Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but flawed characters make it hard to read again.
Review: I read this based on many recommendations. I read all 10 books straight through and was impressed. the story held together very well. However, there was a lot that bothered me. First, the lead characters of C'Nedra and Garion are terrible. She is a spoiled, rotten mean witch. He gets to be a tiresome braggart after the third book. These are people we are supposed to care about for all 10 books. I wanted them to die by the end of the first series. Everyone else is terrific. Silk, Polgara, Belgarath, Barak and Durnik are some of the best fantasy characters I've ever "met." It's too bad they have to live with that witch and the snotty kid.
My second pet peeve is the horrible realization that the 2nd series is a virtual duplicate of the first in story, style and outcome. This put me off wanting to read it again. I was so disappointed. By the time I finished, I really didn't care about the babies. (I won't spoil this)
My wife has read all 12 books every year since they were published. She is on the other end, being a big fan of the books. I'm sure she would give them all 5 stars. The real truth lies somewhere between mine and hers.
Tolkien is still the best, followed by Piers Anthony and C. S. Lewis.
Rating: 
Summary: Beginning of One of the Best Modern Fantasy Series
Review: So begins the story of Garion, and orphan who finds his Aunt and the traveling story teller he is so fond of are more than they seem. Much more actually. Wolf the storyteller is actually Belgarath the sorcerer and Aunt Pol is really his daughter Polgara, both immortal magicians. Where Garion's place in all that is yet to be revealed. Starting as a youngster on a farm with his Aunt, Garion has little excitement in his life beyond the ordinary trials of growing up. That is until a hideous being named Asharak begins to show interest in Garion and a long hidden artifact is stolen, throwing the land into a state of chaos in preparation for the coming war. Belgarath, Polgara and Garion are joined by a group of different royalty from different countries (similar to Lord of the Rings) and they set off to find the Orb that has been stolen and prevent an evil god from being awaken. Tied into all this is Garion, whose fate and purpose has not yet been revealed and is only slowly finding out about himself. At the end of the book, the group of companions stops a coup in Cherek and continues off after the Orb. Light hearted in places with plenty of good action, Pawn of Prophecy is a wonderful fantasy novel for those looking for something like Lord of the Rings. The cast of characters is colorful and charming and people you'd love to get to know. You sympathize with Garion as he tries to find his place in the world and tries to understand the implications that he's more than he thought he was. It's good, fast reading and exactly what a fantasy series should be.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Start
Review: This book is an excellent intro into the world Eddings builds. It slowly allows you to become adjusted to the surroundings and allows to make good guesses into the future events of the story. However none of the surprises of the story are given away while the plot continues. Overall an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: As middling as it can get
Review: "Pawn of Prophecy" is not really good or really bad -- it's probably the best example of middling fantasy that I have ever read. The characters are pleasant but not amazing, the writing okay, the background generic but palatable. It's a bit like plain doughnuts -- they have a moderately pleasant taste while you're eating them, but nothing to really make you remember them afterwards. Millennia ago, the Dark God Torak stole the Orb from his brother Aldur, and got maimed in the process. The sorcerer Belgareth spirited the Orb away and entrusted it to the pure-hearted King Riva, whose similarly pure-hearted descendants are the only ones who can use the orb. Much later, a mysterious stern woman named Pol is raising Garion on a farm, claiming to be his aunt. Also lurking around is a mischievous and cryptic old storyteller Wolf, who has an odd interest in the boy. As Garion grows up in his peaceful home, he catches sight of sinister Murgos and shadowless specters. And one day he's whisked away by Pol and Wolf, and soon finds himself on a secretive journey with the two of them, a loyal smith, and a pair of mysterious and slightly peculiar warriors. Slowly Garion learns the truth not just about "Aunt Pol" and "Wolf," but also about his own ancestry and his future destiny. Eddings does get points for not having one character lecture another endlessly about the history of the Orb and the gods and so on; most of the relevant information is contained in the prologue. One thing that might annoy readers is that everyone (including every reader with half a brain) knows what is going on except Garion. He's the only person who doesn't have a clue, and since he only gets a clue in the final chapters of the book, it gets annoying to hear him wondering about the true identities of Wolf and Pol. His writing is "middling"; there's not a lot of description, which is something of a rarity in fantasy books. Even so, the words aren't very imaginative -- Silk is only referred to as "weasel-faced," and at one point we hear about Garion's blood reacting "boilingly" (is that even a word?) The pace moves pretty quickly. The kingdoms and cultures and characters are all very typical, and we've seen them many other places: archetypical King-Arthur boys-with-a-destiny, stern sorceresses, wise old wizards with twinkly eyes, evil forces, items of power, bumbling kings and ultra-strong warriors with dark secrets. Very cliched, all of it, but if that doesn't bother you then you will probably like it a great deal. And although you can predict all the plot twists early on, at least it doesn't derive heavily on Tolkien as many cliched fantasies do. Garion is a likable enough kid, despite his relentless cluelessness; Polgara is stern and a bit arrogant, but kindly and loving underneath it. Belgarath may annoy some readers with his wink-nudge antics; Silk manages to rise above the trickster sidekick with a sharp tongue, and Barak adds a note of poignancy late in the book with the revelation of what will happen to him. "Pawn of Prophecy" is, despite its solidly generic quality, a pleasant enough read if you want a book that isn't too taxing on your brain. Fantasy-quest lite fare, not too good or too bad.
