Reviews

The Belgariad, Vol. Two: Castle of Wizardry / Enchanters' End Game by David Eddings

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waywardskyril's review against another edition

5.0

4.5/5

The rich, life-like characters and climatic, very satisfying ending make this a wonderful tale that will live with me forever!

The only thing I'd say is that the books could be abridged a bit, as there's often some excessive information that isn't always relevant throughout all five books.

duckymorgan's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

1.0

This author is a terrible person. These books have problematic tropes. I didn’t know that back when I was a middle schooler and my mom read these books out loud to me along with LotR, HP, Narnia, etc. They’re comfort books for me now so I still read them sometimes. I’m trying to be up front about logging the reads even though I know they’re problematic.

hotsake's review against another edition

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5.0

Loved this series, did a reread to introduce this series to my wife.

primadonna28's review against another edition

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4.0

As I said in my review of Vol 1, these are great story books! Enjoy them!

esseastri's review against another edition

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5.0

I think I've done a full reread of this series every two years or so since I read it when I was twelve.

It just keeps getting better and better and better.

And yes, I realize there are parts that are super ~problematic, but I'm not going to let that spoil something that I've loved so completely for so long. It's old. It's a little bit racist. The ladies are few and screech a lot. It's too hetero to stand sometimes. But it's also that sort of classic truly Epic fantasy that you don't find so much anymore. The ladies are powerful and strong despite their circumstances. There's a happy ending. They travel the entire world and save it and it's optimistic and humorous and there's not a trace of the obnoxious grim-darkness that's taken over contemporary fantasy.

It's comfort food for me, and that's never going to change. Garion will always be my favorite sunshine boy and Polgara will always be his startlingly powerful Aunt and Belgarath will always be the grumpy grandpa I love too much and Silk will always be the snarky garbage thief I accidentally fell in love with and there is nothing that will ever make me dislike this series. It is forever my favorite and I love it with all my heart.

Even on the fifteenth reread.

raquelrose's review

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adventurous funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

jenna_benna's review against another edition

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4.0

I read this series on the recommendation of a few friends, and wow. I really can't believe I had never heard of it before! Everyone I've since heard discussing it after looking it up has treated it as a classic of the fantasy genre, a staple, a fallback that's on everyone's shelves... and here I was, a lifelong fantasy lover who grew up on Tolkien, who had never even heard of it? Color me shocked!

The way one of my buds described it was, to paraphrase, "every fantasy cliché you can think of—all executed perfectly." And I think that's the best description of The Belgariad that I could possibly come up with. You've got your old wizard mentor, your intrepid young Chosen One, your evil sorcerers, your flighty love interest, a Completely Average guy, a big strong warrior guy, a sneaky spy guy, so on and so forth... Even the nations themselves are each centered on one major quirk/stereotype. The plot is textbook Hero's Journey stuff. It sounds completely stupid and one-dimensional and boring, doesn't it?

And yet.

It took me forever to get through this story due to some life events that interrupted me midway through this volume, but also because the text is long and... Not dense, exactly, not in the way my good buddy Tolkien's is, but it felt like it took me a long time just to get through a few pages. And yet I was never bored reading it, and I immediately got sucked back into the story no matter how long a break I had taken between chapters. It was, to put it simply, a delightful read.

The story has so much heart, and the characters, for all their tropes and clichés and Flanderized quirks, were wonderfully nuanced and developed. I was able to keep track of the huge cast even despite my big breaks between reading sessions, and I was pleasantly surprised by the way a few character arcs resolved. Though it seems rote in many ways, this story felt fresh and exciting. I would say that it has earned its place among the all-time greats, and I'm only sorry that it took me so long to learn of its existence.