For much of this book, the reader is way, way ahead of the main character. The reader knows the whole backstory, and can easily guess at his background and parentage, as well as his importance to the rest of the series. Most of the other characters spend a lot of time trying to keep him from this knowledge, and even at the end of the book, he doesn't get to know the whole picture.

This could be boring, and indeed, Eddings loses a lot of potential excitement by writing the book this way. However, his characters are really likable, the descriptions vivid yet not too ponderously detailed, and things keep moving at a good clip. It's definitely a lot like the first bit of The Once and Future King crossed with The Hobbit, and mostly in a very good way.

Not my usual fare, but I found it diverting enough that I'll give the next volume or two a chance!

I found this book when I was eleven or twelve, riding my bike to the library and picking random books off the shelves.

I loved it then. I love it still.

I read this series several years ago and loved it. My mom recommended it to me again so she really enjoys it. Easy read, good story.

Reading challenge- a book my mom loves

The Belgariad and Mallorean are my favourite series. I have read the two series every two years or so for the last 25 years. I love the characters. They are fun and I fee their emotions. While it sometimes gets silly, I would not change it. I wish these could have been turned into a movie or tv series like Game of Thrones.

7/2014

12/2011
I can't really rate this version of the book because I know it nearly by heart and I don't think I could be objective. At all. I liked listening to it and I thought it was interesting to hear the pronunciation of words I have read a lot but always pronounced wrong in my head (not names from the book, actual words like dotage and parsimonious).

I picked this audiobook because I have decided I should stop listening to books I don't know since my mind usually wanders while I am listening to them. Since I know this so well, I didn't feel like I was missing parts. It didn't really work the way I expected though, because I knew the book well enough to know how far back to go to get the parts I missed, so I found myself doing that.

I also thought that I wouldn't be so riveted to the book since I knew it so well, but I found myself listening to it instead of reading my hardback library books. Since the Denver library has all of the books available for audio e-book check out, I am going to continue with the series.

Not a bad fantasy adventure novel but there are a lot of natural 1 on the story events which slows the novel down.

With such a politically complex world, Eddings does well not to become the historian as narrator. The characters are extremely one-dimensional, which I suppose one can expect in fantasy to some degree. However, I don't feel like the setting, plot, or characters ever really achieved the depth that they could have. Will any of this improve in the later books in the series? I plan not to continue with the series, so I may never know.

Eddings does seem to do one thing very well, however--even if his methods are rather overt in places. He succeeds in making this story an adolescent or YA novel by emphasizing Garion's displacement and maturity through a series of very important and universal milestones. For this reason alone, this series would probably be a good recommendation for adolescent readers who gravitate toward fantasy.

It looks like a promising start to a series, my problem is just that nothing.....really happens in this book. The climax really doesn't feel like anything, there's a few pages of fighting and that's all. The first half of the book is just a lot of traveling around villages, the second half is a lot of talking with kings and nobles and such, and introducing questions that are never immediately answered. Being the prologue to a larger series, I guess it works, but standing alone there's really not much here. At least the characters are really well written

I feel like most people, who have loved fantasy books for a long time, have those old favourites that are just simple Sword and Sorcery. We know they don't really hold up that well, the simple black-and-white idea of Good versus Evil isn't that interesting anymore, the characters aren't that complex, the plot includes a prophecy and a chosen one... The Belgariad is one of that for me (another series that goes in the category of "teenage-favourites-of-classical-fantasy-that-aren't-actually-that-good" is the Inheritance Cycle aka the Eragon series, even though it isn't all of the things I just listed)

I was around 14 when I read Pawn and Prophecy. My dad described the series along the lines of "These are good! Or at least they were when I was your age. They walk a lot". It took me a while to get into it but, especially once I got to the following books, I really loved the world-building. And the characters. I probably wouldn't find them that great if I tried to read it now, but I was 14.

I loved the gods, the wizards, and the different nations. I thought the female characters were strong and complex, although I have no idea if that's how it would seem now. I loved the found family dynamics, the backstories, the side characters and the relationships. I preferred the world to those of most contemporary fantasy books I'd read. (Although, this was at a point in my life where absolutely nothing could have beat Harry Potter. I once had a fight with a friend over the mere concept of anything in any medium ever being better than HP. Oh well... I was young.)

My dad was right about the walking though. While I loved the Belgariad, there is a lot of walking. And horse-riding. And other boring stuff. I cannot remember what the other boring stuff was, but at times I was bored to death with these books. On the other hand there were numerous extremely memorable moments. There are scenes in the Belgariad that I still think of regularly. Impractical armour and the concept of bringing people back from dead, to this day, make me think of these books!