I recently finished reading David and Leigh Eddings' Belgarath the Sorcerer, a prequel to the five-book series The Belgariad which, in turn, precedes the five-book series The Malloreon. The book is presented as written after the fact by Belgarath himself, and tells the story of his life prior to the events of the Belgariad and Malloreon. If you enjoy fantasy novels and haven't read these before, I highly recommend them. I've read them twice now. It's not quite as good as Eddings' The Elenium, but it is certainly special and worth reading.
I grabbed this book on eBay for just a few dollars. I love shopping on eBay for used books at times. It seems like you can get your hands on almost anything and they're generally affordable. Anyway, I digress.
This is the first of the books set in this world that credited both David and his wife, Leigh, with authorship. I understand she contributed to the previous ten books as well, but the publishers pushed back on presenting two authors until the time this one was published, believing it would decrease sales. Readers, they believed, preferred individual authors. I'm glad she ultimately got credit for her contributions, even though it had stayed in the background for a long time.
As an aside, if readers have a general bias it is a bias for good books.
I was pleased to see Belgarath the Sorcerer, with the exception of the prologue and epilogue, was written in the first person. I love a good first-person book sometimes and this one did not disappoint. Especially coming from Belgarath - a man who had a nearly mythic stature in the two five-book series, often referred to as 'Ancient Belgarath' or 'Holy Belgarath' due to his thousands-of-years of age, his influence, and his powers.
Some of the key events in this novel were alluded to throughout the Belgariad and the Malloreon. It was refreshing to get to read about that world and those characters again. It had been nearly a year since I finished the Belgariad and the Malloreon (and around twenty years since my first read of the two series) and I had missed them. In terms of what this book offers that the Belgariad and Malloreon don't, it explores more closely several relationships and provides accounts for several epic events that each had ripple effects for thousands of years.
I was intrigued by the development of the relationship between Belgarath and his daughter, Polgara. They had a rough start and I hadn't expected that due to their later closeness in the other books I've read. Also of particular interest to me was his relationship with Poledra, his wife, who he loses during the book and responds with devastation in a very human way. It takes him a dozen years or so to pull himself together again and is ultimately nudged to do so largely by his master's admonishment. His master was, and had been for the overwhelming majority of Belgarath's life, Aldur, one of seven gods in this world the events take place in.
Belzedar, another disciple of Aldur who learned under Belgarath for a time, was friends with Belgarath initially but, later, is drawn away by the power of the Orb of Aldur, a magical stone that had truly remarkable powers.
One of the incredible things the Orb of Aldur does is documented in this book. The god Torak uses it to crack the world. This causes oceans to replace land and vice versa, creates new mountain ranges, and wipes out half of the world's population in the process. The Orb wasn't pleased with this use of its power, though, and destroyed one of Torak's hands and burned one side of his face in a fire that simply wouldn't go out.
Sometime later, Belgarath and a small group of advocates get encouraged to take the bold step of infiltrating Torak's castle to steal Aldur's Orb back. It is shortly after they pull this off that Belgarath learns that Belzedar had betrayed Aldur and the other disciples of Aldur in allying himself with Torak.
Later there is an assassination attempt on the family of ancestors of the Child of Light, who, once he is born, would move forward the prophecy to its ultimate albeit uncertain conclusion. A young child is saved at the last moment by Belgarath and Polgara and the two keep the survival of the family line a secret for thousands of years. Polgara spends time with each generation of the family living in relative obscurity....hiding in plain sight, really.
An age of prophecy commences and various prophets in varying levels of incapacitation spoke about what is called 'the Necessity' and the unknown choice that would be made at its finale. Those who have read the Belgariad and Malloreon know the details of the Necessity and its outcome so I won't get into that here. It, itself, is epic in scope and the delivery by the authors is fantastic.
Once the age of prophecy comes to its conclusion and the various codices are written by scribes and pored over by the disciples of Aldur, Torak proceeds to mobilize his followers in an attempt to destroy the entire civilized world outside of his followers' kingdom. His army is massive and the other nations join forces after a healthy portion of political maneuvering. That generation's ancestors of the Child of Light were hidden in a stronghold that Belgarath didn't believe would fall to Torak.
The path of destruction ultimately moves on from the failed siege of the stronghold and culminates in the Battle of Vo Mimbre. Hundreds of thousands of people fighting for three days - complete with siege equipment, ships, magic, and bravery. Torak ends up being felled in battle, though not killed, Torak goes into an eons-long slumber until shortly after the Child of Light himself is born.
The book was made perhaps even more epic to me due to how I read it. As mentioned above, I read the two main series initially about twenty years ago....a little more than that actually. I started re-reading the ten books with the intention of this time reading the additional three books, of which Belgarath the Sorcerer is one, about three years ago. I've been reading about the Battle of Vo Mimbre in the Belgariad and Malloreon, as mentioned in passing and from a historical perspective, off and on for more than twenty years now. Finally getting to actually read what happened at the battle was thrilling.
Belgarath comments in his narrative that curiosity is the meaning of life. I don't altogether agree with that but I do empathize with the view. It is part of what drove me to re-read the Belgariad and the Malloreon just so that I could read these additional books with fresh eyes. The book ends with one of the main characters setting out to get Polgara to write her side of the story. I'll get to that soon, but have some other bridges to cross first.