Rating: 
Summary: Save your money
Review: I hae read almost everything by the eddings. This was a major disappointment. I will never be taken in again by the eddings. This book is not worth the money spent. It is not worth going to the library to read. I am a serious fantasy reader and I have read most of the fantasy books published. This one is terrible.
Rating: 
Summary: Every character is the same!
Review: Like many others I was really looking forward to another Eddings book. I'm almost done with it now, but the only reason I'm even bothering to finish it is because I always finish books. Every single character in the book, whether male or female, young or old, immortal or mortal has the same exact personality. They are all the same person. It's so incredibly obvious I can't believe the authors didn't realize it and stop it. I realize they are trying to make it a humorous book - but when everybody constantly makes the same kinds of remarks, jokes, wisecracks, etc, it gets old quickly. It could have been an interesting story if there was more than one character in the tale and if some work had been done on the plotline.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the trouble
Review: I have read all of Mr. Eddings work, and this is by far the worst. He attempted to cram five books into one, and it didn't work. If you have read the Belgariad or the Mallorean, then you don't need to waste your time on this one. It is a rehash of plot and characters from the above mentioned series. Mr Eddings writing started to go down hill with the Elenium, but with this book he has hit the bottom. I only hope he can bounse back.
Rating:
Summary: I'd Give It Zero Stars If I Could...
Review: Lamentably, David and Leigh have decided to take their previous successes and fill in the blanks for a new book. The relationship between Althalus (Belgarath) and Emerald (Polgara) was so mind-numbingly similar, it seemed they just switched out names. I stopped reading about halfway through the book and put it away (I kept at it that long just to see if it would ever get better, it didn't).The entire concept of doors moving through time and space was interesting, but never realized. Paradox aside, the authors never got into the bad guys using the doors for their own nefarious deeds. And since the bad guys were around thousands of years before Althalus was even born, you'd think they'd have *some* advantage. I'm getting ill just thinking about how much this book disappointed me. Please avoid at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: Severely disappointing
Review: David Eddings has always been a favorite of mine, although lately it seemed to me that he was running out of ideas. With his creation of a new world and characters for this new book, I had the highest hopes, but was let down very quickly. The most important thing that made his first two series so addictive (Belgariad and Elenium) so addictive was his deep, real characters. They developed over the course of the story, growing, changing, and interacting realistically. The stories, both successes and failures, were intensely character driven. Unfortunately, none of that was present here. The characters are vaguely interesting, but they never feel particularly real. They certainly never change much. The greatest loss was that all the decisions were made by Fate and the Gods, not the characters. It's a really weak way to drive a story. Worse, the individual abilities of the characters are fairly unimportant. Success is based on their ability to come up with new and interesting ways to use almost godlike resources (gee, who COULDN'T win a war with what amounts to a teleporter, a time machine, and an infinite supply of gold?) The romance is forced, cliched, and far too convinient. Finally, the ending is largely a rehashing of the beginning, with only minor changes. I suppose that's a problem with time travel, but again, death for a book. I know this sounds like an unforgiving review, but I really was THAT disappointed. If you've never read Eddings, go back and read "The Belgariad." If you have, go back and read "The Belgariad" again.
Rating:
Summary: When is Redemption of Eddings?
Review: Can I give it ZERO stars. Awful. Terrible. Imposible to finish. Eddings hasn't written a good book since Enchanter's End Game to finish off the great Belgariad. The Mallorean began to drag somewhat, and The Elenium - also unreadable! But I always hope and pray he has found his touch again. Not this time. So much idle and meaningless chatter between "Althie" and "Emmie" - reminds me of the supposedly sly remarks between Polgara and Belgarath. At least those characters were fully developed by the time Eddings took them to that pedantic level. This book starts with these two characters that way. EVERY CONVERSATION - OVER AND OVER AGAIN. The book even borrows from the Belgariad with an opening on the Gods on an ill-described land with bad names. The landscape and geography (which is a big part of fantasy novels) is meaningless here. I should have known to read no further. Trite dialog, unfocused meanderings, no sense of time, or history, or character, or focus. I am so bitterly disappointed I would like Eddings and his wife (is she the problem, perhaps) to refund my money. Never again, Mr. Eddings.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent
Review: It seems that old age is starting to wear on our dear Mr. Eddings, or perhaps he's just burnt out after the spectacluar Belgariad/Mallorean saga. He seems to have used up all his good characters there, in any case. In this book we met Belgarath, Polgara, Ce'nedra, and Garion again in the forms of Althalus, Dweia, Andine, and Eliar. The only problem was that our new friends weren't nearly as well developed as the old versions, which goes for all of the Redemption characters. He went into a little depth with Leitha and Khalor, but left the others hanging. Plus, there wasn't really much drive behind our so-called protagonist's quest. I found I didn't really care if Daeva won out in the end, mostly because well, what is Daeva anyway? We're supposed to fear him and his underlings, but Eddings never really shows us why. Also, Eddings throws magic around pretty carelessly here, which is something he explicitly warned against in the Rivan Codex. All in all, a fun read, but disapointing and shallow.
