The Belgariad/ The Mallorean

[waltermittymissus]

Wow. Why am I only reading these now? Any other fans out there? I'm on book two of the Mallorean. Love it!

DN has a spare copy, my boxset is mine! Plus the last few are very preachy and they're church goers so I'll run them past SIL first.

I made him watch the bfg on Sunday, so (at sil's request) Roald Dahl is next she missed these things as a kid so I'm working on both of them Dick King-Smith is also on The List...

I read it at school t.oo- just before I discovered terry Pratchett. Also loved Marion Zimmer Bradley, vonda McIntyre, Elizabeth Lynn- anyone else?

talkingnonsense, my copy of The Mists of Avalon has the covers falling off - I just love that book. I've read a lot of MZB's other books but that's my favourite.

Oh - Mists of Avalon is another favourite of mine from my teenage years. I loved Web of Darkness and Firebrand too.

I loved mists of Avalon, preferred the Darkover books, but my absolute favourite was The Catch Trap!

I also loved Roger Zelazny, and the incomparable Diana Wynne Jones.

waves to mother and sister

awww would I get serious respect points if I told you all I played a LARP (Live Action Role Play) system based on The Belgariad...happy, happy days DH is currently attempting to lure me back to LARP claiming the group need a character based essentially on Pol....

Love the Mists of Avalon too...

What's that Liza ? I'm intrigued!

Like Dungeons and Dragons - or kind of like a murder mystery I guess, you write a character and basically have to work through an adventures having fights and quaffing wine...

By the way was racking my brains for the name of another writer last night, it's Katherine Kerr and her Dragonflight books....not to mention Robin Hobb..

I didn't even know that existed! How fun! :)

it really is, a lot depends on the people you go with of course I only know the nice ones...:) :)

epees no guy gavriel Kay but may have to try it.
Anne Bishops later books were more pleasurable than griping. My fave vamp author is JR Ward - who's yours?

Or gripping even...

Can't believe of all the bazillions of books out there, that so many of us loved:

Belgariad (+ Mallorean)
Anne McCaffrey - dragons of Pern books
Mists of Avalon
Sara Douglass books
Mercedes Lackey books (although I'm a bit iffy on those)
Robin Hobb books

We are obv kindred spirits and should compose a list of Classicks of the Genre for our children and our children's children's children etc.

Well I've finished them! Have to say LOVE these and will definitely become a comfort read over the years.

Such heart-warming, easy reading! I'm sorry they're finished! :)

Me too me too! I remember persuading the school librarian to buy them and waiting for the Mallorean to be published, one book at a time!

Another series which I loved as a teen was Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game trilogy.

I'm going to go through the thread now and read everything on the list! A fantasy fan is born! :)

I read the first book of the Eleniad recently and didn't think much of it tbh. Are these ones better/worth trying?

Song of Ice and Fire is IMO the best fantasy I've ever read (and I've read a lot :)). Just amazing.

I loved the Dragonlance books as a teenager, and have a real nostalgia for them. Gave up on book 4 of Wheel of Time though as the plot seemed to be going nowhere (slowly), plus too many wet/annoying characters.

I loved these books as a teenager. The first few Sparhawk books are okay but Eddings definately got very samey after a while.

My absolute favourite fantasy book was Raymond Feist's "Magician".

I don't read much fantasy anymore though, after this threads suggestions perhaps I should start again!

That's a fantastic tribute, LaQueen. I bet McCaffers thoroughly enjoyed that.

The Eleniad books are okay, although certainly it all gets a bit formulaic. Eddings seems a bit unsure about how he's ended up with a woman ruler to write and so invents some ludicrous side story about how Ehlana's sanity would never stand the shock of finding out who her daughter is, despite no evidence to support it. Melidere goes in the space of two pages from bimbo to master criminal/politician. The stereotypes are horrendously crude of course, as usual the heroes are the whitest people in their world, from the west, and bringing peace and democracy (well okay maybe not democracy) to their neighbours. But worth a read nevertheless :)

Signing in a bit late! :) Eddings is my absolute favourite author and my go to comfort read. Everyone else is right tho he does start repeating himself a bit. Of his later books I really enjoyed the redemption of Althalus but his last series really wasn't the best and he finished it by pretty much copy and pasting the end of the Mallorean series.

For a newer fantasy writer you should try Naomi Novik's Temeraire series - Dragons fighting in the napolionic wars. Like Sharpe mixed with McCaffrey they are fab.

Another Eddings fan signing in - although it's many years since I read the Belgariad/Mallorean, the Elenium/Tamuli series are my comfort books (for all that I agree they do get a bit samey). Book 2 of the Elenium has now disintegrated...

Also love Mists of Avalon, although it has recently been replaced as my favourite Arthurian story by Bernard Cornwell's trilogy (The Winter King etc) - now that's an amazing epic retelling of the Arthur story...

After starting to watch A Game of Thrones on Sky want to try those books next - are they any good?