go on and find out how it all turns out, plus Magician's Gambit has lots more Ce’Nedra!

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.