The Malloreon
Oct. 26th, 2009 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishDavid Eddings, Guardians of the West
King of the Murgos
Demon Lord of Karanda
Sorceress of Darshiva
The Seeress of Kell
I didn't reread these three summers ago when I went on my Eddings binge because I didn't have a copy of the first one. I finally fixed that a few weeks ago, so figured it was about time to decide whether these are worth keeping.
Um.
Really bloody annoying sexism? Check.
Racism as shorthand for character? Check and double check: the only reason the titular King of the Murgos is a human being is that he's half Drasnian (by which I mean "half Silk").
Plot consisting of characters being led around by the nose for no good reason? Check.
Godawful dialect? Check.
General exhaustion and no real desire to read much further by midway through book four? Check.
And yet. I've read these books so often, especially the first three, that they're seared into my brain. In a lot of ways they're the only good memories of junior high that I've got. The dialog's snappy, the individual episodes aren't too bad. . . meh. I've got the Elenium for that, and it's shorter, to boot.
Anyone want hardback copies of the Belgariad and the Malloreon?
King of the Murgos
Demon Lord of Karanda
Sorceress of Darshiva
The Seeress of Kell
I didn't reread these three summers ago when I went on my Eddings binge because I didn't have a copy of the first one. I finally fixed that a few weeks ago, so figured it was about time to decide whether these are worth keeping.
Um.
Really bloody annoying sexism? Check.
Racism as shorthand for character? Check and double check: the only reason the titular King of the Murgos is a human being is that he's half Drasnian (by which I mean "half Silk").
Plot consisting of characters being led around by the nose for no good reason? Check.
Godawful dialect? Check.
General exhaustion and no real desire to read much further by midway through book four? Check.
And yet. I've read these books so often, especially the first three, that they're seared into my brain. In a lot of ways they're the only good memories of junior high that I've got. The dialog's snappy, the individual episodes aren't too bad. . . meh. I've got the Elenium for that, and it's shorter, to boot.
Anyone want hardback copies of the Belgariad and the Malloreon?
no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 06:12 pm (UTC)I think the Elenium's the best thing he wrote, honestly. It's short enough that the obvious flaws don't have as much time to grate on you and the characters feel more like characters and less like racial stereotypes.
On no account should anyone read the Tamuli (the sequel trilogy to the Elenium), though.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-27 12:43 pm (UTC)The more I think about it, I think I didn't read the Elenium because I was waiting for all of it to come out before I started, and the one time I did have the first book out of the library, I just didn't get into it. The only thing I can remember about it at all was the main guy explaining why he called people "neighbor" rather than "friend."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-27 01:47 pm (UTC)Oh, absolutely! My problem with it was that every single character is scandalised whenever any other character makes any reference to Teh Sex. Including characters doing the scandalising at other times.
the main guy explaining why he called people "neighbor" rather than "friend."
Ah, yes. That and "whose turn is it to do the cooking, Ulath?" (a secret revealed either late in the second book or sometime in the third) still amuse me.