Rating:
Summary: End of the road?
Review: Firstly I have to actually emphasise that I did not approach this book thinking that it would be the best in the world - I loved Eddings when I was a teenager, and I do still like to go back to the Belgariad to relax but I wasn't expecting challenging fantasy like that from Wurts or Martin. I only actually bought the book when I saw it on special offer somewhere for a tenner. And so I settled down to read it. At first I enjoyed it - Eddings does have a strangely comforting way of putting things, a bit like a nice mug of Horlicks. Normally if the book was a bit below par then this itself would raise up a star or two - but the deficiencies in this book are too many and they are all far too evident. Firstly, my only expectation was that Athalus was going to be a character in much the same mould of Silk in the Belgariad. They are both thevies and so it would provide a refreshing new perspective to the standard Eddings good vs evil scenario. Unfortunately Athalus becomes no more than a poor carbon-copy of Sparhawk. In actual fact I was actually reading Athalus as Sparhawk for about 10 pages before I caught myself. This could be due to Eddings' own personality - maybe he is just a irritable chap with a heart of gold and not much personality besides - he is very good at describing the Silk persona's actions from the outside - but he certainly can't relate to it from inside his shoes. Secondly he has tried to pack a whole trilogy's character development into one book. This certainly means that he couldn't give as much detail to how it happens - and it certainly ain't believable. Ce'Nedra's transformation in the Belgariad and the Mallorean from annoying she-dog to a regal queen was spread out over 10 books. Andine's transformation took a few pages and it doesn't fit. He should have left her in the process of developing at the end of the book. And the really unforgivable reason why this book stinks is that the good guys are just too powerful. There is no suspense whatsoever - the bad guys are stupid and always one step behind. Eddings destroys two of the section endings with his annoying 'high' style of describing things - imagine Mandorallen from the Belgariad trying to explain a confrontation and you should get my drift. The last part of the book is where Eddings decides to play with time travel and where he gets out of his depth. I suppose the reason why people hate this section so much is that it begins with "Why don't we go back in time so you can get your coat back" instead of "We need to go back in time else the world shall be destroyed". Unless Eddings can put himself in a new persona and come up with some suspense he should retire now - though not before he brings out a book titled Zedar the Apostate.
Rating:
Summary: Eddings has surpassed himself...
Review: ...because I thought he'd plumbed the uttermost depths of mediocrity in the Belgariad, Malloreon, and that awful one about the gems (in descending order). Trust me, if you've read any one of those, you've read this one. At the end (if you make it that far) it's entirely possible to not be able to remember a single event from the entire 600+ pages! This is apathy reading, the worst kind. Please stop buying him: then he might be forced to shift in his rut a little...
Rating:
Summary: If you're an Eddings fan, you've already read it.
Review: When I first saw this book, I was so excited. I consider myself to be a huge Eddings fan and have read all of his books with the exception of the Rivan Codex (which I bought, but couldn't bring myself to read). I was quite disappointed with this book. I found that the beginning of the book seemed almost childishly written; I was wondering if perhaps I had "outgrown" Eddings (I began reading his work when I was 11 years old) or if this book in particular was poorly written. When Althalus finally meets Emmy, things seemed to get better, but only for several chapters. The characters in this book are totally unbelieveable. "Hey, I could read a word off this knife, so now I'm going to drop everything I'm doing and follow you." There was no significant character development, and the characters sort of all merged into just a sea of names since their dialogue was nearly identical (e.g. all the male characters constantly stating, "Yes, dear." and all the female characters repeatedly saying, "Isn't he sweet?"). Leitha in particular comes to mind; I never felt that Eddings really delved into her character, except as perhaps an afterthought. The worst was when the war in Wekti was going on. All of a sudden the reader is introduced to a whole horde of characters, many with similar names, and it's nearly impossible to follow who is doing what. *SPOILER* There are also some weird plot inconsistencies. I mean, half the book more or less seems redundant. God tries to unmake world. A whole bunch of potentially avoidable events happen. Good guys win. Couldn't Althalus and Gher have just gone back in time right from the beginning and avoided all the wars? *END SPOILER* I was sure that there was going to be a second part as I progressed further into the book; something heroic like Althalus having to trick his way into Nahgharesh and face Ghend. The ending was anti-climactic, to say the least, and almost seemed as if Eddings was quickly trying to wrap up an already in shambles storyline. As usual, all of the characters in this book have equivalents in Eddings' other books. This isn't a bad thing if you are fond of Eddings' style of writing (as I am). I'm really sad that this book wasn't better than it was; I really wanted to like this book. But I just can't. Eddings is getting older and I really hope that he puts out more books before he retires from writing... Mr. Eddings, please go back to writing trilogies. Those seem to be where your talents lie. Trying to cram so much into one book resulted in too many shortcomings. This book probably deserves one star, but I just can't bring myself to give any Eddings book a rating that low.
| 
