Torak's Wife

So, it took me a bit logner to get through Polgara the Sorceress than previous volumes in the David Eddings series, but she's also a longer read and I was on vacation for five days in there. (DC. There were Pandas.)

As Ce'Nedra complained at the end of Belgarath, the preseries story was unfinished, since Polgara has a story of her own. The Riven Queen and Garion go east to the vale and enlist Poledra to get Polgara to write out her story. Which she does eventually.

Much like Belgarath, Polgara tends to litter her narrative with the occasional aside poking fun at fictional readers of her manuscript. Which helps to lighten up the occasionally dark narrative.

By far the biggest change with Pol is that Polgara is aware that Poledra lived past her birth, as Poledra remains in contact with her throughout her life. Polgara, being a twin, loses her other half at 16 when Beldara marries Riva. Beldara manages to get Polgara out of her awkward and unkempt stage prior to marriage, although Beldaran's eventual death marks the start of deaths that will haunt her through the narrative.

We see much of her learning through her eyes and get the other half of the story told in her father's book, including that her mother was also instructing her. Until she eventually winds up in war torn Arendia to end the civil war, however temporarily. Mind you, she more or less bullies the three Duchies into behaving themselves and gets given her own Duchy, Erat, as a reward. Vo Wacune falls and so does her almost lover Ontrose with it. While Ontrose's death is very hard on her, it doesn't stop her from her duty as Duchess, helping the refugee Wacites settle in to Erat as it becomes Sendaria and destroying the Asturian raiders. She convinces one of the Tonedran Emporers to get a king in Sendaria, and thus her land becomes an independent nation.

After that adventure, she becomes the guardian of the Rivan line, as she fishes the heir, Geran, out of the bay and takes him back to her estate in Sendaria. We hear of her moving around with the heirs and making them vanish into obscurity until Torak's invasion of the West. The heir at the time goes into hiding in Algaria, while Pol and Belgarath get the forces running at Vo Mimbre. We hear of how she and Poledra combine into one particular owl to spy on Torak and Zedar during the siege. And how it was Poledra who helped her resist Torak's proposal on the third day.

We hear of the heir's mental subjugation to Chamdar and subsequent exposure to Chamdar's thoughts, and the later move into Cherek. Finally, the century of the Godslayer arrives and Polgara can finally move back to Sendaria. Which is probably the saddest chapter in the entire book as we learn of the fates of Garion's grandparents and the eventual fire that takes out his parents. And we hear of the move to Faldor's farm and Polgara's eventual acknowledgement of her love for her father.

Polgara is quite a bit more intimate than Belgarath. This is likely because Polgara is younger than Belgarath, and she's much more involved in the day to day history of the world than Belgarath is. It's a wonderful ending to the series, and a reminder of sacrifices made to bring about the changes we need in the world.

Torak's Teeth

As I had stated previously, I came back and finished Belgarath the Sorcerer by David Eddings, having had a small break in the TBR pile.

We start with a very short prologue picking up right after The Seeress of Kell, with the Gods leaving after Polgara's motherhood became official. A conversation between Garion, Durnik, and Belgarath begins a plot to get Belgarath to write down his story, which covers most of the history of the world until Garion's birth.

And what a story it is. This volume clocks in longer than any of the other installments in the series, but it also covers a heck of a lot of ground. We hear about Torak taking Aldur's Orb, then using it to crack the world and the punishment he gets for using it so. We hear of the journey to Mallorea to retrieve the orb, and the split that turns Aloria into Cherek, Drasnia, Algaria, and Riva. We hear of Belgarath's descent into grief and madness following the supposed death of Poledra while he was getting the Orb and setting up Riva.

We have the birth of Polgara and Beldaran, and Pol's hatred of her father. We see Beldaran get married to Riva and start the line that would produce Garion in time. Then comes the writing of the prophecies.

