Rating: 
Summary: To All Fantasy Readers
Review: First, like many others, I have been a huge fan of Eddings. Their Belgariad/Malllorean epics were poetic and full of emotion. I didn't think the second two series were quite as good, but they were both above the average fare of fantasy books.However, I have come to a sad conclusion after reading this book: The Eddings do not respect the intelligence of the average fantasy reader. This rehash of a book shows that they feel they can simply regurgitate the same formula and get lots of people to buy it. The characters(a VERY strong point in his previous books) are flat, repetitive and can be replaced with many of the characters from their other books. I am trying very hard to think of an original character in this book and I cannot do it. The dialogue was fun when I first read it in the Belgariad. But now I have seen it again and again in their subsequent series with little or no change. It's comparable to having someone tell you the same joke over and over again! The plot is so similiar to the Belgariad that you can read about it yourself by reading the back of those books. The magic has to be the worst that they have come up with yet. The idea of the Book was interesting, but after studying it for 2500 years, 'Althie' frequently couldn't remember a word to do a spell! And even after that, it was similiar to the Word and the Will. Sadly, this wasn't even a good, light read. It was too repetitive with no element of danger. The heroes move through obstacles quickly and with little effort. I will close with a final plea to David and Leigh Eddings. Please, take a year or three off. Brainstorm some interesting and new ideas. Then, take those new ideas and write in a different style! Delete all "Be nice" and "I thought you would" etc. I would really like to buy your books in the future, but if this is what you are going to be putting out. I'm afraid you've lost a reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Engaging, humorous story - STOP COMPLAINING, REVIEWERS
Review: Okay, I'll be upfront with everyone who is reading this ... the main reason I'm writing this is to contradict the trend that seems to be forming in the opinions, that this book is poorly written, lacks plot, and is unoriginal. Well, to a certain extent, yes, it might be. But for crying out loud, ITS A FANTASY NOVEL. People read novels to get caught up in the story, and like another reviewer mentioned, Eddings has a refreshing way of writing that keeps you relaxed and free. This book is just plain fun to read. It doesn't have the mind-wrenching plot twists of George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire", it doesn't have the mammoth scope of Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time", and it doesn't have the innovative magic/belief system of L. E. Modesitt's "Recluce Series". What it does have is humorous, believable character interaction, and a refreshly simple and easy going storytelling style, yet retaining complex ideas of space, time, good and evil. In short, ITS A GOOD STORY, and i LOVED the book. If you've read Eddings before, you'll enjoy it; if not, and you're looking for a fun read, you'll enjoy it too. If you are looking for plot complexity, mind-blowing proportions, and casts of thousands, go read Jordan's million page tomes. Don't get me wrong, i'm still reading the Wheel of Time, and its a good series to a certain extent, and i'll finish it, but there's one difference between Jordan and Eddings ... I actually REREAD Eddings :)
Rating:
Summary: I really wanted to like this book
Review: I really wanted to like this book. I really did. I've been a big fan of fantasy for many,many years, but I just could never get into Eddings books. Something always left me cold. I last picked up one of his books when I was 15. Flashforward 15 years. I see the book and something about the "look" of it strikes a cord in me. I read a little about it, and take the plunge. It seemed like and interesting, epic idea. I really wanted to like it. But I did not. The characters are fun, the idea of the "doors" in the house is great, I even loved the concept of the waring god/siblings, but in the end this story simply had NO CONFLICT. Never once was I pulled in to cheer for the main characters. I was never afraid for their lives or well being. Eddings missed so many opportunities for danger, conflict and risk. Frankly, I never doubted that the good guys would win, because the villans never seemed to be a threat to them, nor did Eddings ever set the villans up to be a problem that would be hard to overcome. Simply the villans were tigers without teeth, and not a challenge, so I lost interest. Around page 500 I lost interest, even though I liked the characters, because the "journey" they were taking ,physically and emotionally, was no longer a suprise.
Rating: 
Summary: Not good enough
Review: It could have been better, and if you're a big Eddings fan you can wait for the paperback, trust me. If you've never read Eddings, please don't start with this book.
