The Malloreon - David Eddings

 

   Hello, and welcome to the Empty Shelf. My name is Mike, and I’ll be your reader and reviewer today. Warning: some spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.

Today, we’re looking at The Malloreon by David Eddings, the sequel series to The Belgariad. Like its predecessor, it comprises five books, these published between 1987 and 1991: Guardians of the West, King of the Murgos, Demon Lord of Karanda, Sorceress of Darshiva, and The Seeress of Kell. These books continue Garion’s story and introduce a new cast of characters.

I began reading The Belgariad in roughly 2003, so all these books were already long written by that time. After I finished The Belgariad, I did a little research and went back to that magical Inner Harbor B&N to purchase the next book. These books are slightly longer and more dense than their sister series, so they took me longer than a day to read…closer to 3 days each. And let’s bear in mind that I was reading all of this in my “downtime” between college classes and dinner service at the restaurant at which I was working. So, longer and denser though they may be, we’re not talking about massive tomes here. 

Guardians of the West picks up about opens just a few months after the events of The Belgariad, but the story really picks up about 10 years down the road. Garion has grown into his role as King of Riva, but he and Ce’Nedra suffer a tragedy, and are forced back out on a trek to chase down the evil Zandramas to once again prevent the return of the Dark God. But this time, it’s not Torak…it’s something worse. We get to experience much more of Mallorea, the eastern continent, and learn of its cultures and people. 

    King of the Murgos follows Garion and his friends into the land of the Murgos where they encounter annoyingly ambitious priests of Torak, and learn some things about the king of these people that they do not expect. Their journey continues across the sea to Mallorea.

    The Demon Lord of Karanda introduces a new character or two, mostly notably Feldegast the Juggler. Rumors of demons persist in this part of the world and that makes our heroes a bit nervous. The party is captured by the emperor of Mallorea, who is slowly but surely won to the side of logic by Garion's persistence.

    The Sorceress of Darshiva continues the tale as we make our way across the length and breadth of the continent. We learn quite a bit about the villain's origins and the prophecies that drive the whole series.

    All is concluded in The Seeress of Kell, where Garion and his companions finally make it to the appointed meeting place where the REAL fate of the universe is decided.

Much of this series is a pretty direct copy of its predecessor. There is a new cast of characters, some of whom we’ve seen before, including Sadi, Zakath, Liselle, Beldin and Toth. Each of them is executed just as well as any of the companions from The Belgariad. And just like The Belgariad, some of them are a bit one dimensional, though still charming. 

All the familiar tropes are still present, but we’re adding Demons to the mix, which adds a certain zest in a few spots. As with the last series, the plot is fairly predictable, and not at all edgy. But I still love it.

As in the previous series, there’s no real new ground broken here. Things are a tad less predictable, but still very easy to suss out. The new characters introduced fall prey to the same one-dimensionality that their counterparts did. Liselle, Zakath, Sadi, Beldin and Toth are serviceable companions for Garion’s most recent journey. I didn’t resonate with them the way I did with Barak, Relg, and company, but I like most of them. 

We explore another continent in the world that Mr Eddings created, and it feels every bit as real and lush as the one explored in The Belgariad. The broad generalizations that inflicted the first series have been somewhat mediated in the Malloreon. The issues haven’t been entirely smoothed out, but there’s some improvement. 

I was anxious to return to this world, so I enjoyed it from that aspect. 

Ok, let’s rate it.

Story and Conflict: This series is, in many ways, a rehash of the last one. Once again, Garion, Belgarath, Pol and Durnik are joined by diverse companions (many of which we’ve seen before) on their quest for the magical thingy, incited by the minion of the Dark God - in this case Zandramas instead of Zedar - in order to save the universe. I just realized that both of the minions’ names start with a Z. Coincidence? Maybe.

Anyway, though the story is rehashed, there are some differences and some additions. As a whole, they feel well executed and thought out. There’s a little more rambling in this one, perhaps to pad the word count, and the story suffers a bit from it.

There’s an attempt to fill in some of the plot holes from the first series, but they’re largely unsuccessful and in a few cases leave more questions than answers. There’s also an attempt to justify the repetition, but it falls a bit short. All told, I’m giving story C+. It’s well told and it’s good, but it’s old hat. There’s nothing to get super excited about.

Pacing: This series suffers in the pacing department a little. As I mentioned, the books are a bit longer and more dense than their counterparts, and so there’s a lot more time spent lingering on stuff we don’t need to linger on, or in places we don’t need to linger in. It works more often than it doesn’t, but it could be improved a bit by cutting some things, in my opinion. Some of the Try/Fail cycles are a bit forced, and if these people would just stop and think for a minute, they could have shaved months off this trip. I’m giving Pacing B. There are several passages across that series that I skim over. 

