Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library discussion

RIP David Eddings

Oh my g*d, no!
This is very very sad news.

Oh! I hadn't heard. I'm very sorry to read about it.

I remember when my wife picked up Pawn of Prophecy from the library in the early 80's. Queen of Sorcery came out shortly after we read it, so we read that too. For most of a decade, we read one book per year, finishing the Belgariad & moving on to the Mallorean. We'd have to re-read the previous books every few years as we'd forget details.

Two of my kids liked those series as well & I had to replace my original paperbacks of the Belgariad. The originals were too well read & fell apart. I think my favorite by him was the Elenium trilogy, though. His writing was very entertaining.

I've been afraid of this. I'm old enough now that it will be more and more common to loose the beloved authors of my youth. :(

While I never knew, read or even really HEARD of David Eddings, I know what you mean about losing the favorite authors of youth. You always think these people, who often WRITE about immortality, will actually LIVE forever, and it's always a shock when they do die: Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, etc....

Maybe, somewhere, either Clarke or Asimov are waiting to say "Let there be LIGHT...!!" at just the right time! ;-)

Stephen H. Turner
The Last Voyage of the Cassiopeia
Almagest The Adventures of MarsShield
3700
The Avedon Question

Wow. My old Pastor gave me the 1st volume to the Belgariad, and i instantly fell in love. That seriously is a loss for the literary world.

I hadn't heard either! My dad got me started on Eddings. What a shame. I remember flipping a coin with him to see who got to read The Guardians of the West first. I won, by the way.

Oh my God! He's dead? :O
The Belgariad was one of the first series I read, and oen of the pieces of literature that got me into reading :/...

RIP David Eddings, you'll be remembered and missed :'(

How sad-- I really enjoyed his Belgariad books. They work really well as YA fantasy, I think-- I'm hoping to get at least one of my nieces interested in them when they get older.

I only joined this site yesterday and then found out David and his wife had left. Its strange, I've had all the books on my shelf for the last 15 years, yet had a compulsion to re read them once more in June. I read through all thirteen of them ( OK, 12.5 as the codex doesn't count as much) finishing just last week. Then came here and found out he had died, coincidence or what..

The Belgariad series is a wonderful story set firmly within the conventions of fantasy, yet written with humour and not over the top sequences. I have to read the follow-up to the first series which I look forward to.

Sorry to hear the news.

Yeah, I loved his Belgariad series and the Mallorean. The others, not so much.

When I read his series I thought they were a bit sexist (that was in the eighties).
Now that he is dead (RIP) I am willing to re-evaluate.

Come to think of it, I read his series in the 80's as well, when I was in high school. I thought it was a grand adventure then, since I love quests. I wonder what I'll think of it now if I read the boks again.

Belgariad and Malloreon series are some of my comfort books. I re-read them every 2 yrs or so. I did find the male characters quite sexist, but a lot of the female characters are strong and independant and put the males in their place.
I was quite sad when I heard he had died. His legacy will live for a long time.