By David Eddings
Book 1 - Pawn of Prophecy
Book 2 - Queen of SorceryBook 3 - Magician’s Gambit
Book 4 - Castle of Wizardry
Book 5 - Enchanter’s End Game
“The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor’s farm. For all the rest of his life he had a special warm feeling for kitchens and those peculiar sounds and smells that seemed to somehow combine into a bustling seriousness that had to do with love and food and comfort and security and, above all, home.” – Pawn of Prophecy
Ever since I first picked up Pawn of Prophecy back in high school the Belgariad has been one of my favorite all time fantasy series. They are some of those books that I always keep in my library and pull out to reread time and time again. I even have the audio version, read by Cameron Beierle who is one of my favorite readers for Audible, and will often turn leave one on at night to listen to as I drift off to sleep, soothing my mind with a fun and familiar story.
The story follows Garion, a very young boy growing up on an isolated farm. Like most boys he dreams of adventures and excitement. But when the world is threatened by an ancient evil several of the adults in Garion’s life turn out not to be the commoner’s they had appeared but powerful sorcerers of legend and they must abandon their disguises and leave the farm to save the world. Young Garion finds himself inexplicably and suddenly wrenched from his quite life and pulled into a life of real adventure with a dire race across the world to prevent the awakening of a dark god bend on enslaving the world.
Rereading the books now that I’m older I can, if I’m looking for it, notice problems with the writing style. Eddings tends to be a bit clichéd at times. But where his writing might suffer in technique he definitely makes up for it in two ways: First, he is excellent at characterizing things quickly and plugging them smoothly into the narrative in such a way that make you interested in that character. Second, there are a lot of ‘behinds the scenes’ world building that I find really fascinating – how different types of magic works, the pantheon of gods, the history of the world. Usually the book kind of just throws these things out quickly here and there were they are needed but I found them very fascinating.
The books themselves are not very complex but they are very entertaining and easy to read mixture of adventure, humor, and fantasy. The series was very popular in the 90s and remains so today so it is easy to find the books at any library or to buy inexpensive copies online (thank goodness, since I’ve had to replace mine a couple of times as I wear them out or give them to friends).
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