David Eddings
Sometime way back, probably in 8th grade, I read the Belgariad. I was sucked in from the start, it had it all. Mood, plot, characters, world, and it all felt alive. It felt carefully planned and written, there were hooks and clues and magic and mad prophets and this and that ... All this and there was more, another series in the same world was available too; the Malloreon. Wow, that couldn't be bad, could it?
Actually, I probably haven't read enough or recent enough to be allowed to comment on this, but I will anyway. Everything Eddings' written after the Belgariad seems to be more or less a repetition of the same stuff. My friends say that this goes for the series after the Malloreon too, but I haven't bothered with them after the Malloreon, it wasn't good enough. In the Rivan Codex, he writes that he had started thinking about the Malloreon before he had finished the Belgariad. So why the heck does it end in a fashion so definite that the Malloreon seems forced? One of the great things about the Belgariad were all the interconnections, hooks and things like that. It's quite obvious the Malloreon isn't as thought through, it feels like an uninspired copy. I mean, the good characters are mostly the same, and there's even a new Orb to chase. I have to admit however, that it was some time since I read the Malloreon, perhaps I should read it again. Still, I could never get away from the feeling of it being just a re-run of the same ideas. And the fact that the Malloreons suddenly became quite nice and civilized people keeps annoying me too ...
The thing I like best with Eddings' books is definitely the humour. I feel I miss it when I read The Dragon Reborn series. People in it seldom make any witty comments about each other, and seem to have very little sense of humour. Compare that to Silk, Belgarath and virtually everyone else in the Belgariad. They always have something funny to say about the current events. The Dragon Reborn is a much more serious world, not less alive or believable, but much more serious and humourless.
