Rating: 
Summary: The Worst Eddings Ever
Review: This book was by far the most trite, irritating, repetitive work I've had the misfortune to read in years. The characters are cookie cutter versions of previous Eddings' books. There is nothing new here except a world where the language, borders, tribes and geography don't change in 2,500 years?! What's with that? (Sorry I couldn't help the sarcasm after that mega dose I received from the characters in this book) Don't bother to read this one, in fact I've thrown out my copy because I couldn't in good conscience inflict it on anyone else.
Rating:
Summary: Eddings fans will be disappointed
Review: Let me start by saying I LOVED Eddings. The Belgariad, Mallorean et al were a great fantasy series with bound together with the very compeling themes of fate/destiny. He wrote with a very light style full of humor. His characters were very likeable and endearing.Unfortunately, once you've read almost twenty books of the same thing . . . it gets sickening after a while. I started to get bothered by the Polgara book, but I'm VERY disappointed now. What I HATED most about this book was the cutesy characters. It's like the Brady bunch got dropped in a fantasy world. In this world, everyone, no matter how "barbaric", "ruthless" or "fierce", acts noble and "teddy-bearish" when "tickled" the right way. The villains are so bland they act like one dimensional carboard cutouts of one another. They are SO inept that the "good guys" are in almost NO danger. Time and time again, the good guys correctly figure out all the evil plots and defeat them. You would aslo think that with time travel / teleporation and magic on their side the "bad guys" would think of better tactics. But no!!! They send wave after wave of soldiers to their deaths, while the good guys keep cooking up "clever" schemes to thwart them. Whats worse there is NO development. The characters behave the same way from beginning to end. Everyone is still "clever" and "endearing" and "loving" and oh soooo "polite" it makes me want to puke. I guess it didnt help that I read the edgy Perdido Street Station and the epic Lord of the Rings before this book, but I have to agree with the rest of reviews, this is by far the worst Eddings book.
Rating:
Summary: Wish I could use a 4 bombs rather than a star
Review: This is probably the worst piece of fiction I have ever read. The main reason I bought it was the indication that it was a 'stand alone' novel, and not a trilogy, decology or whatever multiple volumes keep coming out. It started off ok, but fell quickly into one dimensional characters and horrible dialogue. Did any one edit this thing? Did anyone count how many times "sort of" or "kind of" was used in a sentence. I must have (sort of) counted a dozen in a two page spread. The interactions grew to be so smarmy that I finally gave up. I don't want to know how it ended. There were more conveniences than a 7-11 strip mall. It did one thing however, it gave me further incentive to finish my own book. Which, though I've never been published, will read far better than this thing did. I've read much better lit. pieces in Writing 101. I doubt I'll ever pick up one of his books again. I read the Belgariad (in a convenient 2-volume Book Club release years ago), and found it entertaining. That was a reasonable first effort, though I didn't feel compelled to wade through the other multi-volume sets. Apparently at this point in his career he's (sort of)writing to fill a contract rather than provide any kind of new and exciting fiction. Read Robin Hobb. Read George R.R. Martin. Read a bodice ripper if you must. But save your money on this one.
Rating:
Summary: No Conflict + Lousy Characters = blah book
Review: I concur with what some other readers have written here. Biggest problem with the book is that it's supposed to be an epic war of good vs. evil but you get no sense of that at all; just a bunch of people bickering and making smarmy comments to each other while their plans all work without a hitch. The bad guys are actually kind of creepy but so inept it seems like Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner more than epic fantasy. Also, the hackneyed dialogue only draws attention to the two-dimensional characters. They all seem to have the same sense of humor, which unfortunately isn't funny. Each supposedly wry comment by the large cast of relatively indistinguishable characters (especially when you get to the clan chiefs, etc. could anyone keep all those guys straight?) is about as witty as the "joke" at the end of classic Trek episodes. It gets real tiring real fast. I haven't read the other Eddings' novels, but reading the other reviews, I have to wonder if this novel was scrapped together from notes from the original novels that made them popular, and released as a "new" novel to rip off the public.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of time
Review: There are some great epic fantasy writers out there. George RR Martin, Juliet E. McKenna. Do not waste any more time with David Eddings. With this book, Eddings has finally reached the pinacle of superficial, cookie-cutter story crafting. I will read no more.
