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Title | Belgarath the Sorcerer
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Author | David and Leigh Eddings
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Cover Art | Laurence Schwinger
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Publisher | Del Rey - 1996
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First Printing | Ballantine - 1995
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Title | Polgara the Sorceress
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Author | David and Leigh Eddings
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Cover Art | Keith Parkinson
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Publisher | Del Rey - 1999
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First Printing | Ballantine - 1997
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Title | The Rivan Codex
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Author | David and Leigh Eddings
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Del Rey - 1999
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First Printing | Ballantine - 1998
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Category | Epic Fantasy
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Belgarath, Polgara, Beldin, Beltira, Belkira, Zedar, Torak
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Main Elements | Wizards, gods
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Website | ---
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 Belgarath the Sorcerer
Bestselling authors David and Leigh Eddings welcome readers back to the time before The Belgariad and The Malloreon series. Join them as they chronicle that fateful conflict between two mortally opposed Destinies, in a monumental war of men and kings and Gods.
When the world was young and Gods still walked among their mortal children, a headstrong orphan boy set out to explore the world. Thus began the extraordinary adventures that would mold that youthful vagabond into a man, and the man into the finely honed instrument of Prophecy known to all the world as Belgarath the Sorcerer.
Then came the dark day when the Dark God Torak split the world asunder, and the God Aldur and his disciples began their monumental labor to set Destiny aright. Foremost among their number was Belgarath. His ceaseless devotion was foredoomed to cost him that which he held most dear--even as his loyal service would extend through echoing centuries of loss, of struggle, and of ultimate triumph.
Polgara the Sorceress
She soars above a world of warriors, kings, and priests. The daughter of Belgarath and the shape-shifter Poledra, she has fought wars, plotted palace coups, and worked her powerful magic for three thousand years. Now, Polgara looks back at her magnificent life, in this fitting crown jewel to the saga that is the Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean cycles.
Her hair streaked white by her father's first touch, her mind guided by a mother she will not see again for centuries, Polgara begins life in her Uncle Beldin's tower, and in the prehistorical, magical Tree that stands in the middle of the Vale. There, she first learns the reaches of her powers. There she assumes the bird shapes that will serve her on her adventures. And there she starts on the path toward her destiny as Duchess of Erat, shepherdess of the cause of good, adversary of Torak the One-Eyed Dragon God, and guardian of the world's last, best hope: the heir to the Rivan throne.
The Rivan Codex
Join David and Leigh Eddings on a fascinating behind-the-scenes tour of the extensive background materials they compiled before beginning the masterpiece of epic fantasy unforgettably set down in The Belgariad and The Malloreon and their two companion volumes, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress.
Our tour stretches from the wealthy Empire of Tolnedra to the remote Isle of the Winds, from the mysterious mountains of Ulgoland to the forbidding reaches of darkest Mallorea. Along the way, you will meet old friends and enemies alike. Rare volumes will be opened to your eyes. Sacred holy books in which you may read the secrets of the Gods themselves and of their prophets. Scholarly histories of the rise and fall of empires from the Imperial Library at Tol Honeth. The profound mysteries of the Malloreon Gospels. THE RIVAN CODEX will enrich your understanding of all that has gone before . . . and whet your appetite for more spectacular adventures from this talented team.
I finally completed the epic task of reading the entire fantasy epic that start with a re-read of the Belgariad, continued with the Mallorean and then followed up by the two prequels and finally the companion book, the Rivan Codex.
I enjoyed Belgarath the Sorcerer since we go back in time to his childhood and see the entire history of the world up till the start of the Belgariad. Though many of the events covered in this book were referenced in the Belgariad, this filled in a lot of holes. And Belgarath as a narrator is kind of quirky and fun to read his snarky sarcasm. And also, it reminds you that while history may record events it also tends to blow them out of proportions. The fact that Belgarath turned into a serval cat and then urinated on one of Urvon's Hounds to distract it probably didn't make it into any ballad or epic poem...
Now, I read Polgara the Sorceress about a month after Belgarath and it covers the EXACT same time period. Yes, it's a different character, though her voice and personality are very similar to that of her father's, and yes, the two characters were often apart so Polgara experienced things her father didn't, but still, it was incredibly repetitve to cover the exact same ground, especially as you now knew how all the major events turned out. It would be an excellent book to read 5-10 years after the others though, as a refresher to remind you of everything in the world. But since both Belgarath and Polgara are big books, it was a bit of a drag reading them one after the other.
Finally, the Rivan Codex is the equivalent of Tolkien's Silmarillion. It is not a novel, rather it collects the works that the Edding's wrote to prepare for writing the Belgariad and Mallorean. Unfortunately, while the Silmarillion fills in a lot of gaps in the history of Middle-Earth, the contents of the Rivan Codex show up nearly word for word in the books themselves, which mean after reading Belgarath/Polgara I got the read the exact same events for a THIRD time, just one month after Polgara so I struggled not to get bored to death reading it. It adds very little to the overall 12-book collection, though the parts where Edding writes about the process he went through to invent this world, what is involved in writing an epic fantasy, and even responding to critics that his work is derivative (it is in some ways Lord of the Rings Light, but then Lord of the Rings is derivative, taking from the old Norse epics which Tolkien readily admits, so don't forget that whenever you accuse an author of taking another author's idea, probably someone had it even long before that, Tolkien doesn't own epic fantasy, Rowling doesn't own "kid discovers he's a wizard", and so on) but those parts were far and few between. So unless you are the world's biggest Belgariad fan, I'd recommend skipping this book entirely, or just reading the bits I just mentioned, because you already know the rest.
But on the whole, the 12 books series is wonderful and I highly recommend it as the classic fantasy that it is.
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