Along the way, we find Belgarath getting directions from his Necessity and Polgara getting her own instruction and usually not telling Belgarath. Eventually Pol winds up in Arendia and gains a Duchy in Vo Wacune. Her father gets quite annoyed with her. Eventually Vo Wacune falls and Pol spends a few centuries being annoyed with her father. Then comes the murder of the Riven King, and Polgara's caretaking of the Riven line.

That falls apart a few times, although none so long as when Torak wakes up and invades Drasnia on his was to the Battle of Vo Mimbre, leaving the Heir at the Algarian Stronghold while Torak invades and decimates the West. That eventually gets settled by Brand exposing Torak to the Orb and poking a stick through his eye....

And then we wait for the birth of the Godslayer, and the sadness that is the deaths of Garion's Grandparents and parents.

We see the companions in their early years, and we end with Ce'Nedra deciding she needs to hear Polgara's story. Which will be later, since I had a few books show up.

It's a good, if involved read, filling in many of the gaps from the first two pentads.

Hail, Hail, the gang's all here

So, I had originally intended to read something else before starting Enchanter's End Game by David Eddings, which finishes up The Belgariad (mainly because I dislike having back to back posts out of the same series), but I also knew it would be a quicker read than the next volume up before we start the library books.

Anyway, as I stated above, this is the last book of the first quintet. Likely sometime after New Year's, I'll dig up the second quintet and the follow up volumes, but for now, I'm satisfied having read the original stories.

Like the previous volumes, this opens with holy writ from one of the world's religious texts. In this case, we get a passage from The Book of Torak, who frames his narrative with him as the hero. Mind you, the idea is that if his prophecy wins out, this will be the literal truth of the world.

Then we meet up with Silk, Belgarath, and Garion as they cross from Drasnia into Gar Og Nadrak on their way to boundless Mallorea. Which is made more entertaining by the occupying Mallorean Agnaraks conscripting everyone into their army. Eventually, they make it to the land of the Morindim, another godless race. Instead of seeking UL with the Ulgos, these decided to raise demons. Eventually though, they make it to Mallorea and head to Cthol Mishrak where dead Torak lies sleeping.

Then we return to the armies of the west, as they plan a diversionary war to draw the Agnaraks to Mishrak ac Thull. Which works well until the Malloreans and the Murgos arrive at the same time. Polgara, Ce'Nedra, Errand, and Durnik become guests of 'Zakath the Mallorean Emperor who gives them over to the Gromlims for transport to Cthol Mishrak.

Once there, everything comes to a head, and the necessities meet in what's billed as the final battle (well, you know, other than the next quintet...) and we get our happy fantasy ending as just about everyone ends up happily married and healed.

As I complete this, I understand that the overall story is better than the individual books. Becauses, frankly, each book has its own problems, but the story itself is engaging. We'll return to the Bels and Pols soon, I assume, but for now...

Ladies and gentlemen, The Riven Queen!

Again, proving that they're quick reads, I finished Castle of Wizardry by Davis Eddings on lunch today. (And if anyone is missing this particular volume, I seem to have an extra.)

So, we pick up with the escape from Cthol Murgos, as the party rides hard from the soon to be ruins of Cthol Mishrack. As Belgarath is exhausted from his battle, the party rests in Algaria at the only permanent settlement, The Stronghold. (The Algars tend to follow the herds and tend to be nomadic. They basically built the Stronghold to give visiting Murgos a place to attack.)

In Algaria, Belgarion meets his cousin Adara, who's in love with Hetter, the party member who can talk to horses. She ends up accompanying them back to and through Ulgoland to Sendaria, where Polgara and Garion and Ce'Nedra make a field trip back to Faldor's Farm for Garion to see once and for all his hoime is not the farfm. Which is good, since as soon as the reach the Island of the Winds and Riva, Garion is revealled to be Belgarion, the Bearer of the Orb of Aldur, and the Prophecied Child of Light in the upcoming battle against the Child of Dark, Torak.

