The Malloreon: Strangely familiar

THE MALLOREON by David Eddings

Take the plot from The Belgariad, add in the same characters, plus a couple of new ones that look strangely similar to ones in The Belgariad, and you have The Malloreon. Instead of chasing the Orb, the gang is chasing Garion and Ce’Nedra’s son.

This is a quest type of fantasy, and the same things that made The Belgariad so enjoyable are here: interesting characters and a humourous banter that makes for a quick read. The pace is fast. The difficulty is this: this is the same story as The Belgariad. The humourous banter is starting to get tired, and some of the jokes are recycled.

The characters stopped developing at the end of The Belgariad, except for the new ones, which show some personal development, but development that is totally out of context with their background and surroundings.

David Eddings’s style is light and quick. These are not books that one will ever get bogged down in. They are also not books that require a great deal of brain power to process. They are a light read, and due to the repetition of the previous series, this is getting a little boring, like a sit-com in its third season. I would gladly suggest these books and their predecessors to anyone 12 and up. There are no sex scenes, though there are definitely suggestions of sex, and the violence is not the stronger stuff that we see in fantasy today.

I am somewhat indifferent to these books. When I read them, I looked forward to them because I had loved The Belgariad so much. However, The Malloreon is just more of the same. It is virtually identical so, in the words of B.B. King, “the thrill is gone”.

In conclusion, if you loved The Belgariad and need more of Eddings and these characters, then read this series. If you read The Belgariad and were satisfied, stop now. You would do better with a re-read of the original.

ANGUS BICKERTON practises law in a small town in Eastern Ontario. He lives with his wife, their two youngest children, and their black lab in a 160 year-old stone home, which also holds his law office. He has become, through inadvertence bordering on negligence, an expert in money-pit properties, and in do-it-yourself repair and construction. He has always dreamed of writing novels, but so far he has only self-published a play about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ entitled The Gate.