Rating: 
Summary: Sweet but short
Review: Being a huge fan of David Eddings' novels I knew what to expect from this story. I got everything I expected both good and bad. The good ....the typical Eddings story of the common man (or woman)facing the strugle of good vs evil...the endearing quality of the authors characterizations....the relative shortness of this novel compared to his other trilogys...the acnowledgement of his wife as co-author. The bad...predictability.....the shortness. For fans either of the fantasy genre or the author this is a must buy. This is also a good buy for those NOT SO INTO THE GENRE it has more mass apeal mainly due to its shortness. WELL WORTH THE PRICE OF ADMISSION FOR ALL.
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of Money
Review: For those who have read the Sparhawk series, would be enticed to buy this book. Don't bother, there is no depth to the plot, and the characters are superficial. Death is treated superficially, and war is carried out only for gold. The evil ones always lose, but they lose before they even start. I like reading David Eddings style, but this book doesn't fall under them.
Rating:
Summary: Shallow, Shallow, Shallow
Review: If this plot were a lake, then the book would be like skipping a stone across it. Character development is totally absurd, plot development is laughable, and pacing is non-existant. The heroes can change or stop time, spy on anyone at anytime, are immortal, have magic powers, have a goddess directly helping them, and are either a genius or an expert at something. The bad guys are slow and stupid and have no chance of accompishing anything..........ever. I've seen Saturday morning cartoon shows with much better plots than this book has, and much more likable characters too. Also, what's up with the GIANT plot holes? "You can't change the past, time only moves forward" a character says early on. So what do they do? Go back and change time of course. Not to mention that the only way to kill a bad guy is to trick them into some lame and overly-complicated plot. If you can spy on them all the time, why not just jump out at them and stab them? I hope that this isn't the best the Edding's can do because if it is, they need to turn off their computer and walk away.
Rating: 
Summary: The Mighty have Fallen
Review: I loved the Belgariad, the Mallorean, and both Sparhawk series. I enjoyed The Losers and High Hunt. I even read the Rivan Codex! And I cannot believe how badly Eddings has let us down with this one. Dialogue attrition (he said, she said, he yelled) in this new book is absolutely shocking. "He grated out"? Please. Characters are one dimensional, and they have the same conversations over and over again. Poorly thought out, poorly written, and not worth the time it took to read. If you're an Eddings fan, don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Constant Pace, Very Uneventful, Very Typical
Review: I was given this book as a gift and began to read it the same night. The begining was quite engaging but it trails off quickly after that, as I see I'm not the only one to notice. One thing I noticed is that the action and storyline keeps a very constant pace throughout the entire book. There is no real climax, no changes of pace, it's just a list of events - some of which described in slightly more detail than others. Overall it's not a bad read but it feels FAR too long - everyone knows exactly what's going to happen a long time before it does, and there's no reason to delay the revelation in the book - but the authors do, it gets quite tedious. Additionally - this plot feels unplanned - you can take that as good or bad. It doesn't feel like the authors really knew where they were going with things when they first wrote them, which leads to a constant state of one-upping the wierdness of what has just happened with new events, which must be topped with oddness and unpredictability later. I agree that the book starts off great: a gripping, wonderful, fantastict fantasy novel. But then, in what feels to me like an attempt to be different, the authors take a quite unexpected turn, flipping the story completely upside down. I don't feel that the trick worked as well as one might hope. Overall, unlss you're a speed reader I'd probably avoid this book, especially if you're already an Eddings fan.
Rating:
Summary: Look elsewhere - this bites
Review: First off, let me say that I don’t receive criticism well and it embarrasses me to be the one to hand it out. I feel like a hypocrite. At the same time, this is the genre where I spend all my reading time, so I do know it well. Enough rambling. One day I hope to pen a book of my own and because of that, this book is great. It shows me just what I don’t want to do. When I first read Eddings stuff in the Belgariad and Mallorean (sp?), I was a little concerned how easily situations arose for the heroes. How life just came together with what seemed to be little effort on their part. How changes and twists in the story were heralded in such an obvious fashion that for all the length of the story, there weren’t many surprises. It’s what I would call ‘pulp fantasy’. I kept reading and though Mr Eddings couldn’t ‘transport me to strange and wonderful places’, he did, for a while at least, keep me busy. That was then - now I can’t even bring myself to finish this book. I’m about 100 pages from the end and I just cannot justify the waste of my time it would be to finish. Wooden and largely shallow character development (at best), combine with what is an even worse connect-the-dots type story line. And why is it that the primary heroes so often seem to somehow score immortality out of their relationship with the gods? OK - that’s enough of a rant. I didn’t like this book and probably wont bother to buy another by this author. If you’d like a different opinion to mine, look at the best seller lists where stuff by Eddings turns to gold. If you’d like to read some good fantasy try something by George Martin or Robert Jordan. If anyone wants my copy of the book I’ll send it to you for the cost of shipping. All you owe is an honest review posted to this site after you’ve read it. ...
Rating:
Summary: Another review for a bad book from a good author
Review: Simply put, the book was terrible. The hero uninteresting, unlikeable, and makes a miraculous transformation in to Belgarath from the Belgariad series in a matter of a few pages The supporting Cast: From eddings earlier series too, nothing new here. The dialogue: Read the belgariad, and find the same dialogue in a much better book The plot: What plot? The villians: Who are these evil people. No development, they just appear when eddings needs a bad guy, and dissapear just as fast. They have no real motivation, and are are so undeveloped that you cant even call them one dimensional The world: No development here either Go Read the Belgariad or Elenium..thier much better books
Rating:
Summary: Terrible continuance of a genius writer
Review: Unfortunately for the Eddings', this is going to have to be a terrible review. The Belgariad and Malloreon I have read over and over and have never tired of the characters or the dialogue. This book, however, was simply awful. I literally forced myself to continue reading it and truthfully, the last fifty pages or so were my favorite if only because the book was ending. The same conversation is held over and over again with an unbelievably boring aspect, the characters are not well-rounded and frankly, most of them annoyed...me. Battles that were supposed to be edgy and witty were just plain dumb and strategy was even worse. Some of the characters had potential, but the Eddings' seemed to make all the bad guys so incredibly stupid that there was never a chance for them anyway. The good guys are irritatingly snobbish in their attempts to right the wrongs of the world, and at many points in the story did I wish that Althalus and his group would simply perish under the tyranny of the evil god. It would have made this a much better book!
Rating: 
Summary: Bad bad work Eddings..
Review: The Redemption of Althalus is the worst Eddings book yet, the Belgariad series was great, the Elenium was just a fresh wind puff aswell, adding unique new characters, plot and enviorment. The Redemption of Althalus however, is just a mix of the two above mentioned series - crammed into one 700 page book. I have read to about page 300 now, and i must say that the plot of all Eddings book is always the same, here is a simple explanation of it: You have been chosen, now i will teach you magic. You grow old -2,500 years or older. You are sent on a quest by a GOD to save the world. The first step of that quest is to gather a " party " of 4-6 people who will help you to save the world. You fall in love with someone. The people in the " party " all fall in love with someone. You and your " party " save the world. You all get married and live happily ever after. NOTE: The 1st person perspective was added to give a better view of the contents. This is the basic plot of All Eddings books, it seems as if the Eddings minds got tangled into a web after completing their first series( The Belgariad ) and since then they have continued making books with the same plot, and basicly the same characters and world.
Rating: 
Summary: Thrilling
Review: I thought this was a terrific stand-alone novel, It was funny, different and creative while still fitting into the normal fantasy struggle between good and evil, and I could see a lot of relations to other characters from the other collections of books.
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