The Repetition of Belgarath (The Redemption of Althalus - David and Leigh Eddings)

Member Name: IainWear

Product:	The Redemption of Althalus - David and Leigh Eddings
Date:	12/12/04 (67 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice little story

Disadvantages: But you've seen it all before

I’m not really much of a fantasy fan. Despite having enjoyed “The Hobbit” at school and loving the recent film versions, I’ve struggled to read “Lord of the Rings” over the years, starting with good intentions, but never actually getting very far. The problem, as far as I can tell is not just that it’s a large and imposing looking book, but that the language within it isn’t the easiest to get a handle on. There are lots of strange sounding names composing of harsh syllables and whole sentences and verses written in Elvish.

A few years ago, however, I was sharing a flat with a fantasy fan. Having run out of things to read from my own shelves, I turned to his. In amongst some of the Dragonlance style books, I found collections by Raymond E Feist and David Eddings. Although not really sounding like my kind of thing, they seemed harmless enough, and I decided to give them a try.

Discovering I wasn’t as opposed to fantasy as I’d previously believed I began to read more and more of Eddings’ work, to the point that, by the time “The Redemption” of Althalus” was published, I’d caught up with him and was ready for it. This presented a new challenge, however, as all his previous work I’d read had been larger stories broken into shorter books and so looked less imposing. This was a whole new adventure, and all in one book.

Althalus is a thief. By hard earned reputation, he’s actually quite a good thief, at tune with his luck, which shines on him more often than not. Nobody’s luck can run their way forever and when Althalus’ goes bad, it goes bad in a major way, resulting in some lean times and nearly resulting in his death on several occasions. It is during his unlucky period that Althalus runs into Ghend and is sent to steal a book, the Book of God.

When Althalus gets to the house where the book is kept, he finds the book, a cat and his exit blocked. It’s not too long before his job title changes from “thief” to “leader of men” as he heads out into the world to find the rest of his side for the, seemingly inevitable in Eddings books, battle between good and bad. The people Althalus has to collect are pre-ordained and the opposition, if that’s how you’d describe them, have a matching band, more or less, with the tricks and special talents of the people on either side being pretty much duplicated. Meanwhile, both sides are following a set on instructions in which everything is laid out in general terms. It’s just the minor details, like who wins, that is yet to be decided.

Now, stop me if you’ve heard this story before. You have? Well, if you’re a fan of David Eddings, you almost certainly have. Whilst it’s not a bad story, it’s certainly nothing unique. It has pretty much the same set up as Eddings’ “The Belgariad” with much of the action already pre-ordained in prophecy and the cast of characters matching up pretty closely. Thos already familiar with Belgarath, Polgara, Ce’Nedra and the rest will find themselves in familiar territory. Sadly, they’re likely to find themselves in territory so familiar that it will just be boring.

However, for the newcomer to Eddings work, this is up to his normal standards, more or less. Eddings works in a style I like to call “soft” fantasy, as opposed to “Hard fantasy”, filled with elves and dragons and fantastical beings, like “Lord of the Rings”. In an Eddings story, the cast of characters are mostly human, with the odd God thrown into the mix, but humans with additional powers or gifts that wouldn’t be normal in the real world. This makes it easier for non-fantasy fans such as I would consider myself to be, to get into, as you can find something you can more or less relate to in the characters.

The one thing that non-fans might not be too impressed with is the pacing. Although it’s written in a fairly flowing style, meaning that the actual words pass by fairly quickly, the story itself proceeds at quite a leisurely pace. This is fine if you like to settle down with a book and spend a day or two reading it, but if your normal fare is thrillers and the like, you’re going to be wishing they’d just get on with it. Everything is straight forward and laid out in front of you, with nothing that needs working out, so it’s very much a no brainer, something to be read when you’re in the mood to read something, and anything will do. It’s not really something for when you want to get yourself properly involved in a story and shut out the world at large.

If you’re into gentle fantasy, this is worth a look, if only because it can be picked up cheaply and there’s not much to lose. Eddings fans probably won’t be terribly impressed, but newcomers to his work, and even to the genre itself, might be, unless you’re too used to fast paced books. In either case, I can only recommend you buy it cheaply, and don’t consider paying the £7.99 cover price.

Amazon.co.uk has copies available for £4.38, which is still a little overpriced in all honesty. Slightly better, it can be found for £3.75 at greenmetropolis.com, but there are copies available even more cheaply at Amazon’s Marketplace, where it has been seen priced from £1.00 and on eBay from 85p. It’s possibly a good one to be looking for at book sales and charity shops as well, as it’s not really anything new from Eddings and so would be the kind of thing that might turn up there.

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