Belgarath the Sorcerer

Rating:
Summary: AN EXELLENT BOOK TRULY WORTH YOUR WHILE
Review: Belgarath the Sorcerer is a prequel to the Belgariad and the Mallorean which it deals with the events up until Pawn of Prophecy: Book One of The Belgariad. Belgarath the Sorcerer picks up after the end of The Mallorean and fills in details to the two previous series. It also gives explanations to the animosities between certain characters in the series that were not given before, only hinted at. A reader who has not read The Belgariad and The Mallorean may miss some of the significance of this book, but for those who have read the two series, this book is the perfect companion and should be read.

Belgarath the Sorcerer is perhaps David Eddings best work to date and should be read in order of release, due to the fact that the book picks up where The Mallorean leaves off. Fans of Eddings work will truly enjoy reading this for its humor as well as for its detail, it remains true to the storylines and is truly worth the reader's while.

Rating:
Summary: A warning to potential readers...
Review: This book is a great addition to the saga; a real added bonus for those who already love Eddings' work. Its wry humour and great storytelling style make it a definite page-turner, despite a few qualms I had with Belgaraths' little 'asides' to the reader - amusing to begin with, but a few of his quips fell short with me. However, overall, an extremely enjoyable read.
However, I must add a word of warning to potential readers out there. A lot of reviewers have been recommending Belgarath the Sorcerer as a good way to start on the Belgariad and Mallorean series - it IS a nice summary of the world Eddings has created but some people might want to avoid it until they have read the other series as this book reveals many of the plot-twists which, for me, made the Belgariad and Mallorean so enjoyable. Eddings' device of starting and ending this book with episodes from Garions' current life, set after Seeress of Kell, is a good idea but it means that a new reader will quickly find out what happens to the gang in the end - if you're the kind of person who flicks to the ends of books anyway then that's alright, but if you want to save the surprises for later then don't read this book yet! A friend of mine picked up Belgarath the Sorcerer before reading the other books and was disappointed that she then knew what was going to happen to Garion and his friends. Also, the world-building which came quite gradually in the Belgariad and Mallorean is now crammed into one book here, and I think many of the references to events in the other novels would be lost on new readers here, especially towards the end of this book when emphasis is heavily on the background of characters such as Silk, Barak and Garion.
Overall, a great book, but you'll get more out of it if you've read Eddings' previous works already!

Rating:
Summary: I couldn't finish
Review: David Eddings is one of the rare breed of writers. Not a very good one, in my humble opinion, but an excellent storyteller and always one to weave a yarn worthy of a plane ride or a quick escape to fantasyland.

I read The Belgariad when I had a cold and winced/giggled all the way through. Similarly, I made my way through all five books of The Mallorean enjoying the characters and the story line.

Eddings is far from a horrible writer, but he's definitely a mass-market writer, not a genius of prose. However, when I tried to tackle Belgarath The Sorcerer, I had to admit defeat. Long winded and repetititive, Belgarath reads like the memoirs of an annoying uncle who is so captivated by himself that all stories revolve around him.

If one is familiar with the character from Eddings' series at all, one knows enough of Belgarath to skip this book. There is nothing new or interesting, style wise, to warrant this book. As a history of Belgarath, I suppose this could be interesting to the die hard fan who MUST know everything about the world Eddings has created.

As a reader who is mildly OCD, I feel compelled to finish what I start, no matter how badly written. Once I start a series, I feel compelled to finish it, even if I wasn't that fond of the first book. There are few exceptions to this rule, but Belgarath The Sorcerer is one of them.

Unless you are the type of reader who has to slavishly follow everything a writer ever puts out, I can't recommend Belgarath to you. Stick with The Belgariad and, possibly, The Mallorean. The interaction of all Eddings' characters is really where he shines. These side ventures into the individual stories behind some of them just don't serve him well.