The Redemption Of Althalus (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
As it was with the Belgariad and the Malloreon, so it shall be with the Redemption of Althalus as well...I read the Rivan Codex some time ago and in it David Eddings admitted that he got into writing fantasy not out of a love of fantasy but because he found a tested formula from reading other fantasy novels that would allow him to write a good book of his own. When most of my fellow fantasy readers stumble across one of Edding's books it is obvious that his formula allows him to do just that, the problem arises however when you read a second novel by the same author. David & Leigh Eddings don't just reuse their formula for their novels, they almost duplicate it time and again. So similar are their novels that the Redemption of Althalus was basically the same characters from the Belgariad only with different names. In this novel Althalus (or Belgarath) is a thief who catches the attention of the goddess Dweia (or Polgara mixed with Aludr). She teaches him to use the magic of a book by imagining what he wants and saying a magic word from the book which causes his will to become reality (or the will and the word). Once he has mastered this which takes him a few thousand years he goes out into the world to gather to him a rag tag crew of various characters to help them save the world from his evil counterpart Ghend (who is basically Zedar, Ctuchick or Asharak from the the Belgariad). This group all have been given certain tasks and they go about them in order to save the world. Amongst this group we find a young arum soldier called Eliah (bascially an alorn like Barak), a spoiled young princess named Andine (Ce'Nedra), a priest named Bheid (Relg) a witch named Lietha (this one is kind of original) and finally a young boy named Ghend who is really young but incredibly intelligent (sound much like Eriond?).They proceed through the story at a steady pace enjoying relatively danger free jobs that are never too hard and the outcome which is obvious from the start. Whilst they are about their business, huge portions of the book are given to repeating things we already know as every time a new character is introduced one of the other characters sums up everything that has happened in the book up until that point. I am surprised this book made it past the editors desk as there are whole parts of the story that are literally repeated up to three times (I am talking about Althalus's tale of his time with Gosti Big Belly which is very tiresome by the end of the novel).So why then with all these faults do I rate this book 4 stars?Simply because I love it. Whilst it holds all of those repetitions and copied elements from Eddings other novels it is still a hugely enjoyable book to read. It is easy to follow, laugh out loud funny at times and like all of Eddings other work it makes you smile and leaves you with a happy feeling inside. Like the Belgariad and the Malloreon before it this sits comfortably on my guilty pleasures shelf and being as it was amongst the first fantasy novels I ever read it is a nostalgic favourite of mine. Personally I think it lacks the epic scope of the Belgariad but it is still a hugely enjoyable book so I recommend it to all.
I started reading this book with low expectations. I read a bunch of negative reviews and an occasional favorable one. After finishing, I think both the favorable and the negative were justified. First of all, this is pure Eddings. So if you love their previous stuff, you're going to like this one. The style and structure is similar if not exactly the same. To some this was negative, and it's true, this is very derivative, it seems like they didn't even try to be creative. For example, in this book we have Arums, whereas in previous books we had Alorns. It's hard not to fault the authors for this. You can find examples like this one all over the place, not just in names, but in archetypes, situations, humour. The list goes on. However I was willing to look this over because I was having fun reading. When I got to around the midpoint is when things went south. First of all the bad guys never had a chance, they were always outsmarted. Seriously, I want the good guys to triumph as much as the any other person, but this was just too much. Another negative point was the length, they could've easily shaved off 200 pages and still have a good novel. There was a lot of jumping around in time, places, like a succession of snapshots. It got really tedious. That's also something that bothered me, you can't really connect with the places the characters visit, they're usually there for such a short time that you never get a feeling of the places being described. Finally the ending was anticlimactic, there was absolutely no suspense. After reading through endless situations where the bad guys lost to one of the heroes, expecting something to happen during the final confrontation was a pipe dream, to say the least. It was pretty obvious. So to sum up, only read this if you adore David and Leigh Eddings. I for one, love their previous stuff, but still think this is a flawed novel. There's not much to rescue here. I'd rather reread The Belgariad and Malloreon.
