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The Redemption of Althalus

The Redemption of Althalus

List Price: $27.95
Your Price: $27.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Sadly, Not the Best Eddings
Review: Let me begin by saying that I am a HUGE Eddings fan. I have loved their books for years and have read the Belgariad and the Malorian on three seperate occasions over the years. That said, I was very disappointed by this, their latest epic offering. The story begins well, establishing a good background for our hero Althalus, it begins to fall apart shortly there after. The book is filled with overly simple solutions to what appear to be outragously difficult problems. I don't want to give away any key points of the tale but I found myself stopping and moaning outloud at least once every few pages. The war between good and evil is so absurdly one sided as to be laffable. Even when things look to be falling apart for our band of heros, the God Emmy steps in to make everything O.K. While you would expect that, the leaps of faith required to make this a seemless story were just too big to jump. In the end, I felt that David and Leigh had just not put as much effort into this tale as it deserved.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good book!
Review: I absolutely loved this book! Granted, it does someewhat ressemble their other books, but it is wonderful nonetheless!
It's one problem is that the battle is somewhat (really) boring, but the whole doors/House at the End of the World/quest thing was fun!
Unlike the Belgariad, You don't actually know what's going to happen, what they're looking for, or how they're going to accomplish it. Not that I didn't like the Belgariad...
Still, a good book, worth a careful read, and many rereadings!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointing
Review: It took me more than 3 trips to the bookstore spread over 4 months to finally pick it up. I was hesitant to purchase the book and often I have dropped it back into the shelf for some other book out of a gut feeling. And after reading it, I was right.

Perhaps the Eddingses are running out of fresh ideas or a fresh angle. In fact, it looks as if the Eddingses have simply took all the characters from Belgariad and Mallorean, changed their names and put them in one book instead of five. The Arya sounds like Ce'Nedra, complete with a royal title in tow. Athalus sounds just too much like the young Belgarath and Emmy reminds me of Polgara. For heaven's sake, even the knife functions like the Orb in the two earlier series. The characters are two-dimensional, and clearly no effort was made to explore the concepts of good and evil. Piers Anthony did a better job with that in his Incarnations of Immortality series when he wrote For Love of Evil.

Just like the Belgariad and Mallorean, the build-up is slow and towards the last one-third of the book, you'll feel as if the authors are trying to fit everything in one volume and everything happens too fast without a solid back-up. The climax was... shall i say, hurried and anti-climatic. Thinking back, I would rather re-read the Belgariad and Mallorean for the fourth time than pick this up again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Okay, lets be fair
Review: So this book isn't up to par with some of Eddings other books, and neither does it compare to George RR Martin... but thats a whole other league! This book, is actually fairly enjoyable, and I would call it a "light" fantasy novel, but fun from start to finish.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Redemption of Althalus
Review: This book really is a master piece you can simply read over and over with more details brought to your attention every time you pick it up. I would recommened this book for all ages. David and Leigh have created a single volume new fantasy world anyone would want to get lost in.
The overall story line is as usual a slightly more complex version of good vs evil with the good coming up on top, but the extra spice of the 'good' aren't really entirly saintly.
With the large amount of humour for all ages weaved through out this epic it is truly a superb book that has almost everything.
Everything thats is, except a sequal. Unfortunately all books have to come to a end, even ones such as the Lord of the Rings. But this book had the potential to go on for a few more volumes and that is what I would have like David and Leugh to have done with this book. I have read other Eddings novels his best work coming from his fantasy stories, such as the Elenium. But this book is far superiour to those 'novels'. As a big fan of the Lord of the Rings I was aprehensive about the movies and the directors portrail of only some of the story line and perceptions since that particular story has many different main story line to many different people, so does this book and I would like to have seen it as a movie in as large a scale as the Lord of the Rings movies if not bigger. I don't think I can rave as much about this book as I would like so I challenge anyone to read it and not find at least a whole chapter with a humourous joke or gripping, thread running through it. Thanks For Reading

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Suprisingly disapointed.
Review: I never thought I'd say I was disapointed with anything Eddings has written,but I have to now. Story is just too drawn out as it is.Thought it could have been better if written as a series as other Eddings story's are.Was actually glad to be finished with it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Same old, same old.
Review: Straight off, let me tell you that if you've never read an Eddings book before, you'll probably enjoy this. David and Leigh have a unique style of writing, and a wicked sense of sarcastic humor that you won't find elswhere.