Almost all of the royalty in the West is there, excluding Porenn of Drasnia (who just had King Rhodar's baby) and Ran Borune of Toledra.

Garion finally gets more information on the prophecies and what's expected of him. To try to save lives, he Silk, and Belgarath leave secretly in the night for Mallorea in hopes of causing the confrontation with Torak before total war breaks out for generations.

As such, Polgara is essentially left in charge of those left behind. And she's unhappy. Ce'Nedra, who as part of the betrothal with Garion (again, a condition of the prophecy), has joint ruling powers in Riva, and uses her charm and wits to join the war party. Mostly, she becomes a figure to gather together the disparate non Alorn races to join the fight against the Agnaraks.

And she does this quite well, learning and having to deal with the fact she's likely leading the armies to their deaths.

By far, it's in this book where the plot actually gets interesting. The secrets are revealed, and it's all heading to a showdown.

The one outstanding problem is one of Fate verses Free Will. As Taiba, the Marag woman and Relg, the Ulgo get closer, the prophecy itself states this is necessary and they have no real choice in the matter. Which is really kind of horrible. There's a line in Mercedes Lackey's Mage Storms trilogy that I find myself reflecting on when reading about Relg and Taiba; the idea that lifebonding (or destined love) is almost like enslavement, and love given freely without that kind of bond isn't a bad thing at all, since you have choices with it.

What we know at the end:
Garion is Belgarion, whom prophecy foretold.
Belgarion must face Torak, the Dragon God of Agnarak.
The child Errand is the only other one who can touch thr Orb of Aldur currently.
Ce'Nedra is fulfilling prophecy on her end by raising an army to keep the three headed East safe.

Not quite like Remy LeBeau

I technically finished David Eddings's Magician's Gambit yesterday, but a very long day at work crossed with a lack of sleep meant not updating until now.

So, We pick up with out party leaving Nyssia and heading to Aldur's Vale. (Aldur being the god of Sorcerers.) Unfortunately, due to a bunch of Murgo interference, the party instead rides through the remains of Maragor, where the God Mara eternally weeps over his slain people. (Seems a few millennia ago, the Tolnedrans invaded and slaughtered the Marags wholesale. Whether it was due to an odd quirk of religious cannibalism or the amount of gold that that Marags weren't using lining the streams remains open to debate.) A visit with Mara yields no real results, other than another discussion on prophecy and the dry voice in Garion's head informing Mara that his sorrow is not far from ending.

The trail to the Vale is treacherous out of Maragor and they end up finding the cave where the Gods met to talk during the creation. Garion pulls a new colt back from death in the cave.

More than a few conversations happen in the Vale, most of which involve getting Garion to understand his Sorcery. We find that Polgara talks to the birds, and Ce'Nedra, who is half Dryad, talks to trees. Alder again refers to Garion as Belgarion, and much is made of finding people to fulfill roles as foretold in prophecy. We also get to meet the other Sorcerers who serve Aldur, Beltira and Belkira (twins) and Beldin, the dwarf. Beldin is one who shows affection through insults, which Polgara and Belgarath understand, but most of the rest of the party doesn't at first.

From The Vale, The party enters Ulgoland, Home of the Ulgos. It seems after the creation, the Gods chose their people, leaving at least one group godless. (We meet a few more of these groups later on, although the Dryads technically count.) This particular group petitioned the gods to take them in, but they told them to seek their father UL. Whom a man named Gorim finally found, and persuaded to take his people and the animals unclaimed as his. Since the time when Torak took the orb and cracked the world, they've lived in caves under the ruined city of Proglu. All leaders of the Ulgo have taken the name Gorim after their founder. I should mention that one the way to Proglu, the party encounters a monster whom Belgarath met many eons ago. During the fight, Polgara and Garion manage to bring the spirit of her mother into battle, which makes Belgarath mildly upset.

