Books : Guardians of the West (The Malloreon, Book 1)

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Rating:

- Love Eddings
For people who enjoy reading for the purpose of getting into the story. The books written by David Eddings' are for people who get attached to characters and love to immerse themselves in reading. To me his books are like coming home for a visit.

If you want to read simply to get to the finish line---Eddings is not for you.

Rating:

- The Saga Continues .. Or perhaps begins again.
Possible spoilers ahead

This book (and series) is the center of a lot of controversy among fantasy fans. The main issue hinges on whether this is a new and fresh series or if it's repetitious drek. The answer to this daunting question is... yes.

The problem here is that most people (I feel) don't get what Edding was trying to do here. In my reviews for the Belgariad books I said that these books resemble nothing so much as a fantasy Sitcom, or if not a sitcom, at least some kind of serialized TV. If you've ever watched a TV program in your life you will realize that ideas are recycled constantly, that's one of the reasons I picked a sitcom to compare it to. The fun comes not out of the plot but the characters' reactions to the plot and character is what Eddings does best.

Furthermore, Eddings made way for a second series in the Belgariad's last book by giving us ample signs. We met 'Zakath for the first time in the last quarter of the book for instance. There were also tantalizing hints as to Errand's identity. Enchanter's Endgame was clearly not meant to be the end of the story.

As to the repetition of ideas and settings and such, it should be said that even the characters are aware of the cyclical universe they are in more than (or just as much as) the reader is. They begin a conversation in this book that lasts through the whole series about things repeating. This awareness on the part of the characters adds a layer of what might be called metafiction, Not too much of course, this isn't Dhalgren or anything, but it's interesting that it's there.

As an individual book Guardians of the West has been criticised for its slow pacing. Those that close this book for that reason are missing out on an interesting concept. Think about this: We have Garion, the Godslayer, Lord of the West and all around megahero. We have followed him from birth to the killing of a god. Then we just leave him there.

I like the fact that we get to see this world in a state that we see very few fantasy worlds in: Peace. We get to see how the kingdom runs when there isn't a universe-ending crisis happening. This aspect of the novel hit me when my 10 year old cousin asked me what Darth Vader and the Emperor did in their spare time. I didn't even know how to answer that. That made me start thinking about whether fantasy worlds could actually function as a society during peace time or just fall apart. Now there IS a threat about in the land but it takes several years to manifest so we get a chance to stretch our legs a bit.

There is also the matter of Errand, he's going to become very important so we have to spend time with him and get to know him since, ut until now, hs's only said the word "Errand". While Errand is living with Polgara and Durnik in the vale Eddings gets to write more on one of his favorite themes which is family.

In short, read this book when you have time to take a book in at a leisurely pace. I will say that there's a bit too much Polgara and a bit too much C'Nedra in this book. I've said before that Eddings has trouble writing female characters and it stands out in this book a bit more than usual but that's my only criticism of the book.

Enjoy

Rating:

- guardians of the west (the malloreon, book 1)
I have found that you can't go wrong, when you read David
Ennings. I was caught up in the story from page 1. I just could not put it down, and when I finished I could not wait too read
the next book.

Rating:

- Belgarion and Aldur
When Garion finds that his son was abducted, he was in a rage. He just solved his marriage problems but he now has to deal with another. Will he get his son back? Or will he have to wait? Read the series to find out. I would recommend the book to teenage fantasy lovers.

The first reason I would recommend this book is for its magical and mythical world. People can turn into animals. Not only that, they can cast very powerful spells and talk to animals. There are many different magical races. Each race have their own unique qualities.

The second reason I would recommend this book is for the different races and different lands. For example, Urgo's live in caves and their eyes are sensible to the sun. Another example is the Disciples of the God's. Each Disciple of Aldur has a tower but disciples of Torak get picked off one by one because they are descendants of an evil god.

The final reason I would recommend this book is because it has unique and cool names for people. One example of a unique name is Belgarath. Each name suits its character very well. They also tell you what they are. For example, Belgarion is a name fit for a king, and guess what, it is.

All teenage fantasy lovers will greatly enjoy this book. With each and every chapter, you get further interested and it gets harder to put the book down. I would also strongly recommend the rest of this wonderful series. Not only is this a series, it is a series in a series. These books keep their readers interested and faithful.

N. Koester

Rating:

- Amazing!
This book is absolutely amazing! I would have to give it a five star rating (and that's rare). You keep the old characters, the old beginning, the old story, but you get a new destiny, a new destination, a new prophecy. You get to see people who you never saw in The Belgariad. You get to meat new characters that weren't in previous books. This book tells you a bit about Errand, and explains his thoughts and way of thinking. You'd be amazed how he thinks about things.
In the Belgariad, you had a prophecy. Either dark would triumph, of light would. Then they all thought it was over. But it wasn't. Light had won, but it had not triumphed. So now they need to find the Child of Dark, so (Bel)Garion, the Child of Light, can fight him. The prophecy said so.
In the Belgariad, Garion fought against Torak, one of the Gods. Torak was the Child of Dark. Now Zandramas is the Child of Dark, and Garion is going to have to fight him. But first he'll have to find him.
This time Garion has some idea of what he is supposed to do, but that isn't exactly helpful when some attempts to murder his wife, Ce'Nedra, when his son is kidnapped, or when he finds out that one of his companions will die on his journey.
I definitely recommend this book to fantasy lovers who don't like being over-loaded. I know that I loved this book and story from the moment I first opened it.

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