Pawn Of Prophecy (The Belgariad Book One)
David Eddings
A battle is coming…
…And in that battle shall be decided
the fate of the world
Myths tell of the ancient wars of Gods and men, and a powerful object – the Orb – that ended the bloodshed. As long as it was held by the line of Riva, it would assure the peace.
But a dark force has stolen the Orb, and the prophecies tell of war.
Young farm boy Garion knows nothing of myth or fate. But then the mysterious Old Storyteller visits his aunt, and they embark on a sudden journey. Pursued by evil forces, with only a small band of companions they can trust, Garion begins to doubt all he thought he knew… (Taken from the product page on Amazon)
I first read this book when I was a teenager, and at the time I really loved it. I still enjoy the book, having just finished it for probably the dozenth time, but no longer feel so strongly about it; I think that having read a number of other fantasy series over the years, with grittier and more realistic storylines, I now find this book to be a little simplistic and more suited to a teen readership.
There are areas in which the book, is really well written – the descriptions of the lands the company travels through are evocative and the histories of those lands and their peoples rich and a real pleasure to read. When it comes to the actual story, though, it falls down a little; as the story develops you learn new things about the characters but nothing that really advances the plot in any way, and though it is not out of the ordinary for the genre for the characters all to be excellent in at least one particular and necessary art, it does become a bit much after a time.
What perplexes me most about this novel is the fact that Pol and Mister Wolf have at least some idea of the future in store for Garion, yet they do nothing to prepare him for it. Most of the time in fact he’s treated as an ignorant inconvenience that is simply in the way.
Overall I like this book, and will almost certainly read it again, but I am not so inclined to recommend it to other fantasy lovers as I once was. My preference now is for books like George R R Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series, which are harsher and harder.
As a big fan of David Eddings and his previous series, The Belgariad and Sparhawk books, I went out and bought this book the moment I saw it was out. I won’t say that I wish I hadn’t because it is a decent book, it’s just not as good as his others. In the series he wrote before he created many good characters that I enjoy revisiting, characters I’d love to know more about – in a couple of instances Eddings had written books that allow characters to do just that, but I can’t say the same for this book. The characters are decent in The Redemption Of Althalus but lack the depth of those he created previously, both the good and the bad.
ARC Books 