...

WHY did Althalus have to be a character so similar to Begarath? Emmy reminds me much too sharply of both Polgara and Sephrenia. The plot (save the world from an evil god through a major battle or two at the end, with the help of some gods/friends) and everything else about this book conspires to have me compare it to the others I have read, where it fails miserably.

I never would have thought I'd hear myself saying it, but there is such a thing as an overdose of Eddings humor. And while The Redemption of Althalus may have made an excellent series, sadly in its compacted form it's merely a depthless imitation of David Eddings' previous books.

Buy at your own risk, yee readers of Garion and Sparhawk.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A good book to read
Review:
...A thief that tries to steal a magical book from the house of Deweia, goddess of life, but ends up learning how to use the book's magic and falling in love with Deweia. Althalus has gone out in the world after 2,500 years in the house and has to stop Ghend, a worshiper of the devil, from destroying the universe. Along the way Altahlus makes both friends and enemies.
David and Leigh Eddings makes the story flow by putting in humor, dialogue, and descriptions. The Redemption of Althalus is a book full of emotions and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to read fantasy novels.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Epic=good. banter=bad
Review: When I began the book, I was not really thrilled. however, it was not terrible, and indeed, as I read further, I began to appreciate the story. however, all of this changed after the beginning. when Althalus jumps into the future, he becomes somewhat lame. all of his meaningless chatter began to grate on my nerves, as did the endlessly repeated admonition to "be nice". the words "be nice" probably dropped this story (as well as eddings' sparhawk stories) by at least half a star. also, the cat-goddess struck me as a pathetic excuse for a deity. when eddings wrote the Belgariad, Aldur, Issa, Torak, UL, and all the others towered over their pitiful mortal worshippers. in the Redemption of Althalus, however, the goddess was so pathetic that her worshippers often forgot that she was a god. Belgarath the sorcerer, an impressive -mortal- character from Eddings' earlier works, is a more powerful and awe inspiring being on a bad day than Deira or whatever her name was in the best parts of the book. and let me repeat, he is MORTAL! Please, Mr. and Mrs. Eddings, please do not bog down your epics with cutesy banter, and please please please do not put gods on the same level as humans. go back and read the Norse, Greek, and Celtic myths. go read the old testament. gods are overwhelmingly powerful and unfathomable. readers dont want to identify with them, and they especially don't want to look down on them.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: NOT the best of EDDINGS
Review: As an almost fanatically devoted fan of the Belgariad, the Mallorean, the Tamuli, and the Elenium, I was incredibly excited for the release of the latest Eddings book. However, I was sorely disappointed with the character and the plot. In fact I bought the book when it first came out and have not yet finished it- my bookmark is still on the 100th page.

Eddings' previous characters (e.g. Belgarath the Sorcerer, Belgarion, Polgara, King Rhodar, Sparhawk, Kalten, Sephrenia, etc. etc.!) have all been well rounded, likable, amusing, witty and fairly deep characters. You could get to know them. With Althalus, however, it is difficult to even summon a shred of caring or interest in who he is and what he does and what the consequences of his actions are. He does not strike as one with remarkable intelligence or wit (though he does attempt to appear so, failing miserably) and is only surface-deep. The same goes for other extraneous characters in the book (who I can't remember anymore) and even the setting that the story is carried out in.

As one who has shared many chuckles and yes, even tears, with the previous characters of Eddings' books I am content to put Althalus away into recycling and concentrate on rereading the aforementioned beloved series. I don't mean to be so critical of the Eddings, I am still a tremendous fan who owns every single book they have ever written. In fact it may be because I loved the old series so much that in my psychologically biased view this latest book has been a major let-down. As far as I'm concerned, Althalus has NOT been redeemed.


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