David Eddings 1931-2009

[den_down_unda]

From about the time I read the first book of "The Belgariad," Pawn of Prophecy, (when I was, I think, 14) until I got hooked by "The Wheel of Time" in, I think, 1992, David Eddings was my favorite author, bar none. I can still remember the excitement of seeing the first book in "The Malloreon" on the shelves of the long-gone S&S Books in 1987.

Comments

[paranoid_monkey]

very nice post :-) this really reminded me of why i loved him before robert jordan. it was the malloreon that started my dismay at the way his writing was going... after the first book it became such a repetition of the belgariad. i mean, he even made that a plot point (which was clever of him, admittedly). i only read the first book of the elenium - it was so like the belgariad/malloreon on various levels that i was even more dismayed. the only book of his i ever read after that was /polgara/, because of my love of her (actually i probably read /belgarath/, too, but i don't remember it

[den_down_unda]

and unfortunatly i read the lengthy author's note included in the /mrin codex/, which i interpreted at the time as showing a sort of disdain for the reader... "hey, all you have to do to sell books is draw a map, make stock characters, give them magical powers, and so on"... like fantasy fans had no real imagination or something. of course, i may have been misreading what he meant as a joke.

I think that statement (and his statement that 'fantasy is the prissiest of all literary forms') are the statements of someone who doesn't know anything about contemporary fantasy. Eddings studied Lit and Lit Crit as an undergrad and Masters student, so he knew all about what went into a story, but by his own admission, his knowledge of fantasy ran mostly to Chretien, Chaucer, and Malory, and ended with The Lord of the Rings. And when someone tries to hide their ignorance and speak with authority, they end up coming off fatuous, which is what I think happened.

[paranoid_monkey]

oh, and it's true that it was cool of him to make leigh an official co-author... he had always said she was hugely involved. kudos to him.