Saturday, January 29, 2011

A Brief Book-Series Review for 'The Belgariad' by David Eddings (1982-1984)

This brief book review is for the entire Belgariad series, which consists of 5-books written by author David Eddings, and which was published in its entirety between the years of 1982 and 1984. This includes the five books in order as follows: Pawn of Prophecy (1982), Queen of Sorcery (1983), Magician's Gambit (1983), Castle of Wizardry (1984), and Enchanter's End Game (1984). This series is my personal favorite fantasy-adventure-series of all time, bar-none! In my opinion the film-industry is crazy for not doing something with these books. While reading these books one gets the idea that they were written in a screenplay format, in that they could quite easily take every line and scene and quite easily transform it into a film or tv-series if some director/producer desired to do so (Peter Jackson, this one is calling to you!). The most amazing part about these books in my opinion are the human interactions which involve rich details of all the different cultures and lands, their rich histories and socio-cultural-economic nuances. You will leave this series feeling as if you knew each one of the characters intimately, which in my experience not many authors are able to do as well as David Eddings, in fact many sci-fi-fantasy-adventure authors seem to focus most of their attention and energy on producing a compelling or formulaic storyline. While the basic plot of the books may be similar to others there is a richness in the small details that makes them so compelling. To top it all off there is a lot of real-world style politics that goes in this epic series, and it is a great series for young readers to dig into as it will actually teach them something about human interactions, basic politics and economics, as well as the glory and terror of war. That may sound like I have really over-rated this series, but I tell you this, I have hardly just begun. Definitely check this series out, even if you are not into sci-fi or fantasy-adventure books, everyone has something to get out of these books. Also, before I go I would like to add that according to his Wikipedia Page David Edding's wife Leigh Eddings was actually an un-credited co-author on several of his earlier books (including the entire Belgariad and his companion series the Mallorean), and so I would just like to acknowledge her contribution to this series of books as well. For those of you who have read it I just stumbled across this video of someone's own animated-interpretations of settings in these books, and its always good to have a video on a vlog-post. Enjoy!

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