What do You think about The Redemption Of Althalus (2001)?
Cheesy, but fantastic.The Redemption of Althalus is, to me, David Eddings summed up in a single book. His characters are witty and lovable, the plot is engaging and epic in scale whilst still being simple and easygoing. This book was one of a few that got me into fantasy when I was younger, and while it's probably not the greatest book of all time- it's still a good story well told, if slightly lacking in depth.As a standalone novel, it's perfect for the job- everything is all tidied up and resolved by the extremely cheesy finale and the decent length means you're not left with a gaping hole in your chest that begs for more of the book. My copy's been through a lot now, and has suffered the abuse of years of rereading and being carried about in bags that were far less waterproof than anticipated, but every time I pick it back up to read it's like spending time with an old friend whose company I can still enjoy years later.
—Matthew Harrington
Pretty crappy.This is the 3rd fantasy book I've read in my life, and I did so at the recommendation of a friend who said that he loved it in high school. I don't know enough about the genre to be able to determine the target audience for this book, so I'm reviewing it from the perspective of a 30 year old guy who asked for a suggestion for some light reading.There are a lot of problems with the book, but I'll list three.First, the dialogue is awful. At one point the word "fairly" was used at least once every two pages. Italicized words are also very, very common here. These issues are tied into a more general complaint: everyone speaks in a "funny sarcastic understated way". Characters constantly use understatement for a sort of "winking" effect - for example, they'll say something like "'I'm sure he'll be fairly upset about it, but I'm sure his master won't punish him too badly', Blah said with a wicked grin." It's a perfectly valid device, but when you're whacked over the head with it for 800 pages, you sometimes just put the book down in disgustSecond, the gender relations between the protagonists is really, really annoying. I understand that this is fantasy and things are stylized. I'm not asking for a 3rd wave feminist critique. But the frequent references to sex and how the characters look at each other in a certain way peculiar to how boys and girls look at each other (the authors' [my book has two authors listed, not just one] phrasing, not mine) just make the characters less likeable. At least to me.Third, there are very few points of tension throughout the book. In 800 pages, I counted three "Oh snap! The bad guys might have something here!" moments, and they were all resolved within 20 pages each. So most of the time it's able to heroes planning to kick ass, and then proceeding to do so. This kills any type of dramatic tension. There are other problems, but I'll stop there. The story was still good enough to get me through until the end, but I might have read it in half the time if some of the problems were ironed out.
—Sergei Moska
I loved both of Eddings' original series, but found the later works hard to get into. This was one I started then never finished, but a friend told me it was their favourite so I stole it off her shelf and gave it a try. It is good, but probably better if you haven't read any of his other works. It's very derivative. Which isn't a bad thing, but given that the Elenium was pretty much the same plot as the Belgariad already, this feels like walking through it all a third time. The storyline is new-ish, but the characters are very much ones you've met already with different names.Also I took issue with the wars. The issue of mercenaries is on my mind at the moment because of the soldiers for hire fighting America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that they're pulling out their troops, the mercenaries aren't just going to pack up and quit. They'll hire out somewhere else, and I'm slightly uneasy waiting to find out how this new era of a return to mercenary fighters goes.So when the main fighters they pull up in these stories are all charming warriorlike mercenaries, I'm already predisposed to be reading too much reality into my fantasy. Then there are their actions. They burn the crops and poison the wells. This tactic is lauded as terribly clever and a thoroughly good thing. Because, you know, no civilians live there. And the mercenaries have no investment in the land ever being usable again because their homes are a thousand miles away. General Sherman did this in this US civil war. It works, because the troops leave to go home to care for their families and their lands that are being destroyed and are thus too busy to fight a war. I'm not convinced it's a good guy tactic, and there were other tactics that were equally shitty that I cant recall specific scenes for at the moment.I didn't like the tampering with causality, had too much deja vu with the characters, and didn't like the good guys. Other than that it was a fine book. I'd suggest his other ones first though.
—Vorbis