Anyway, the upshot of the visit to Ulgoland and Proglu winds up being that Ce'Nedra stays with Gorim and a diviner (one who can sense caves and traverse through rock) joins them for the journey into Cthol Murgos. This would be Relg, who's a fundamentalist of the worst sort, who spends much of him time after being told by UL to get his ass out of the cave and help praying and abasing himself. He does however start loosening up after seeing Murgos (particularly their King, Taur Urgos) in action. After silk gets captured, Relg actually drags Silk out of the pit through solid rock to free him. Later, his unique ability becomes both weapon and body disposal.

Any rate, the entire thing comes down to Rak Cthol, where Ctuchick  waits along with the child who bears the orb.

While that particular confrontations comes out predictably, they do discover what may well be one of the last of the Marags in the dungeons. We close on Relg, who seems to think her nakedness is a sin against UL, leading the party back to her for rescue.

What we know by the end:

Garion is actually Belgarion.
All the members of the party have titles as defined by the prophecies.
There are two proecies out heroes are using, while the Agnaraks have one of their own.
This also is the first real mention of the Mrin Codex and the Darine Codex.
The only one vulnerable in Rak Cthol was The Queen of the World (Ce'Nedra), thus why she stayed in Ulgoland.

We'll return for book for in a little while. 

I Hate That Queen!

So, today we're focusing on David Eddings's second book in The Belgariad, Queen of Sorcery.

When we left our Fellowship, they were leaving Cherek for Arendia. We open on the norther border of Arendia, near the ruins of Vo Wacune, former home of the Wacite Arends, who were exterminated some 2.5 millennia ago. As of now, there are only two factions of Arends left, the Asturians, who speak modern English, and the Mimbrates, who speak like rejects from a Ren Fest. The two sides were united under a king of the Mimbrates and a queen of the Asturians following the war that brought Torak to the West looking for the Orb of Aldur. (Aldur being one of the gods of the series. Aldur has no real people of his own, other than a small grouping of Sorcerers who serve him.)

In the great forests of Asturian influence, we meet Lelldorin, an archer of some renown, who joins the party. Lelldorin is very Arendish, he's part of a larger plot to take out the King and make it look like the southern Tolnedrans did it. He's brave, and prone to getting swept up into things like regicide. However, he's not nearly as bad as the Mimbrate Mandorallen, whom we meet next, who's part of an epic love triangle that's the gossip of the entire kingdom. Seems he and his liege's wife are of similar age and in love, although neither will act on it, since the wife equally loves her husband, as does Mandorallen.

Lelldorin gets poisoned going through Arendia, and is left in the care of Mimbrates. Mandorallen comes along to court, wherein the whole regiscide plot comes apart and the Gromlim priest behind it is exposed. (A word on Torak's people, the Agnaraks. The Nadraks are merchants on the North Eastern side of the continent. The Thulls are considered chattel and live in the middle Eastern section of the continent. The Murgos live in the Southeast, and are a warrior caste. The Gromlims are priests of Torak and also sorcerers of Torak and look quite a bit like Murgos. Then there's the Mallorians, but we really don't meet them until book 5. They live on the other continent.)

Anyway, from Arendia, the fellowship travels further south into Tolnedra, currently undergoing a rather expensive and poisonous attempt at regime change. Seems the current emperor, Ran Borune, is not far from death and has no male heir. Therefore, the other great families are trying to get their own candidates in position to take the throne by bribery and poison. We hear of Maragor to the East, where the Tolnedrans massacred the Marags over the sin of cannibalism and the large amount of unused gold in the rivers of Maragor. A monastery sits on the border to try to calm the ghosts who haunt any who venture into Maragor.

The party gets waylaid early on by a Nyssian, seeking to bring Garion, Polgara, and Belgarath before his queen, Eternal Salmissra.

While visiting Ran Borune, we meet Ce'Nedra, his daughter, who's unhappy about being confined to the palace, as well as a clause in the Accords of Vo Mimbre that states she must go to the hall of the Rivan King on her 16th birthday. Since there hasn't been a Rivan King in several centuries, she finds it humiliating.

