TanC wrote:^Now that's one series I need to get my mind wrapped around...once I have free time from LT/SC/ED/etc.

That is seriously a huge collection, I might just intentionally maroon myself on an island with those books to force myself to get into reading them.

Just_Ice_au wrote:I'm an Eddings fan, but if you read enough of his books, all his series start to run together, and you realise he only ever had the one idea/formula, that he re-wrote and re-wrote for thirty years straight:

There's some good gods and evil gods, who've been enemies for millennia, but have never really done much about it until our protagonist came along.

Our hero has to go fight the evil god's cult followers to find a mystical power gem that holds all the power of the universe, because prophecy. To do so, he will need a diverse team of characters, each with their own skills and quirks, usually each from a nation that only seems to have the one industry or export. The bad guys will try to stop him, even though they have their own gem or book or widget that is supposedly just as powerful. He will get help along the way from some gods in disguise, and learn the secrets of sorcery which will only add to his previous skills of thievery, knighting, or being a lost prince secretly raised as a farmboy.

There will be a showdown or two with the enemy, which seems a lot like all the other showdowns with the enemy that Eddings has ever written. Characters will lampshade the similarities, but they'll be explained away as history repeating itself because gods, magic, prophecy, prophecy, time travel, technobabble, magic!

In the conclusion, the bad guys will be defeated easily because they've always been so powerful they forgot to learn how to actually fight or something. Insert moral about good guys winning because they have friends, and bad guys losing because they rely too much on one powerful agent acting alone, conveniently forgetting about the bad guy's vast, vast armies of redshirted goons. The End, rinse, repeat.

HowSerendipitous wrote:Hee hee, according to TV Tropes well that was his exact plan! He set out to write books that were strictly formula. No surprises, just a standard heroes journey each time. It's just they're very well written and the characters are oh so likeable. They just suck you in!

I'm gushing. Blurgh,

The field of fantasy has always been of interest to him, however, and he turned to The Belgariad in an effort to develop certain technical and philosophical ideas concerning that genre.

Just_Ice_au wrote:

HowSerendipitous wrote:Hee hee, according to TV Tropes well that was his exact plan! He set out to write books that were strictly formula. No surprises, just a standard heroes journey each time. It's just they're very well written and the characters are oh so likeable. They just suck you in!

I'm gushing. Blurgh,

Oh yeah, they're pretty fantastic. I lost count of the number of times I read the Belgariad/Mallorean back in high school. If I feel like I want to read it again, though, now I usually just read The Redemption of Althalus - you get the entire heroes journey packed into one book.

About the only series of his I couldn't get into was his Dreamers books. I read the first couple, and just couldn't soldier my way through the rest.

Katorone wrote:No fans here of the Mars series?

Katorone wrote:No fans here of the Mars series?

Gunther Haldan wrote:There's the Thomas Covenant series by Stephen R. Donaldson if you're into odd ball fantasy. I loved the series when it first came out but I was young and easily impressed at the time. In retrospect it wasn't really all that good. Mordants Need, The Mirror of Her Dreams and A man Rides Through, was a much better story. I also read a five book science fiction series of his called the Gap series. The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story, The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge, The Gap Into Power: A Dark And Hungry God Arises, The Gap Into Madness: Chaos And Order and The Gap Into Ruin: This Day All gods Die. This was a very dark and twisted story. But it kept me waiting for the next book to come out. I think I'll go back and re read it. I have all five books right here!

Gunther Haldan wrote:There's the Thomas Covenant series by Stephen R. Donaldson if you're into odd ball fantasy. I loved the series when it first came out but I was young and easily impressed at the time. In retrospect it wasn't really all that good.