Everything about David Eddings totally explained
David Eddings (born
July 7,
1931) is an
American author who has written several best-selling series of
epic fantasy novels. David Eddings' wife,
Leigh Eddings, is uncredited as co-author on many of his early books, but he's since acknowledged that she contributed to them all. She was a credited co-author starting in the mid-1990s.
Biography
Born in
Spokane,
Washington, in
1931, Eddings grew up in
Puget Sound. In the ‘Rivan Codex,’ he described a good day in Seattle as ‘when it isn’t raining up;’ rain became a consequent feature in many of his novels. After graduating from high school in 1949, he worked for a year before majoring in speech, drama and English at junior college. David displayed an early talent for drama and literature, winning a national oratorical contest, and performing the male lead in most of his drama productions. He graduated with a BA from
Reed College in
1954 and an MA from the
University of Washington in
1961. He wrote a novel for a thesis at Reed College before being drafted into the US army.
After several years as a college lecturer, a failure to receive a pay rise drove David to leave his job, move to Denver and seek work in another grocery store. He also began work on his first published novel ‘High Hunt,’ the story of four young men hunting deer. Like many of his later novels, it explores themes of manhood and coming of age. Convinced that being an author was his future career, David moved to Spokane where he once again relied on a job at a grocery shop for his funds. He worked on several unpublished novels, including ‘Hunseeker’s Ascent,’ a story about mountain climbing, which was later burned as David claimed it was, ‘a piece of tripe so bad it even bored me.’ Most of his attempts followed the same vein as High Hunt, adventure stories and contemporary tragedies. ‘The Losers,’ tells the story of God and the Devil, cast in the roles of a one-eyed Indian and Jake Flood wasn't published until June 1992, well after David’s success as an author was established, although it was written in the seventies.
David’s call to the world of fantasy came from a doodled map he drew one morning before work. This doodle later became the geographical basis for the world of Aloria, but David didn't realise it until several years later. Upon seeing a copy of Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ in a bookshop, he allegedly muttered, ‘Is this old turkey still floating around?’ and was shocked to learn that it was in its seventy-eighth printing. David realised that the world of fantasy might hold some promise for his talents, and immediately began to annotate his previously forgotten doodle.
He currently resides in
Carson City, Nevada, in the southwest
United States.
On
January 26,
2007 it was reported that Eddings accidentally burned about a quarter of his office, next door to his house, along with his Excalibur sports car, and the original manuscripts for most of his novels. He was flushing the fuel tank of the car with water when he lit a piece of paper and threw into the puddle to test if it was still flammable.
On
February 28,
2007, David Eddings' wife, Leigh Eddings(born Judith Leigh Schall), died following a series of strokes. She was 69.
Works
The Belgariad and The Malloreon
The Belgariad is Eddings' first
fantasy series;
The Malloreon is the sequel. The books follow the adventures of
Garion,
Polgara,
Belgarath, and their companions.
Having studied the world of Middle English fantasy at graduate school, Eddings believed he'd a fair idea of how to go about creating a secondary universe. He began to create ‘The Belgariad Preliminaries,’ in 1978 and 79, which eventually became ‘The Rivan Codex.’ Eddings’s most famous creation, ‘The Belgariad,’ began to take shape, originally in the form of three novels, entitled ‘Garion,’ ‘Ce’Nedra,’ and ‘Kal Torak,’ after the series’ hero, heroine and villain. His agent, Lester del Rey, was convinced that only books under three hundred pages long, and sold for less than three dollars, were going to be publishable. Del Rey constructed the ‘chess-piece’ titles we know today and although Eddings envisaged the final book entitled ‘In the Tomb of the One-Eyed God,’ del Rey thought the title too long to fit on the front cover of the book.
