Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Book 2

"Guardians Of The West" by David Eddings

After I finished the Belgariad, Carmen threw the first couple of books of the Mallorean at me. As someone who used to scoff at fantasy novels with subtitles like "book one of the twelve-book Saga of Bandasnootch", I really enjoyed the Belgariad, and so after reading a couple of non-fantasy books, I rolled up my sleeves and dove back into it. So, after Garion became King of the West, there was a few years of normality but then the Bear Cult started causing trouble and someone kidnapped his son. Oh, and the world is in danger.

Again.

The characters are fun, as in the first series, with the requisite amount of banter. The landscape is artfully described, and Eddings is very good at writing combat. There's some excellent battles and magic and stuff, but he does occasionally repeat himself. The plot seems a relatively standard quest, with a few twists lurking around the corner. Some of the motivation seems a little murky, and you do find yourself yelling at them if they take too long to work things out, but I get that in lots of books and films and TV shows and even sometimes in real life, so maybe people are just too slow in general.

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