The Avid Reader - February 2011

Pawn of Prophesy by David Eddings

Every 18 months or so I return to read my favorite series and my favorite author. My favorite author is David Eddings, and my favorite series is his stories of Belgarion the Great. It is a series of 12 books. The first of these books is ‘Pawn of Prophesy.’ The story starts with Garion, a young orphan boy who is being raised on a farm by his aunt Pol, the farm head cook. We are introduced to Mr. Wolf, an old vagabond storyteller, and Durnik, the farm’s blacksmith. Throughout his childhood, Garion is watched by a mysterious figure in black who rides a horse; no one else ever sees the rider. Garion’s time at the farm is cut short when Mr. Wolf uproots Aunt Pol, Garion, and Durnik and drags them on a search for a stolen magical object. The story is told from Garion’s point of view, and Garion is purposefully kept in the dark about many things, including who he is, what is being chased, and even who his traveling companions are. The other two traveling compansions are Silk the Spy (and a prince), and Barak (a huge warrior with a Doom imposed on him). The book is well written and does a good job of introducing various cultures. The characters are well developed, and the whole story is told with a wry sense of humor that has always spoken to me. I have to admit that some of my writing style has developed from reading Eddings. I am quite biased towards these books, and so I’m hard pressed to give it anything besides an ‘A,’ so that’s what I’m going to give it.

Spend Game by Jonathan Gash

Spend Game is an extremely dark Lovejoy novel. Lovejoy is more driven and loose than ever. He is facing some of his own demons locked in the past from his time in the army (which I didn’t know he had until this time), and he is harsher than ever with those around him. The story starts with Lovejoy and one of his women in the back seat of his dilapidated cars witnessing a friend of Lovejoy’s being forced of f the road and being killed. Throughout the book, Lovejoy has ‘time’ with at least five women, four of them married women, and loses his temper with one of them, the wife of a police officer, so much he strikes her. I found that shocking, but what surprised me more is that she continues to help him. This is the most dark of the Lovejoy books I have read so far. The mystery part of it itself seemed a little drawn out. I had quite a bit of it figured out by the time Lovejoy did, and some of the moves he made were incredibly stupid, and he should be dead because of them, but miraculously survives his own stupidity. I didn’t enjoy Spend Game as much as his others. I give Spend Game a C.

Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn

Dark Force Rising is the second book in Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars Trilogy. As I mentioned in my previous Avid Reader blog, Zahn’s trilogy is the benchmark that all other Star Wars Expanded Universe novels need to live up to. The exploration of Luke’s force abilities is very interesting, especially as he starts to come under the power of the mad Jedi clone Joruus C’Boath. There are several stand out character moments for the newly introduced characters. Mara Jade, the former Emperor’s Hand, starts to come to grips with the brainwashing that the emperor did to her, and she manages to not kill Luke because she needs him to rescue her boss, smuggler Talon Karrde. Karrde shows his ability to help while still trying to remain neutral, and we learn more about the political rise of the New Republic’s president Mon Mothma and her distrusting fellow rebel Garm bel Iblis. Overall, the book is very well written and holds together with the existing canon very well and started really developing the Star Wars Universe into a much more ‘real’ place. I give Dark Force Rising an A-.

Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings

The second book in the Belgariod series picks up where the other one left off. The novel introduces the southern countries of the West – Arendia, Tolnedra, and Nyissa – as well as important characters from those countries as well; Lelldorin the archer, Mandorallen the Knight, Sadi the Eunuch, and Queen Salmissra. We are introduced to a small, red-haired fireball Imperial princess of Tolnedra CeNedra. She quickly becomes perhaps the second most important character in the series for various reasons. She is, however, a very spoiled young woman who has very little sense of the importance of others in the world, and watching her match wills with Polgara is entertaining. We also see Garion coming to terms with his innate powers and the terrible things he could do with those powers. Eddings wrote in his supplementary book that for a protagonist needs to be one of two things – either he’ll do everything so great that he is a hero, (which he said can make for a very boring hero), or a very stupid (he preferred ‘naïve’) hero who is coming to grips with his abilities, which makes for an interesting character who can grow into something more. Eddings was able to do that with Garion, and to a lesser degree, with all the other members of the quest. I enjoyed the book, of course, and I am still biased towards the series.. I give Queen of Sorcery an A.

Wicked by George Macguire

I started to read Wicked with some relish; I’d been waiting a while to read it. I knew that the musical ‘Wicked’ was based on this novel, and I enjoyed the musical. Wicked, of course, is a revamp of the Oz world, explaining why the Witch, now known as Elphaba (the original author’s initials L F(rank) B(aum), is wicked. The story was adequate. I struggled my way through it, in all honesty. I found that this Oz was much, much darker, and it is not a place I would like to live. It was interesting to watch how the Wizard and his cronies manipulated populace into finding a scapegoat race (the talking Animals, in this case), and reflected the rise of Nazi Germany very effectively. There were dark secrets, attempted rebellions, illicit love affairs, and then, of course, the house crashing down on Elphaba’s sister. Overall, the book is okay, but the musical ties everything together much better – some of things I was waiting for in the book didn’t happen. Of course, I do believe that the 1939 movie is the finest interpretation of the bunch, probably better than the original book. I give Wicked the book a B-.

The Last Command by Timothy Zahn

The final book in the Timothy Zahn trilogy is another well-written book. In all reality, the Star Wars Expanded Universe books need to thank Zahn’s expansion for much of their success. The richness of the characters and the interactions between the original characters and Zahn’s new ones is very natural. It also answers the question of what happened to the lightsaber that Ben Kenobi gave to Luke Skywalker at the beginning of a New Hope. We seen the birth of Han and Leia’s twins, and Mara Jade’s breaking of the Emperor’s brainwashing. The book holds together very well, and it ends very appropriately. I give The Last Command an A.

The Magician’s Gambit by David Eddings

The third in the Belgariad series allows us to see into the mind of another one of the characters rather than just Garion. We see the world through the eyes of CeNedra, the Imperial Princess of Tolnedra. Her thoughts unaccountably always seem to return to Garion, and she purposefully picks fights with him, much like I witness with young people who don’t know how to express themselves. She thinks of herself as a master manipulator, but she is pretty transparent at this age. We get a little more insight into her, and then we switch back to Garion’s point of view. Of all the books, this one is perhaps the most contrived. The second half of the book is primarily about fetching the Orb of Aldur. We are introduced to Ctuchik, one of the disciples of the dark god, and he’s supposed to be a very powerful and intelligent henchman, but he makes several rookie mistakes that you wouldn’t expect such a character to make. Despite that, the book is entertaining and still part of my favorite series. I give the Magician’s Gambit a B+.