Rating:
Summary: A Huge Disappointment
Review: I'm a real fan of the Eddings'Belgariad series, which were original and had terrific character and plot development. I was disappointed when the series ended. Then came the Mallorean, essentially a rehash of the first books but still readable and entertaining, however, all of Mr. Eddings books since the Belgariad have gone down in quality and content and this is by far the worst! All the characters from this book are just a rehash of characters from previous books and much too predictable. The sarcastic, trite dialog between the characters has become so tedious it's painful to read. And that whole "daddy" thing with Althalus, what's with that? Don't waste your money or your time with this one.
Rating: 
Summary: No
Review: No, this one was not by far what I expected from it. A disappointment, that took to long to read through. After the first 100 pages, you think that it will get better, but it doesn't, at least not much. Ofcourse, the signals of an Eddings novel can be found, but as others wrote before: it is not very renewing,not sparkling and certainly not something you would expect from mister Eddings. I was glad that I finished it, to move on to something better.
Rating:
Summary: Different title, same Eddings story
Review: It has been a grievance of mine for a while that most fantasy writers cannot write single volume stories, and I suspect the reason for this has more to do with money than creativity. Brooks, Jordan and Eddings himself are guilty of this crime. I give Eddings credit for this one thing: he has written a standalone fantasy novel, something which doesn't really exist. For this reason, Eddings gets an extra star and thus avoids the ignonimy of a one-star review. There is not much good in this novel, just enough to plod through it rather than put it down in the middle. The problems are probably too much to enumerate, but I'll mention the ones that come immediately to mind: (1) This is the same basic story Eddings has already told in the Belgariad and Malloreon. Not only has he retold it in the Elenium/Tamuli, he repeats it again here. (2) Even within the book, Eddings repeats himself, telling the same anecdote time and time again (note to author: we remember the incident when we read about it a hundred pages ago). (3) It is bad storytelling to have characters spend 50-100 pages planning something and then watching the plan unfold more or less as scheduled. After the introductory material, this sequence runs through the remainder of the book. More: (4) In a tale that is supposed to be good vs. evil, it would be fitting if the good guys were actually good, not just mercenary. This is really a tale of amoral vs. evil. (5) The "good" guys are so skilled and the villains so dimwitted that there is no true sense of menace or suspense. (6) The time travel material isn't very logical; when Althalus goes back in time, why doesn't he meet himself? If it was explained, it wasn't very clear? For many authors, I'd say this was poor writing, but considering Eddings's previous work, this novel is an embarassment.
Rating:
Summary: Why me?
Review: The characters in Eddings' books say this quite often...as well as a lot of other "cutesy" talk. Having read all of the other series (19 books counting Belgarath, Polgara and the Codex!) it never bothered me too much...until this one. I really wanted to reach into the book and slap just about everyone. The story was interesting in some places, but I couldn't get past the weak dialog and the "isn't that so cute" behavior between all the good guys. It's unfortunate too, since I was a huge fan of the Belgariad/Malloreon and Elenium/Tamuli. Sorry David and Leigh, but changing the world is not enough...you have to change the dialogue too. (I also have a bit of trouble with the idea that after 2500 years nothing has changed in the world except a few borders...the societies and clans pretty much remain the same. I wondered about this with the Belgariad too, but the story was too good to make too much of it. Here I can't say the same)
Rating:
Summary: Predictible
Review: I am a David Eddings fan. I have read everything he has published. I can't in good conscience rate this book any higher. The problem is that it reads like his other series. The one thing I can say about Eddings was that his characters came alive before me, but this time it reads like a reencarnation of characters from his previous books. I know none of the characters may have the same name, but they have the same personality as previous books; the country may be different, but the terrain is the same; the events may be different, but the obsession with a pattern still exists. The good point about this book is that it seems to be a stand alone novel.
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