Character: As with The Belgariad, many of the characters feel one note. Garion’s growth and story are more or less done, so he doesn’t change so much as his socks. Ce’Nedra, ditto that. Errand grows into his birthright in an interesting way. However, despite the majority of this series being from his POV, there are long stretches where he hardly makes an appearance. From a character standpoint, we’re supposed to believe this is a trait. He’s a quiet and reserved boy. Maybe that’s true, but having a POV character who doesn’t interact with, y’know, himself, is weird. 

Here again are a couple new strong female characters. Not as well done as the first book, but strong nonetheless. Liselle is a good character, though she doesn’t grow or change much over the course of the story. I like her, but I don’t love her.

The two characters that I think get the most attention from a growth perspective are Silk and Zakath.

Silk has himself a nice little love story and I really enjoy seeing him come to terms with it. He’s not quite prepared to leave his adventuresome lifestyle behind, but for the first time, he’s willing to consider a partner in crime, as it were. It’s a subtle change, but it’s nice to see.

Zakath undergoes the biggest transformation in the whole book - and yes, I’m including Eriond. He begins his journey as a polite and urbane man, but completely cold blooded and unwilling to believe anything he can’t see with his own two eyes. He’s unbending and stubborn. As the story progresses, he loosens up quite a bit and learns to leave his past behind him. He learns that there’s more to life than power and that he still has a long way to go. It’s a nice little story arc, even though it takes place somewhat rapidly. He doesn’t have as much screen time as other characters. 

What I find interesting about this series is that, despite ostensibly being from a different POV, the tone is exactly the same as that of the Belgariad. While I appreciate that due to a degree of nostalgia, I can also appreciate that it’s not the best literary technique in the world. 

Some new, or rather different, cultures are explored in this series and they feel a bit more robust and developed than those of the past, but there’s not enough work done here to make up for the faults of the lead characters.

Character gets C+ for this one. Simply for not doing anything different. 

World Building: Well, the whole world was created before the writing of The Belgariad, so it’s hard to rate this. That said, we are able to explore a different and seemingly larger continent which feels lived in. The lore of the new continent is laid out a bit, but it’s not really new. Quite a bit of it has already been seen. The only real NEW thing here is the propensity of demons, and their hierarchy. It’s an intriguing set of rules, I suppose. Another C+.

Magic System: Well, It’s the same system as the last book. Absolutely nothing has changed. I’ll take into account the magic of Demons, which is somewhat different. But there’s not much there to sink your teeth into. I gave the magic system a B+ in the last book. It’s the same thing here, so I’m sticking with that.  

Writing Style: I gave Writing Style a B for the Belgariad. I suppose I should echo that score here. Nothing has changed. If anything, the tone became slightly MORE sarcastic. You can say what you like about character development and world building and what have you, but the fact is that Eddings’ writing style did not change substantially between these two series. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I loved returning to Garion’s world and catching up with old friends, so to speak. The tone stayed the same and there was no jarring difference in really anything. As always, there was no new ground broken here, but it felt like a comfortable old sweatshirt. 

This series is a little windier than its predecessor. There are long bits where little or nothing really happens to advance the story. The characterization is stale and the story is a fairly literal rehash of the last series. The world doesn’t develop much. There’s less here to grab onto than in the Belgariad.

I know this is the inferior series. It’s obvious in almost every aspect. It doesn’t deserve to get a good rating. I know that. I really do, but…

I love this series almost as much as I love the last one. I was so in love with this world that I would take any excuse to go back, even if it meant sub-par writing. As I mentioned, catching up with these old friends was wonderful, and making some new ones along the way was great too. 

The Malloreon gets 61 points out of a possible 90. That's 67%. An D+. It makes sense. As I said, this is the inferior series, but I still love it.

Well thanks so much for joining me for this discussion. Let me know what you think of The Malloreon. I look forward to reading with you again next time when we’ll talk about the final two entries in the Belgariad Universe, Belgarath the Sorcerer, and Polgara the Sorceress. Until then, Keep Reading.

The Malloreon picks up about opens just a few months after the events of The Belgariad, but the story really picks up about 10 years down the road. Garion has grown into his role as King of Riva, but he and Ce’Nedra suffer a tragedy, and are forced back out on a trek to chase down the evil Zandramas to once again prevent the return of the Dark God. But this time, it’s not Torak…it’s something worse. We get to experience much more of Mallorea, the eastern continent, and learn of its cultures and people. 

Much of this series is a pretty direct copy of its predecessor. There is a new cast of characters, including Sadi, Zakath, Liselle and Toth. Each of them is executed just as well as any of the companions from The Belgariad. And just like The Belgariad, some of them are a bit one dimensional, though still charming. 

All the familiar tropes are still present, but we’re adding Demons to the mix, which adds a certain zest in a few spots. As with the last series, the plot is fairly predictable, and not at all edgy. But I still love it.