Rating:
Summary: It was OK
Review: David Eddings has been my favorite author throughout my life. I picked up this book because of that fact. I felt like I knew all these characters, and from the start there was no development of the evil characters. I did not care about Ghend or any of his cohorts, and I also had no doubt that Althalus was going to win. The book was very anti climatic, and I couldn't believe how the characters were given very little depth. There was no confilict or doubt in the book. It was like "hey we're the good guys lets go out and beat the bad guys behind and win just because we are good." What drew me to the other books was there was always something that made you think Garion and Sparhawk wouldn't come out the victor. This time I had no doubts. I hope they make a better novel next time. A good read just predicatble.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of time
Review: If you've read The Belgariad, Mallorean, Elenium and the Tamuli series. Then don't buy this book, you've already read it. The good: humorous, as always. Eddings has a way of making the character interaction very funny. The good stops there. The Bad: Crappy storyline, the bad guys are so stupid that you never even worried about the outcome of the story. Ghend was a huge hype and turned out to be an even bigger idiot that I thought. He plays with time travel. He plays with time travel really badly. The way he uses time travel is so completley idiotic, that I was forced to throw the book across the room. The ending was totally predictable.. awww hell, everything was predictable. The good guys in the story are just shadows of his other characters in his GOOD books. There was no real magic battles, which you'd expect in a world with magic. It was only Althalus playing around with words that were whispered to him by his goddess, he couldn't even bother to learn how to do stuff on his own. I think perhaps the Eddings's had multiple strokes, invoking this piece of trash due to SEVERE memory loss and brain malfunction. We can only hope that modern science can cure our heroic writers, otherwise, I don't plan to read anything else they write.
Rating:
Summary: Ahh, new Eddings...
Review: OK, don't get me wrong, I loved this book. Because it was new Eddings. I do, however, have to comment that it is almost a revisiting of the characters that I loved from the Belgariad and the Elenium, though they're reworked into composites. The basic plot is, well, save the world stuff. There's evil, and evil's lackeys, and there's good, and the book version of the scooby gang. Althalus is, well, kind of a combination of Silk and Talen, and he meets up with a cat, fights the evil and saves the day. It's interesting that this is a stand alone book; you can see places where it could have been expanded into more, but it works. I'm going to have to go with two enthusiastic thumbs up, especially if you, like me, have been pining for the special Eddings character realisation.
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Summary: A truly sad decline of a gifted writer
Review: Despite the creation of what is to Mr.Eddings a new universe, the plot, the characterizations, the dialogue all are reminiscent of his previous works. It is time for Mr. Eddings, now joined by his wife, to stop mining an increasingly barren field and strike out in a truly original direction.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Enough to Own
Review: The Redemption of Althalus may not be for everyone, but if you like David Eddings, then I suggest that you should read and/or buy it. I really appreciated the one-book epic format; for once I didn't have to either wait for the other books to come out or put five or six books on hold at the library. The story line is relatively good, but a bit straight forward. There are no plot twists whatsoever, which is certainly a con, but I think that the overall quality of writing made it worth the read. As long as you don't go into it expecting anything but a very linear point A to point B sort of thing, then it is a fine story. A couple things I noticed about the book was that the Eddings's used (as usual) a bit too much understatement. The words "kind of" and "sort of" were used far too often. Fortunately they weren't so prevalent that they ruined the story, but there was too much understatement and it was noticeable. This is a common failing for David Eddings throughout the books of his that I've read. A few of his characters were also very similar to others in other stories of his, but it wasn't horrible. I thought his male to female (and vice versa) dynamics were much more believable than in previous books and that relationships within Redemption were not just repeats of previous books (as with Eddings they sometimes tend to be). One thing that I did appreciate was that the racial stereotypes that are usually an integral part of Eddings's epics were happily almost totally missing. Normally David Eddings has different races of men: one that is only a race of fighters, one that is all evil (that's right, every single person), etc. but in Redemption this was not as big a problem. I enjoyed reading Redemption of Althalus and thought that it was a nice representation of the Eddings epic with all the nice things that implies and not too much of the not-so-nice things. I would recommend it as an introduction to David Eddings, maybe to be followed up by the superior Belgariad, and as an all around enjoyable read. This isn't the best fantasy I've ever read, but it's certainly not the worst.
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Summary: The Eddings Create Another Fascinating World
Review: The Eddings have always been among my favorite fantasy writers. They create wonderful characters and weave exciting and memorable stories, all with a terrific sense of humor. Having read the previous series of The Belgariad, The Mallorean, and The Elenium, I couldn't wait to read their new book, The Redemption of Althalus. They certainly didn't disappoint! They create again, a new and interesting world with great characters and do it all with that classic light humorous touch that is their trademark. There seems to be a lot of room for additional stories in this new world, and I eagerly await their next novel.
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