David Eddings

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I remember when I first read The Belgariad, I was Garion’s age, but I felt smarter than him and identified with Polgara, Belgarath, and Silk more than anyone.

I liked how Garion became a little more experienced in The Mallorean.

Beldin the ugly hunchbacked dwarf sorcerer is still one of my favorite characters ever set on paper.

The Elenium shocked me because it was a little more adult, but still the same silly overdone pompous-and-self-deprecating fantasy.

I want to be Flute when I grow down.

I got my love of trolls from The Tamuli.

I call my computer Blue-Rose.

I snickered like a madwoman when he burned down his office. Daft old codger.

And I could tell Silk was not just my favorite, because The Redemption of Althalus was clearly a self-fanfic.

When I read The Belgariad again now, while I’m bugged by some of his opinions, I still feel like fantasy is fun and worthwhile, and I love the characters who know they're archetypes and just have to put up with it.

And I realized that while other people may use The Lord of the Rings world as a template for Standard Fantasyland, I go straight for the one in The Belgariad.

The man responsible for the greatest act of self-insertion into a story ever is gone. Long live the Purpose of the Universe.

Comments

[xaandria.livejournal.com]

What?

Nooo, I never got anything signed by him! :(

The Belgariad and The Mallorean are still my default "grab a book and read it" series, as well as Polgara the Sorceress (which has a permanent place on my dining room table for reading while eating) and Belgarath the Sorcerer. I have the two series on audiobook (fantastic reading on that one, by the way, worth taking a look at) and listen to them on my hour-long drives home on the weekends.

I wonder if this is an Event.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

"Self-fanfic," eh? That speaks a lot to its quality.

Well, I'm bummed to hear it, but at the risk of ill-speaking the dead, he hadn't written anything worthwhile in some time. Still, the ranks of the great are dwindling.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* Althalus is actually not bad--I like seeing how he tweaks variables, and he clearly decided that in THIS Fantasy Epic he would make the Silk character the hero.

I never even bothered with his latest series. But he gets props from me just for the old stuff.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

With Althalus, I was mainly bothered by the utter lack of conflict. At no point are the heroes in any serious risk of losing.

And I read the first book in his latest series. I found the gods too frivolous to identify with, and after too many chapters following a rather lame rehash of his archetypal sailor character, I got bored and gave up.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

One of my guilty pleasures is books without much real peril. I'm a bit too much like him myself, I think. :)

Here's my take on the plus/minus of Eddings' work. The newest series was an unengaging rehash, though. Couldn't be bothered.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

The Sparhawk series was a rehash too, but it worked because the tone was fairly different, which in turn was because the main character was older and more jaded. It was basically a more grown-up version of the same story.

A friend of mine says that Garion has something called "Harry Potter syndrome," which is the tendency to overhear important plot details and then not tell anybody about them. I personally could never get a lock on his intended age. He acted like a pre-teen throughout the entire first series, then in the second he was suddenly an adult, albeit a very uncultured one.

And I identified with Silk and Belgarath too, even though I'm not at all like them. And even though Silk's love interest was overly contrived (although fantasy romances are always contrived).

[daiq.livejournal.com]

A friend and i once timelined Garion's age throughout the two series, i think we had him at 15 in the first book (based on a birthday comment somewhere along the line - C'nedra turns 16 before him doesn't she), and about 24 i think through the main action of The Malleorean (8 years of marriage with no children, the kidnapping etc). But we also obviously had two much time on our hands ;)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's what I got, too.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I always got so FRUSTRATED when the main character was too stupid to mention possible Situations to anyone. It invariably gets someone into Deep Shit.

See, Sparhawk's books were ENGAGING rehashes--once again, the tweaked variables made me laugh.

daiq there and I have the same timeline for Garion's age, so it's probably close.

And yes, Velvet was kinda the most pointless character. Eddings had a certain obsession with marrying off his characters. One of my many issues with him, but I love him unconditionally ANYWAY.

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

Aw, damn. Eddings is brain candy. It's formulaic and fluffy and fun. And I just this morning reread the scene from Belgarath the Sorcerer when Beldin first turns up. Because I totally adore Beldin.

[songfire3.livejournal.com]

I will miss him. I love his characters and his sense of humour. And his kick-ass female characters-with-flaws (kudos to Polgara and Mirtai among others)! His books helped me to survive adolescence more or less sane.

Swift journey, David! Be happy with Leigh again! And thank you for all the wonderful stories!

[tsita.livejournal.com]

OT: Adrian Welch is having problems with people not crediting him with his photos and has asked that everyone stop using them....

Didn't know if you knew that or not...

[songfire3.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't know that...I've deleted the icon.

[tsita.livejournal.com]

Yeah, some putz was passing Welch's work off as his own. Can't say I blame him, can you?

Kinda wish it hadn't come to that, I enjoy his work.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Aw man, I liked him. He made violence funny . . . what, you didn't laugh when Silk kicked Brill off the cliff and wondered if he'd learn to fly before hitting bottom?

Eddings was hardly one of the literary greats, but he told a good story. Hell, I named one of my own characters after him,

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

Especially the thieves' guild's mass murder in the Tamuli. The ways some of those people were dispatched were fairly brutal, but they had previously been introduced to the reader in such a way that we didn't feel the least bit sorry for them.

Actually, Eddings' vindictiveness got to me sometimes. He seemed to have a very cruel in for all of his villains. Some of them were well-deserved, but setting a man on fire for eternity, among others, seemed a bit much. And I always felt sorry for Zedar.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Maybe a little.

Zedar was supposed to make you feel sorry for him, I think. He was never cut out to be a Disciple to begin with and you have to wonder what might have happened had things been different.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That was one thing that made me a little nervous about him, yes--the good guys tended to be, um, BAD at times. There was one incident that always bothered me especially: some guard tries to do a You Shall Not Pass to our heroes and they boredly whack off his head and move on. It was played for laughs--the guy was supposed to be Some Random Tool--but HONESTLY.

The fire one made a little more sense because if I recall correctly it was done by a vindictive god, and they're notorious for that sort of cruelty, so it was at least in character. But it wasn't exactly NICE.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

... I did laugh. Kind of a lot.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

I was re-reading book one of the Malloreaon and chuckling as Belgarath and Beldin discussed 'Zakath's march through Murgo when I noted something.

At least some of what made that funny was that Eddings used understatment a lot. 'Zakath was dangerous, and they treated him as such, but they didn't get excited about it and maintained the banter.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

Oy my goodness, i hadnt heard this. I am devistated.

I rememeber sobbing during Beldin's scene, sobbing, and i was an adult! I blogged with great delight about his efforts almost turning himself into a Darwin Award winner ;) I fantasy cast The Belgariad (Silk is so obviously designed for Cary Elwes of course ;) ) as a teen. I even actually enjoyed The Dreamers (on reread) which i don't think many people did. I read and re-read the Garion and Sparhawk books because they are light, fluffy and just good friends.

[tsita.livejournal.com]

My copies of Garion's stories and Sparhawk's are both losing pages from me reading them so much...

[jesuitfluff.livejournal.com]

Aw man. Eddings was not my favorite, but he helped me analyze why I liked certain myffic tropes. (and disliked others. Dweia could eat a broken window as far as I was concerned. The child goddesses were never fun.)

He was a splendid nerd and never pretended to be anything else. Mass props.

He told a good story (the same story, from different levers and levels). ._. May he rest in peace, with plenty of pens, paper, and popcorn.

[gondolinchick01.livejournal.com]

*dabs at her eyes* Let's go out to lunch somewhere and drink a toast in his honor sometime soon.