I wonder how many participants we would get for an Eddings reread...
Legolas Send a noteboard - 01/04/2013 12:10:00 PM
View original postYeah Egwene's WT time was all kinds of weird. It's one of those occasions not too rare in books, but usually absent from RJ's, where a protagonist alleged master-strategy is basically proven wise because the author proclaimed it so, and made it so, rather than it actually making any sense.
Exactly!
View original postIt's got a distinct Men are from Mars Women from Venus take on things, which at times is irritating but then anything not this-minute modern tends to be. On of my other big favorites, and simultaneous to when I was first reading Eddings, was Anne McCaffrey and her take on feminism includes the heroine being slapped and shaken by the hero regularly. The 'women can't be understood' approach is fairly reasonable for a male author to use its just a queer one when your wife of many years is the co-author. So is the almost endless series of May-December romances which are younger gal to older guy except for two exceptions where the women never age, Sephrenia-Vanion and Polgara-Durnik. I can't help but feel the Brotherhood of Sorcerers suicides might have come off better if one of them fell in love with a mortal women who died of old age or something.
I don't know about that, that anything not contemporary takes that tack. There are enough male writers, if you don't restrict the search to fantasy authors alone, who wrote good female characters even decades or centuries ago.
Hadn't really stopped to think about the May-December issue, but good point... Beldin, Silk, Sparhawk, Kalten, and a fair few others I'm sure. Sparhawk's relationship with Ehlana in particular is dubious, although to Eddings' credit at least he realizes that and doesn't gloss it over.
View original postI'll give Eddings some credit for having Garion blunder around in Guardians of the West for a while unrestrained by Prophecy or ancient relatives. Those are some of his better scenes, bringing a pair of Armies to heel then getting chewed out by Belgarath over his pyrotechnics.
That was amusing, yeah. Of course, it doesn't last long, and if Garion takes the lead more in the Mallorean, most of the credit for that belongs to the Orb.
View original postYeah I tend to forget about the Tamuli, even in Domes she's gets kicked around a bit and it's probably the biggest plot point of Shining Ones. The problem is that by then she's not the wise and mysterious keeper of dangerous arcana anymore but more of side note to a God-killer and his divine daughter, and the gods have been made rather mundane by that point. It's a habit of Eddings to overpower his main characters and keep writing them even afterwards till it loses it's mystery factor and becomes rather cheesy.
I should reread Tamuli and see if it holds up to my memories better than the Elenium does... I recall it being more fun, albeit admittedly cheesy.
I was doing a reread of The Belgariad, and while I like it...
27/03/2013 06:00:11 PM
- 1106 Views
Interesting. I certainly wouldn't make that comparison...
27/03/2013 09:30:33 PM
- 879 Views
About Ce'Nedra
28/03/2013 01:26:43 PM
- 833 Views
I guess, but they also learn not to take her too seriously at times like those.
30/03/2013 09:18:10 PM
- 726 Views
I think you're forgetting David wasn't the only Eddings writing those books
29/03/2013 05:14:55 PM
- 792 Views
I liked the "secondary" female characters a lot, actually
30/03/2013 06:50:07 PM
- 719 Views
The problem was the longer the secondary's stuck around the more Mary Sue they became
30/03/2013 09:10:57 PM
- 755 Views
True, although I feel Polgara (in her own series) and Aphrael hold up well enough even in rereads.
30/03/2013 09:12:31 PM
- 785 Views
Polgara the Sorceress was maybe a bit late, but Aphrael is a ffair example
30/03/2013 10:16:26 PM
- 973 Views
Fair enough.
31/03/2013 12:53:19 AM
- 868 Views
Re: Fair enough.
31/03/2013 05:44:09 AM
- 873 Views
I wonder how many participants we would get for an Eddings reread...
01/04/2013 12:10:00 PM
- 958 Views
I started my reread of Polgara and the first few chapters are awful
13/04/2013 09:36:01 PM
- 848 Views
I'm actually up to the Demon King of Karanda (Mallorean reread), but I totally agree.
13/04/2013 07:42:25 AM
- 874 Views
Eddings is like comfort food, read it and don't think about it *NM*
13/04/2013 09:22:47 PM
- 367 Views
Re: I was doing a reread of The Belgariad, and while I like it...
20/04/2013 04:36:03 AM
- 1014 Views