Rating: 
Summary: not my kind of prophecy
Review: i must admit, i've never been so bored by fantasy as when reading this. first a lengthy introduction with lots of uninteresting stuff. a boy takes a liking to girls, how interesting. the story seem to go nowhere. in fact, i can't tell you anymore, because i can't remember anything else. i'm not being sarcastic. i really can't remember a plot. i remember a strange absence of development that actually shocked me. the lack of suspence. a lot of uninteresting stuff happening.
Rating:
Summary: People are just too stuffy
Review: After slogging my way through the often soap-operish high drama of EVERY DRAGONLANCE BOOK EVER WRITTEN, it was refreshing to see a writer who had fun with the genre. The emotional backgrounds of characters are treated delicately and humourously, as opposed to the heaver hammer swing of many novels today. Yes, we know we can get away with writing a torrid love triangle set upon the the backdrop of world disaster, but David Eddings' characters are simple, very real, witty and down to earth. For instance, how many times do you see anyone talk about meal preparations and camp life in a novel? In pawn of prophecy, the first chapter begins with an enthralling view of the farm's kitchen life, written very endearingly and tenderly. These themes of reality butting in to deal with camp, food, shelter and so on, are what make the book good, not some twisting, turning plot. The characters are all very self-conscious, the entire time, of the cheeziness of their dramatic lives and are quick to cut it down to bite-sized portions that they, as humans and not superheroes, can deal with. I found the clean and simple writing of Eddings not to be lacking or un-intelligent as some might think, but rather wonderfully quick and fun. Get off your high horses for a moment and enjoy a nice book!
Rating:
Summary: Don't become a pawn.
Review: This book is beyond awful. The setting is stock and does nothing to advance the genre of Fantasy, (probably the opposite), the plot isn't stock, but it is not very efficient in moving the story or keeping the reader's attention. The characters are dreadful. If you can't realize that these characters have no depth, are poorly described, and have no personality traits, then you need to go back to a high school english class. Eddings makes an attempt to write fantasy that is similar to Lord of the Rings, but fails every step of the way. Even if he had succeeded, it has already been done. So, the bottom line is that this is a common fantasy story with no original ideas and paper-thin stock fantasy stereotype characters.
Rating:
Summary: The worst fantasy series I have ever read.
Review: After completing the entire ten book series, I came to two conclusions. First, here is a clear diagram of how not to write a fantasy series. Do the exact opposite of everything Eddings did, and your story will turn out fine. For example, villians should be more than a name, a physical desciption and a method of dying. They should pose a threat.
Second, I can only liken the reading of the Belgariad to dragging myself across broken glass to drink out a toilet. Painful, predictable and with an unsatisfying conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Pawn of Prophecy
Review: Is it perfect? No. Is it comparable to Tolkien? No. But "Pawn of Prophecy" is a quick and entertaining excursion into high fantasy that's well worth reading. What it lacks in originality, which is quite a bit, it makes up for in fast moving plot and good storytelling. This book is a much better buy than the eight-hundred page doorstoppers that have taken over the fantasy genre during the last fifteen years. It doesn't have any uselessly gigantic blocks of dialogue or huge history lectures (other than the prologue) that certain other authors feel a need to take our time with. The plot jumps briskly from point to point and keeps us interested up to the end. I can't praise the writing all that highly, but at least it doesn't descend into total silliness. Our main character is Garion, a seemingly ordinary boy who lives on a massive farm under the supervision of his aunt Pol. He goes through the rituals of boyhood, along with a few strange events such as seeing black horsemen that nobody else notices. Of course, he's eventually forced to flee the farm and gets caught up in a world-changing series of events. It's interesting to watch Eddings' writing technique in this first section of the book. We know that some major event involving Garion will take place eventually, but the author still manages to catch us by surprise with its timing and placement in the story. For the rest of the book, he uses the same sort of style. The revelations about major characters who aren't what they seem are handled pretty well, the scenes of action and intrigue are above average. Overall, highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: people are taking this too seriously
Review: Ok people, you've had your rant, now it's time to take the blindfold off. Everyone is taking these storys too seriously. Eddings wrote fantasy novels to experiment with cliches at the time. He takes various things from various novels. Some from the arthurian legends (a poor boy becomes king, and Polgara is like morgan le fey or morgase, sort of) a bit from Tolkein (belgarath is gandalf with a twist, he admits that himself) And a bit from the real world (almost every country and culture has a real-world counterpart, if you read the books you know what I mean). These are not the kind of books that make you think, "Wow! My life is changed forever!" they're supposed to invole a sence of "Well, that was fun." Eddings simple writing makes for easy reading where you don't have to think your way through english-teacher diction. That's not exactly bad.
I recomend reading this book after you've just finished a really meaty novel that makes your head ache with the scope of it. (i.e. The Wheel of Time or Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn) Think of this as dessert. A sweet little comfection that theres no need to eat too much of, which is why I don't recomend any of his other books if you intend to read these.
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