Skip to main content

Eddings Mania

22. Guardians of the West by David Eddings
23. Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings

I decided to extend my Eddings kick and raided my university library accordingly. I graduate in a few days, so it feels like my last chance to get the most out of the library resources. In reality, I will still be able to check out books after graduation, though using a more cumbersome system, but my access to certain subscriptions (notably JSTOR) will cease, which will make me very sad.

In any case, Guardians of the West is the first book of the Malloreon, and I was at first pleasantly surprised to discover that it simply takes up where the Belgariad left off. In retrospect, this may not have been the best idea. The first three quarters of the book or so are basically recountings of events that happen over a number of years, so it misses the immediacy of the earlier books. It's great to see what happens to the characters, and the best part about it is the banter between characters that we already know and love, but the book begins to feel like an epilogue that's overstayed its welcome. Of course, these seemingly beside-the-point events do come together to form a plot in the last quarter of the book. We see the beginning of a new quest and our beloved characters get back into action once more. If I had been reading this together with subsequent books following after, I might not have noticed the length of the build-up as much. Since the rest of the series was unfortunately not in the library, I had to read this book on its own merits. I still look forward to the rest of the series, when I can get my hands on it, and I'm sure the payoff will be great.

I had different expectations for Polgara the Sorceress as it is literally the backstory of one character. I expected it to be a description of events over a number of years (Polgara the Sorceress lives for millenia), and in this case, Eddings actually had more plot and action than I anticipated. The series of events that occur the reader already knows as legends from earlier books, but here we see it fleshed out, from Polgara's point of view. Finally, the hinted-at stories of her time in Vo Wacune, Arendia, how she became the Duchess of Erat, and why she allowed herself to be sold as a Nadrak woman. We see how her prejudices, opinions, and habits are shaped over time, how she deals with the great secret that her mother is still alive and keeps it from her father for thousands of years, and her little jarring asides at the characters we know in "the present time," sometimes as she mocks their ancestors. Eddings made all these events and the woman who shaped and was shaped by them incredibly realistic, we feel her pains, her anger, and constant sense of duty as well as her capricious and flirtatious side. Since this is one of the last books Eddings, or, I should say, the Eddings, wrote, there were some spoilers for the books that I haven't read yet, but it's not like they weren't things I hadn't guessed, the true pleasure of these books is in the details.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Speed of Clouds by Miriam Seidel

Book Review: The Speed of Clouds by Miriam Seidel *To Be Released from New Door Books on April 10, 2018* Mindy Vogel is haunted by the future. In frequent daydreams, she toggles between her real, wheelchair-bound life and the adventurous life of her fanfic alter ego, SkyLog officer Kat Wanderer. She's haunted by all that Kat can do which she cannot---belong to an organization of comrades, walk, and fall in love---yet. Because at twenty-four, Mindy's future is very much ahead of her, wheelchair notwithstanding. Through Mindy's "SkyLog" fanzine and related emails, Seidel evokes Star Trek fandom around the turn of the millenium, but also creates a new and compelling science fictional universe, similar to what Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl  does for the Harry Potter fandom with "Simon Snow." Mindy is among the pioneers transitioning fandom from print to digital, boldly encountering like-minded individuals from the comfort of her chair behind the monito...

Books with Single-Word Titles

Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Books with Single-Word Titles These are all my favorite books that I could think of with one-word titles. A lot of fantasy, a few nonfiction (minus subtitles) and Kindred , whether you consider it scifi or historical fiction. Also two portmanteaus using the word "bitter." I suppose it's a word that lends itself to amelioration. 1. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler 2. Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore 3. Fire by Kristin Cashore 4. Heartless by Marissa Meyer 5. Inheritance by Christopher Paolini 6. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 7. Stoned by Aja Raden (has a subtitle) 8. Educated by Tara Westover 9. Fledgling by Octavia Butler 10. Kindred by Octavia Butler

The Ten Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection

 Most of the books I buy these days are ebooks, or books I'm technically "renting" (I guess that's the right term?) on Kindle Unlimited. I also get a few ebooks for review, usually from LibraryThing or directly from authors. Mostly I get books from the library, but I also try to buy/preorder from my favorite authors--sometimes ebooks or sometimes an actual book if I don't have a signed copy from that author yet! Here are the most recent books I've either bought or rented (TBR would be a whole other list!). Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Top Ten Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection Everlasting Spring: 101 Poems for Every Season of Life by Sonya Matejko (Ebook for review from LibraryThing) Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawagachi (Kindle Unlimited) Spark by Allie Lasky (Kindle Unlimited) The Hannukah Hook-Up by Jessica Topper (Kindle Unlimited) Hooked by M.C. Frank (Kindle Unlimited) A Dance of Blood and Destiny by K.R.S. ...