Kevin's Watch

Horrim Carabal wrote:How did I miss all these threads about David Eddings?

Apparently I'm 11 years too late to make fun of him in this thread.

Screw it! I know I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I'm going to do it anyway.

When you tell people how bad Eddings's writing is, and they reply with "oh, so you could write a better fantasy series?" the correct response is "yeah, probably."

I have to admit I was pretty much under Eddings' "spell" for awhile, until I got to re-reading his stuff a few years later after originally reading him in the early 1990s. Eddings did his homework in writing a lot of backstory for his imaginary countries in Belgarath's world, but he just repeated himself with so much after that, that I came to feel that he wrote purely for the money, not out of love for his characters and tales. Eddings books are the equivalent of "junk food" in the fantasy world.

I must agree with you, HC!

Cord Hurn wrote: I have to admit I was pretty much under Eddings' "spell" for awhile, until I got to re-reading his stuff a few years later after originally reading him in the early 1990s. Eddings did his homework in writing a lot of backstory for his imaginary countries in Belgarath's world, but he just repeated himself with so much after that, that I came to feel that he wrote purely for the money, not out of love for his characters and tales. Eddings books are the equivalent of "junk food" in the fantasy world.

I must agree with you, HC!

Everyone goes through an "Eddings phase" when they are just getting into fantasy. For me, I was young, I was used to reading Dragonlance and Advanced D&D novels...Eddings was right in my wheelhouse.

Then, in short order, I read Kay's "The Summer Tree", Stephen King's "Eyes of the Dragon", and of course LFB and the rest of the Covenant books.

After that, Eddings didn't really appeal. My eyes had been opened, praise be!

I loved those Dragonlance books, and the others by those authors. Never really got into Eddings though...not even entirely sure why...possibly because I couldn't find all that many of them.

--A

Avatar wrote:I loved those Dragonlance books, and the others by those authors. Never really got into Eddings though...not even entirely sure why...possibly because I couldn't find all that many of them.

--A

Dragonlance by Hickman and Weis are good. The ones not written by those two? Abysmal.

Oh, never read the "franchised" ones. sounds like I didn't miss anything.

Loved the "Rose of the Prophet" series.

--A

Avatar wrote:I loved those Dragonlance books, and the others by those authors. Never really got into Eddings though...not even entirely sure why...possibly because I couldn't find all that many of them.

--A

If you've never read Eddings, count yourself lucky. I'll give you a run-down, though.

The Belgariad: Garion, a young farmboy, slowly discovers that he is actually a powerful sorcerer's descendant. He grows in knowledge and might while meeting many, many powerful relatives and friends. Eventually this huge troupe of good guys terrorizes and kills every bad guy in the world, including the god of evil. The end.

The sequel series, the Malloreon: Garion and his wife have a child, which is stolen by the evil Zandramas. She goes on the run from the huge troupe of good guys from the first series. The good guys chase her across the world, killing every ally of hers that she throws in their path. Eventually they catch her and kill her. The end.

Think I read one book from The Belgariad, and even though the library had another one or two, I just never went back.

That said, I did read and enjoy his book The High Hunt. Contemporary drama.

--A

Lol @ this old, old thread.

It's been years (YEARS) since I've read Eddings. I realize now why I liked it. It was because I was new to fantasy and that was pretty much my first introduction to epic/high fantasy. I really didn't know any better. Back then, I didn't look at his writing style, I just read it for the story.

Hate it or love it, you can't deny the effect his stories have had on a generation. I can honestly say that if it wasn't for Eddings and the Belgariad/Mallorean series, I wouldn't be the fantasy writer I am today.

Matthias wrote:Lol @ this old, old thread.

It's been years (YEARS) since I've read Eddings. I realize now why I liked it. It was because I was new to fantasy and that was pretty much my first introduction to epic/high fantasy. I really didn't know any better. Back then, I didn't look at his writing style, I just read it for the story.

Hate it or love it, you can't deny the effect his stories have had on a generation. I can honestly say that if it wasn't for Eddings and the Belgariad/Mallorean series, I wouldn't be the fantasy writer I am today.

I enjoyed reading them too, way back when.

Actually, I do like the idea of very powerful good guys. I'm not one of those people who think the good guys have to always be the underdogs or there is no purpose to the story. Sometimes it's cool to see the good guys kick arse and be the favorites. I'm also a big fan of Superman, who is this principle given comic-book form.

What I didn't like about Eddings wasn't the fact that the good guys were more powerful than the evildoers. What I don't like about Eddings (besides the poor mechanics of writing) can be boiled down to two things:

1) Stereotypical characters, usually based on rigid gender tropes. The females bathe incessantly and perfume themselves, the men are slobby brutes with no social graces. Men fart, eat like pigs, womanize, and drink. Women are shrill nags and obsess over clothing. It's tiresome.

2) The fact that Eddings falls in love with his own characters to an extent that you never expect anything to seriously endanger them - and it doesn't.

Matthias wrote:Lol @ this old, old thread.

Nice to see you around. Tell us more about the writing.

--A