On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:08:04 GMT, Mandorallen
<Mandorallen@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On 2005-12-14, Lord Kalten <Kalten@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> I have always though that the Belgariad was the best series I have ever
>> read. Okay, the first of Eddings books I read was Guardians Of The
West not
>> knowing there was a previous series and got totally confused with
references
>> to Old Wolf in passing conversation.
>>
>I can't remember if I read the Elenium first or not, but I know that GotW
was
>my first look at the Bel/Mal world. Although that was because teh school
>librarry had the entire Mallorean, but only 2,4 & 5 of the Belgariad. :-/
>
>> However, I do recall that when The Redemption of Althalus came out.
New
>> readers of Eddings' books liked it a lot more than the original
>> Belgariad/Elenium series.
>>
>> Personally, I thought that with later books, such as Althalus, the
heroes
>> were never in the same tight spots that previous books presented.
>>
>> However, is it really more the fact that older readers simply have read
>> similar Eddings books in addition to having higher expectations. If
all
>> books before Althalus never were published, we'd all be cheering on
Eddings
>> at the moment? If all books prior to Althalus came out after the
current
>> books, we'd all be slagging off the Belgariad as being a rehash?
>>
>> Any thoughts?
I suspect if I had read Althalus when I was (say) 13, without having
read any other Eddings, I would probably have liked it although
perhaps not as much as I liked the Elenium at the same age (I didn't
get round to the Belgariad for another couple of years). I also
suspect I would have thought "The Elder Gods" wasn't very good
regardless of how old I was.
>I do thtink that the reason most long-term Eddings readers dislike his
latest
>works is that it feels like reading a bad copy of his earlier stuff. From
what
>I've heard of the new series each *book* is like a bad copy of the last
one. I
>think if the Bel/Mal or El/Tam were to be released today, rather than
when they
>were originally, we'd probably appreciate them as decent fantasy, and be
saying
>that this is how Althalus et al *should* have been. My main issue with
Althalus
>in particular (aside from there being no main characters he hadn't used
in 2
>other series already), was, as you said earlier, that it was rushed. It
would
>have been much better as a duology or trilogy, giving him the extra pages
>needed to invest in the locations & people involved.
I see to remember DE commenting on Althalus that he wrote it as a
single novel to 'see if he could write a fantasy epic in a single
volume rather than a series'. It turns out he couldn't.
>> Kalten~!!!
>> p.s. I went into a few London book stores a few days ago and it appears
the
>> book shelf space reserved for Eddings books has seriously diminished.
>>
>So it appears. Not exactly a suprise, given how little his stuff is
likely to
>be selling these days.
I did see an interesting list someone had made of where various
fantasy novels had debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List this
year. I can't find it now, but ISTR Eddings' latest book ("Crystal
Gorge"?) was on the list, but quite low down, at about number 30 for
one week then dropping off. By way of contrast there were a number of
authors who debuted at #1 on the list including George RR Martin,
Robert Jordan, Neil Gaiman, JK Rowling and perhaps some others. I
think DE was also significantly behind some of his contem****aries such
as Terry Brooks or Raymond E Feist.
So Eddings is still selling a respectable amount (there must be a lot
of fantasy authors who never get anywhere near the bestseller list),
but I guess at his peak he was probably selling a lot more books.
--
William Marnoch
william@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Film and Book reviews
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