David Eddings RIP
The Guardian is reporting that David Eddings has died.
I stopped reading Eddings long ago, but for me mention of him or The Belgariad (books 1-3, books 4 & 5) will always conjure up sundrenched days in Barbados, where I lived when I first read him. We haunted Cave Shepherd (a duty-free department store) on Broad Street searching for imported American paperbacks, because most bookstores in Barbados carried just “beach reading” at the time, and that meant almost nothing a budding geek would read.
They were sunny books, in the end, part of that wave of light fantasy in the late 70s and 80s when there was a lot less gore and a lot more humor in your swordplay (well, except for the Thomas Covenant books, which I read at the same time). I remember a frisson of awe when I thought that The Prophecy that guided the action in the novel (unusually, a speaking character in the books) was actually the author himself talking straight to his protagonist. I also recall my disappointment when it became clear that the book wasn’t nearly as gutsy as that. By the time we got to The Malloreon (books 1-3, books 4 & 5), my writerly mind had started mapping the action chapter by chapter, noting that there was actually the same set of characters and even broadly the same set of actions occurring in the same order — talk about a formula!
But it doesn’t matter — like so many other books, they were perfect for an age, and an ageless time in this case — 15 years old and bicycling around, hacking away at some game programming, a light introduction to metafiction and a paperback in my back pocket.
14 Responses to “David Eddings RIP”
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Did you ever read any of this other books? Even in his books that are fictionally unrelated to Belgariad/Mallorean (like the Elenium trilogy) his characters are basically the same as in the Belgariad, or a combination thereof.
Still, rote formula or not I too have many fond memories of reading his books as a kid.
I started the Elenium books, and gave up when I saw that. I was willing to read one rerun, not more.
I have to give Eddings some props on that point though — it was part of the plot that the plot was repeating!
I only read through the Belgariad and never paid much attention to the other books – for reasons mentioned above. However, it was formulaic and straight forward fantasy (to the point that Eddings even joked about it), that was still quite fun to read.
I have to agree with Tache; the repetitiveness was made part of the plot, and following that mapping, chapter by chapter, was much of what I enjoyed about it. It spoke to inevitability, to destiny; to the power of prophecy and one’s inability to avoid their fate.
I think the only thing that I didn’t like about Eddings’ work is the touchy-feely-happy in the earlier books, between Garion and Polgara (“I love you Aunt Pol” – *gag*), and, at the time, the wordy descriptions used of new locations. I read it when I was young and wanted dialog and action, and admit that there are passages that I’ve probably never read, even after re-reading the series multiple times, because of the long-winded descriptions.
The low-magic world is something that appealed to me, coming from a Dungeons & Dragons (and not a Tolkien) background, and every character was written well enough that you’d want to play him or her in a D&D campaign, were the novels ever turned into one (except Ce’Nedra – whiny so-and-so).
I certainly don’t have the time for it, but I’m strongly leaning towards my bookshelf right now to grab them all and read them again.
The Elenium was actually a better series than the Belgariad, I think, though it’s been many years now since I read either. But then, I actually read the start of the Elenium series (Diamond Rose?) before I started reading through the Belgariad proper — so perhaps my allegiance just lays with another of his formulaic rubber-stamped series.
But damn, even though there was never any risk of ANYONE dying, the whole omnipotent/prophetical thing sure was fun. The amount of power that the wizards/artifacts wielded was quite stupid though, in hindsight. I think I prefer the ‘softly softly’ approach of Tolkeinesque magic.
Or, my favourite, the first three books of Raymond Feist! The Magician trilogy is stunning.
Sad to see another one bite the dust. :/ I think books 1-3 of The Belgariad were some of the earliest fantasy-books I read. Never did read the rest of that series though.
Though I might not want to play her, I was quite fond of Ce’Nedra.
Raph, to you “gutsy” is a bad thing? I’m not getting that point.
Sometimes it’s the journey that matters not the destination, and that was no true than with the Belgariad and the Mallorean. I was quite fond of them for quite a while.
Also, the character of Polgara was something very new and interesting to me. Ask yourself how often middle-aged women are in fantasy novels. Unless they are written by Marion Zimmer Bradley, that is.
Typo, was supposed to be “wasn’t nearly as gutsy”. 🙂 I’ll update the post.
Someone needs to take that and turn it into, “I don’t care where you go; just get out of my house!” Then circle back and calling it a coping mechanism. 😛
I am so sad to hear that David Eddings has died! I used to listen to his books on audio for a while, and made it through most of them. I cried when Sparhawk killed his former friend and archenemy Martel, one of the few times I have while reading! But really they werent the best books in the world, just fun and light hearted good for relaxing. Definitely agree about the formula, it was so plain as day! But it worked for him and I enjoyed the books.
Its strange to hear about his death. Especially from this site, Raph always likes the things I like. :-p
I’ll always be grateful to Eddings for giving us Polgara who turned out to be one of the great female characters in fantasy literature.
The primary reason to read the Belgariad is for the characters. Polgara, Old Wolf, Ambar of Kotu (ahem), Ce’Nedra… Once read you’ll never forget them, some of whom will become beloved.
In the mid-80’s a friend of mine in Minneapolis, Ron Lasner, turned me on to the Belgariad by saying “You’ll like these. They’re like Disney for adults.” Truer words were never spoken.
Can’t say I was a huge fan of his books but it’s always sad to see someone, especially an author, pass away. RIP.
Whoa, just got that bottom dropped out of the world feeling. I found the Belgariad when I was about 15 or so and the first book is still in my personal top 5. I need to go dig out the books and mourn with some old friends.