After leaving on not so great terms, the party continues south, joined by the disguised princess. The ruse is revealed in short order, and Ce'Nedra joins the party, mainly existing here to argue with Garion.

One of the current front runners for the throne catches up with the party, and the Gromlim running him turns out to be the one who killed Garion's parents. This opens Garion to becoming a sorcerer in his own right, who promptly kills the Gromlim.

Anyway, as the enter the Dryad territory, they get waylaid again by mudmen that happen to be animated by snakes serving Salmissra. Once dispatched, they visit the Dryads, who tell Ce'Nedra she can't stay with them.

And so, we wind up in Nyssia, with Belgarath and Silk taking the journey south through the jungle and the rest going by boat to Ssith Tor. It's here we see the wretched hive of scum and villany that is Nyssia. Due to the nature of the jungle, most of the Nyssians have addictions to any number of psychotropic herbs and berries. Slavers run in and out of port. The Nyssians were evidently behind the long ago assassination of the Rivan King, so the Alorns aren't happy to be there. Eventually, Salmissra manages to kidnap Garion, not long after he and Polgara have a really bad fight. Salmissra is surrounded by her eunuchs and her snakes. She essentially drugs Garion into submission, although the nondissociative voice in his brain keeps him rational.

Eventually, everything works out, as Salmissra's plot is revealed and Polgara fulfills a long ago promise to another incarnation of the Queen.

Silk and Belgarath make it soon after, and the party book ends with the party headed to the Vale of Aldur.

What we know by the end of this book:

The Orb of Aldur was stolen by a former disciple of Aldur named Belzedar, and no one is sure how he did it.

Garion's full name is Belgarion, although he's not happy about it, since it means his life is changing.

The Gromlims seem to be bound and determined to stir up trouble in the west since the time of prophecy is upon them.

This is the book where the adverbs start becoming problematic.

Still, other than the overreaching plot becoming more obvious to readers, it remains a solid entry in the series.

Here we go again

Part 2 of the twofer.

I thought another series might keep me from posting about the same series for multiple entries. On the way out the door, I grabbed Pawn of Prophecy, Book 1 of David Eddings's The Belgariad. Which I promptly finished sitting out back with the dog.

Ok. Long time readers have probably heard me kvetch about how badly the author needs a thesaurus. I still think he does, although his choice of adverbs is not quite as bad early on.

Anyway, we start on Faldor's Farm, in the rather remote kingdom of Sendaria. We meet Garion, who's been raised at the feet of the head cook, his Aunt Pol. Garion grows into a teenager over 50 pages, and we hear a few of the stories of this world. Anmes the God Kal Torak, who took Aldur's orb and cracked the world.

Eventually, the people of Torak make their way to the farm, and that starts the adventure rolling, as Pol and Mister Wolf, the itinerant storyteller grab Garion and join the Alorns (Silk and Barak. Silk is a Drasnian, Barak is a Cherek. The kingdom of Belor's people were split in 4 years before this begins.) They're also joined by the smith Durnik, who lived on the farm with Pol and Garion.

Long story short, we, by the end of the volume, know that Mister Wolf is actually Belgarath, a sorcerer of legend; making aunt Pol Polgara, his also Sorceress daughter. Garion is now known to be a relative of the pair. We also know that there are Gromlins, priests of Kal Torak seeking them out. We know something of value has been stolen. The Alorns are mobilizing for war, and the party is headed to Gondor Arendia, where the folks are high on nobility and low on intelligence.

Re-reading reminded me how much I love the character Silk, who's part of the major occupation of Drasnia, the secret service. AKA he spies. He also gets some of the best lines throughout both series.

Honestly, the writing is about like reading some of the interactions in the old Sega CD game Lunar: the Silver Star, where the characters honestly care about each other, but also have no issues smart talking to each other. It's kind of charming, really.

A fun read, even if it's not the most original series out there. Also, you can get a thesaurus and replace repeated adverbs in your own edition.