Rest In Peace, David Eddings
I just read in cleolinda 's blog that David Eddings has died. Yes, this is how I get half of my news these days.
According to one article, Eddings once famously said that he'd "never [be] in danger of getting a Nobel Prize for literature." and he was right, but I can't deny the influence his writing has had on my own. As I mentioned in a meme I did a while back, when I was 10 years old, my favourite book was Eddings' Castle of Wizardry, and I distinctly remember a classmate approaching me at one point and telling me: "My Mom says those books are really hard, so you're either really smart, or you're faking." I don't think she meant anything by it; we were only 10, after all, but what do you say to something like that??? I, of course, just kind of stared at her for a minute and then went back to reading my book. I didn't need to prove anything to her, and it was a good book.
Since then, of course, I've devoured Terry Brooks, Brian Jacques, Tamora Pierce, Melanie Rawn, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, George R.R. Martin, and J.K. Rowling, among others. More recently, I've been reading Scott Lynch, Brandon Sanderson, Elizabeth Haydon, Anne Bishop, and Shana Swendson. Some of these authors are better than others. Some of these series are grand, sweeping epics, while others are the more personal stories of a few characters. I've enjoyed the hell out of all of them.
But David Eddings was the first.
I pulled Pawn of Prophecy off my Mother's bookshelf about the time I was reading Little Women for about the third time. I was probably about 8. It took me several tries to get through the Prologue, but once I did I didn't stop reading for the next three years, by which time he'd started writing the Elenium, which kept me busy through most of junior high, just in time for the Tamuli to come out....
Of course, David Eddings also had a bad habit of writing a great series (Belgariad, Elenium) and then basically going "Hey, that was great, let's do it again!" (Mallorean, Tamuli.) In fact, midway through the Mallorean, one of the characters actually *notices* that "we seem to have done all this before."
I consider myself something of a writer. Granted, it's been a long time since I've written anything I felt comfortable letting anyone else read, and looking back, the novel I was working on that my Sister used to read was pretty lame, but I do write. A lot. And I don't think I'm bringing up anything earth-shaking when I say that what we read early in life can be formative, both guiding what we will read later, and also working to shape our own writing style.
You will be missed, David Eddings.
According to one article, Eddings once famously said that he'd "never [be] in danger of getting a Nobel Prize for literature." and he was right, but I can't deny the influence his writing has had on my own. As I mentioned in a meme I did a while back, when I was 10 years old, my favourite book was Eddings' Castle of Wizardry, and I distinctly remember a classmate approaching me at one point and telling me: "My Mom says those books are really hard, so you're either really smart, or you're faking." I don't think she meant anything by it; we were only 10, after all, but what do you say to something like that??? I, of course, just kind of stared at her for a minute and then went back to reading my book. I didn't need to prove anything to her, and it was a good book.
Since then, of course, I've devoured Terry Brooks, Brian Jacques, Tamora Pierce, Melanie Rawn, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, George R.R. Martin, and J.K. Rowling, among others. More recently, I've been reading Scott Lynch, Brandon Sanderson, Elizabeth Haydon, Anne Bishop, and Shana Swendson. Some of these authors are better than others. Some of these series are grand, sweeping epics, while others are the more personal stories of a few characters. I've enjoyed the hell out of all of them.
But David Eddings was the first.
I pulled Pawn of Prophecy off my Mother's bookshelf about the time I was reading Little Women for about the third time. I was probably about 8. It took me several tries to get through the Prologue, but once I did I didn't stop reading for the next three years, by which time he'd started writing the Elenium, which kept me busy through most of junior high, just in time for the Tamuli to come out....
Of course, David Eddings also had a bad habit of writing a great series (Belgariad, Elenium) and then basically going "Hey, that was great, let's do it again!" (Mallorean, Tamuli.) In fact, midway through the Mallorean, one of the characters actually *notices* that "we seem to have done all this before."
I consider myself something of a writer. Granted, it's been a long time since I've written anything I felt comfortable letting anyone else read, and looking back, the novel I was working on that my Sister used to read was pretty lame, but I do write. A lot. And I don't think I'm bringing up anything earth-shaking when I say that what we read early in life can be formative, both guiding what we will read later, and also working to shape our own writing style.
You will be missed, David Eddings.