Belgarath the sorcerer

If you want an entertaining book that takes you off to places that have a very good possibility of being real than this is the series for you. All of David Eddings books are done in very good taste and have you happy, sad, furious, cheering and blushing all in the same book. A very good and entertaining read.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Belgarath

To tell you the truth I hadn't intended to read this book. I picked it up having bought it many years before when I was deriving immense enjoyment from the Belgariad and Malloreon series and with only the intention of scanning through the first few lines to remind me of what this author and his imagined land were all about, I opened `Belgarath the Sorcerer' and turned to page one. But before I knew it I had been drawn in, but not by the fascinating origins of Belgarath the Sorcerer, at least not immediately, but instead quite cleverly by events that followed on from the ending to the Malloreon series with Garion, Durnik and Belgarath enjoying each others company in the Vale and contemplating all that brought them there.

I admit- quite a bit of what I'd read & absorbed in those two series had escaped my memory in the intervening years, but very soon I realised that I recalled enough to know that this beginning was an addition to the ending of the `Seeress of Kell' that I would have given my eye-teeth to read those handful of years ago. So to sum things up- it begins brilliantly and only gets better...it's a fantastic story in fact and while it is peppered with the Eddings witticisms and habitually over-used phrases that I grew to loathe in his `Elenium' and `Tamuli' series (be nice / I guess / old boy / sort of) those small annoyances are almost a part of its charm. A little more disappointing is the glossing over of moments when main characters are at their most vulnerable and interesting (such as when secondary characters perish)- but Eddings never seems inclined to dwell on those, favouring instead to dive headlong into the next conflict with the Child of Dark and his evil disciples ordained by infuriatingly-cryptic prophecy.

It's a long book, but it doesn't ever feel that way, such is the terrific pace that the author sets and while it is slightly derivative, it's nonetheless absolutely engrossing throughout and if like me you thought yourself immune to this type of somewhat formulaic story-telling then prepare yourself to be totally blown away!

Holy Belgarath

The best read in the Godslayer series.
This book answers sooo many questions that the previous books left open.
The series is excellent if you enjoy fantasy for most age groups.