Belgarath The Sorcerer - David Eddings

Advantages: Entertaining and very easy to read
Disadvantages: It's a prelude, and you do need to have read the rest

...all over, and saying to Belgarath “you’ve been around for a lot longer than the rest of us. What happened before?” And the novel is Belgarath’s story. There’s a fair amount of reading here. After all, Belgarath is about 7000 years old at this point! “He’s what?” I hear you exclaim. I see I have some explaining to do here. The Belgariad follows thirty wears in the life of Garion, who is born to be a great sorceror and to reunite a world divided many ...
...which include his “ultimate” Grandfather Belgarath (you see where the title comes from now?) must set out to reclaim this. Garion doesn’t know it, but the whole adventure has been prophesied many, many years before and Belgarath has spent centuries chasing around trying to ensure that these prophesies are made to come true, and has tried to keep the world in one piece (or, at least, it’s current two) until Garion comes along to reunite it. Belgarath, ... Read review

Advantages: Easy to read, happy endings, excellent at painting pictures
Disadvantages: Perhaps a little too obvious

I first read David Eddings in 1986. I bought the paperback of Pawn of Prophecy because loads of my mates had bought it. It took me nearly six months to get through half of it and this is not a big book, I thinks its only around 250 pages. So you can see, it was perhaps not the easiest work to get into. However! I did then get into the characters and the story and took around one week and all my pocket money (I was 15 as I recall) to finish the next ...
...honestly say this, I have read the Belgariad easily over thirty times. The thing about Eddings is that if you can step away from the story and be totally objective, all of his fantasy works are quite naive. They are a little on the sexist side and also a little on the Americanised side, only natural I know since he is American. What Edddings does howver is paint a nice simple easy to follow story. Boy grows up to be sviour of the world and on the ... Read review

I just loved reading the book on Belgarath I read the Belgariad and the Melloreanon series first then the Belgarath book and it is one of the best books I have read yet I love Eddings and his wife as authors and believe all there works are absolutely wanderful. The Belgarath is all about the soceror in his other books and to learn his life story is really nice and makes you understand his character more in other series

Advantages: Explains in detail things mentioned in Belgariad and Mallorean
Disadvantages: It's size means the paperback version will wear out fairly quickly

...forward to, then he spots Belgarath the Sorcerer. Oh what joy :o) This book takes you from the birth of Garath the thieving young rascal right up until the birth of Garion. During the Belgariad and the Mallorean references are made to ancient events; the cracking of the world by the evil god Torak after he stole the orb from the god Aldur, The recovery of the orb from Torak by Cherek Bear Shoulders and his sons Dras Bull Neck, Algar Fleet Foot and ...
...the other books... but with Belgarath the sourcerer things are a bit different in that it starts exactly at the point that book 5 of the Mallorean finishes and Belgarath is railroaded into writing his life story. That and the occasional comment about events in the Belgariad and the Mallorean do make it better read after the other 10 books than before. Although you know basically the story and what is going to happen it makes no difference to how ... Read review

Advantages: Incredibly well written
Disadvantages: not long enough!

...begins with a journey - Belgarath and Ce'Nedra go to see Belgarath to nag the story out of him - and, of course, to see Polgara's twin children, by Durnik. Eventually, the stubborn Belgarath gives way to the implacable young queen and begins his life story, right from the start. Born Garath, in a village with no name, to a people who didn't have a name, Garath was a theif, a rogue and a liar and was cast out from his village to wander alone. After ...
...who refused to follow Gorim to UL, and stays with them for a while before setting off again to eventually, dying in the snow, Aldur finds him. And begins to train him to be a sorcerer - by means of hard labour. Exceedingly well written, this book is completely unputdownable (great word eh?) - teh characters are vivid and real, the story is gripping and the style just sucks you in so far you don't read the story as much as live it. This is another ... Read review