No Stars No Good
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David Eddings is my all time favorite author, and I refuse to this day to believe that he had anything to do with this rubbish, and I am being polite. I had eagerly anticipated the release of this book and was one of the first in line to buy it when it finally came out. With excited shaking hands I cradled it home, and as soon as I had a cup of coffee ready I sat down to read. It was dreadful. This could not possibly have come from the pen of the man who gave us The Belgariad and The Tamuli. I was horrified. Having struggled my way through, I have vowed never to read anything else by David and Leigh Eddings. I would prefer to remember the great writer that gavid Eddings used to be. The only reason it got the one star is because I could not warn others about this tat without issuing at least one and they don't have a minus star.
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Not bad at all
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I have read all of Eddings' offerings, and cannot understand all the negativity. Admittedly there are striking similarities between this book and others, but it's still a great story with some real depth in terms of theology, which Eddings doesn't normally deal with very well.
I am a fan of his work, and though this is not the best of his books, it is by no means the worst, perfect for taking on holiday, or in a relaxing bath, not so good if you want to escape to a different world. If you're looking for complexity go for James Barclay or K J Parker, if you want a fun read that doesn't tax you stick with Eddings.
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Winter warming...
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Like a mug of hot chocolate or candyfloss, if you're after nutritional (or intellectual) value, you won't find it here. If, however, you're after some comforting fantasy fun that doesn't take itself too seriously, this is perfect.
A lot of fantasy can be heavy going, but you can't say that for this book. While it can be sugary, if you like that sort of thing, it's not unpleasant at all. Yes, a lot of the characters are cliche, but I personally found their interaction endearing. Again, this might not be to everyone's taste, however. What to some people is 'childish' is to others light-hearted. The prose itself is even usually tongue-in-cheek.
The length is both offputting and deceiving, too. There is a lot of filler. Perhaps had there been less cutsey banter and therefore less pages, it would have read a little easier.
There are the odd moments of genuine invention of even intellectualism. The roots of the place names and the gods' names can be traced to real-world word roots ('os' for God, for example). The triad of related gods and their relationships is intruiging and I find myself wishing Eddings had gone into more depth with this as he had in his previous books. I also liked Althalus' character, although Emmy grates after a while. To be honest, most of the female characters grate, with the possible exception of Leitha, although her attachment to Althalus is a little clumsy.
The male characters are perhaps more interesting (Eliar is very young, you must remember, which might explain some of his more childish nature). Gher was something of an uneasy mish-mash between a genius thief and a plain genius, although this in itself had a lot of potential. Bheid was genuinely interesting to follow, as was his 'evil' counterpart, who SERIOUSLY needed more screentime (and who reminded me more of Zedar than anyone, to be honest. Definately misunderstood above truly evil. Here's for an Argan spin-off?). I think the male characters suffered from simple lack of expansion. They had potential. It just wasn't very well-developed. Given the length, this is the major disappointment.
The plot was standard but generally readable enough. The time travel concept could have been handled better. I honestly think there are too many issues and paradoxes for something as essentially frothy as this book to be able to handle well.
I think people have picked it up with too many expectations. No, it's not Tolkien. It's not even the Belgariad. But it's not dreadful, provided you know what you're about to read. Take it on a plane, curl up with it in bed on a long winter night with a hot drink, look at it as a bit of relaxation after something heavy, but don't expect to be analysing it for a dissertation.
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Great writing but the plot didn't hook me in.
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I read this book and appreciated the style of writing. It was wasn't self absorbed and full of long winded prose - it had an everyman style, well, apart form the 'old speak' used in later passages.
But...
The plot didn't seem to grab me, I always felt that it was building up to something that never happened. The end seemed rushed and not as powerful as the one I imagined. The book covers a vast span of time, and the movement through it sometimes seemed a bit clunky, a throwaway sentence will mention that months have passed.
Some of the characters were very young, but their introduction into the book didn't seem to establish it very well. This meant that in my mind's eye I visualised them differently, and when they used childish language it seemed a bit odd.
This book should appeal to fans of war-fiction as the second half of the book seems to deal with battles. I have a problem remembering names and so the vast number of characters involved confused me a bit. But that's more an issue with me, rather than the book!
Although I wasn't impressed with this book, I've heard good things about other Eddings novels and hope to have a read of those soon. It was recommended by a friend who has a good taste in books and so I would like to experience more by the authors. The main character (Althalus) was a great character, but he was the only one I really cared anything for. Towards the end of the book i didn't really mind how the book ended, just as long as it did. I hoped the epilogue would put a great stopper to the novel, but it just seemed to detail what you expected to happen anyway.
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The Same Story all over again
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D Eddings has spent the second "group" (of up to 5 books) of all his series rewriting the story that he told in the first. This book however sinks to new lows.
I will not be reading any of his new books unless a friend that I trust has read it first and twists my arm - severely.
When I read his first book I was enchanted by the freshness of the characters and the story. I am sorry to say that I do not think that he has not written anything readable since the first Sparhawk books.
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