This is a Thesaurus. Let me show you how it works...

This post is a bit of filler, because I'm just getting in to Kim Harrison's new Ever After, but not far enough in to really review it.

So, instead I'll discuss a specific author whose books I found yesterday while working on a project.

Eventually.

As I mentioned previously, my library has been mostly boxed up for a few years following my move from Missouri back to Ohio. Well, yesterday, I wound up buying a 5 shelf bookshelf, which also lead to the absolute joy of assembling it. Given I haven't taken an Industrial Arts class since 8th grade, this was a bit on an adventure. I did, however, manage to put it together and began the fun of unloading box after box of books onto its waiting shelves.

As you can tell, I need more bloody room. I still have another box or two, plus books floating around the house. Also, a few of the books I put out were ones I haven't read. (Those were mainly parts of lots I bought on EBay to get a specific title. Which means I now have 2 Zodiac Chillers, specifically Twisted Taurus by Ellen Steiber and Never Love a Libra by Vicki Kamida, [As a side note, the advice of the second title is sound, and the former is also true of the breed.] and a bunch of other YA horror titles.) Also, I found out I have two copies each of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, David Eddings' Castle of Wizardry, Dean R. Koontz's Lightning, and Catherine Adkins' When Jeff Comes Home.

Anyway, when I posted the pictures to FaceBook last night, a friend of mine in Ottawa noticed the David Eddings on the shelf (second shelf from the bottom, on the right hand side). Which brought up a discussion on Eddings.

Eddings wrote 2 pentads and two trilogies that I enjoyed. (The pentads being The Belgariad and The Mallorean. The Trilogies being The Elenium and The Tamuli.) Unfortunately, those are not all he's written.

Given both pentads center around the same characters and both trilogies also center around the same characters, it's fairly safe to discuss them as two series.

The Belgariad and The Mallorean center around Garion, his very great grandfather Begarath, and his very great Aunt Polgara. (The latter two get their own novels written after he finished the series.) Both center on folks wondering around fighting an evil prophecy.

The Elenium and The Tamuli mostly center on Sparhawk and his friends as they try to fight an evil God.

(Yes, I'm greatly simplifying things here. We're discussing 16 volumes of verbiage.)

While they're all generally fun reads, with lots of humor, I did find myself spending every book wanting to mail Eddings a Thesaurus. Because every character in ever novel says everything either "blandly" or "sardonically". By the time I reached the end, I was about to start scratching out every repetition and replacing it with a synonym.

He's also wrote Regina's Song, which involved identical twins, one of whom is murdered and the other who more or less goes catatonic afterwards. That one was fun. The ending was a bit off, but hey...

It still beat the pants off of The Dreamers. I tried reading the first book, put it down halfway through, and returned it, mainly because I believe book burning is evil. Although technically, in this case, it would have been euthanasia. Putting it out of my misery.

And then there was one of his early novels, The Losers. While I appreciate the allegorical nature of the novel (basically, a tale of fallen angels and redemption), it got really bogged down in an very vitriolic anti social worker screed that managed to eclipse everything else he was trying to say.

So, yes. I have Eddings on my shelf, and I have enjoyed much of his work. I would highly recommend some of his stuff. I just wish he'd retired before even trying to write The Dreamers.