The Belgariad developed many new technical and philosophical ideas when it was published in 1983, which helped to contribute to its almost immediate success. David wanted to convince both Lester del Rey and the world of fantasy fiction at large that women did exist ‘below the neck.’ As he pointed out in The Rivan Codex, ‘There are no girl hobbits. There are matronly hobbit ladies, and female hobbit puppies, but no girls.’ Most previous fantasies had followed suit with this idea. He also wanted to create a fantasy that was noticeably different from any that had gone before. (Bel)Garion, the hero of the Belgariad is certainly less than heroic, even by the end of the novels. Most of the time, he's no idea what is going on, and consequently the plotlines are explained (both to Garion and to the reader) by his Aunt Polgara and his grandfather Belgarath. Incidentally, Polgara and Belgarath are both sorcerers, and this father and daughter pairing broke new ground in the fantasy genre. David also wanted an active heroine in his story, rather than the traditional ‘wispy blonde girl who spends most of her time mooning around in a tower.’ Ce‘Nedra is a flame-haired brat, whose seductive relationship with Garion is delicately balanced by a meaningful friendship with Polgara, who helps her to grow up.
The Belgariad, however, remains a classic fantasy to its core. There is magic, a mysterious and powerful artefact to be sought in the form of Cthrag Yaska (Or the Orb of Aldur) and a quest. As David once wrote, ‘If you don’t have a quest, you don’t have a story. A quest gives you an excuse to dash around and meet new people. Otherwise, you stay home and grow turnips or something.’ The Belgariad also features a great deal of magic. At first, David had problems with his self-entitled ‘Superman Syndrome,’ that is, that people can do infinite amounts of magic, with no consequences. He also didn't want a style of magic involving incantations because ‘Sooner or later some nut is going to take you seriously.’ Eventually, the Will and the Word was born, a magic based on strength of conviction (and the correct word.) Doing things with one’s mind also tends to tire one out, and this eliminated Superman Syndrome. Finally, David wrote the ‘Holy Books’ in order to give conviction to his nine God religion.
After the publication of ‘Enchanter’s End Game,’ a sequel was inevitable. David had a major problem, however, as he'd already killed off his villain. Zandramas, Torak’s heir, was invented to solve this problem, and also became the natural counter to Polgara. Female characters become a lot more prominent in the Malloreon, as did many of the minor characters from the previous series. Garion and Ce’Nedra both remained central to the story, as David wanted to see how they'd function as adults. David also kept his favourite character, Silk, although he countered him with his future wife, Liselle. Belgarath and Polgara, David and Leigh’s alter egos, continued their roles as mentors throughout the series.
Around halfway through his work on the Malloreon, a conversation between David and del Rey accidentally sparked off the beginnings of another series, the
Elenium. The Elenium is more of a typical fantasy, featuring knights in armour, and a young heroine who needs to be saved. The religion featured isn't called Christianity, but there are enough similarities between the two religions for us to realise that the Elenium is constantly gently mocking it. David had already written about Christianity, in the allegorical
The Losers, as well as in the Belgariad. Torak is almost identical to the Devil, whilst Eriond, the original intent of the Universe, has definite Christ-like qualities. The Malloreon was also highly
Manichean, with the belief that good and evil are evenly matched.
Existentialism also makes an appearance, when Cyradis the seer is forced to make the final decision between good and evil, in order to save the world.
After a short break from writing, rumors began to circulate about another Sparhawk adventure, although these were quashed by the publication of Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress. Intended as prequels for the Belgariad, they told the individual stories of Garion’s immortal family. It was also the first time that David had tried writing in the first person. The success of the two fictional autobiographies prompted David and his wife to publish the preliminary studies to the Belgariad and the Malloreon, in the form of The Rivan Codex. The Rivan Codex also provides the reader with David’s short autobiography, a guide on writing fantasy and the diary of King Anheg of Cherek, one of David’s personal favorites, as well as the firm promise that there would be no more Garion stories. David also refused to create the Mrin and Darine Codex, the two fictional prophecies around which the Belgariad and the Malloreon were based, unless his agent agreed to print them on a scroll of parchment.
For a comprehensive list of major/minor characters in The Belgariad, see
Characters in The Belgariad. For a list of the races and their real world counterparts, see
Analogs To Belgariad Races.
The Elenium and The Tamuli
The Elenium and its sequel
The Tamuli are set in a different universe to
The Belgariad and
The Malloreon. They feature the Pandion
Knight Sparhawk and his comrades.
Once again, the Elenium featured a magical jewel, in the form of the Bhelliom/Blue-rose, a quest and a form of magic although David made sure that Styric was extremely hard to master, as well as being extremely draining, to provide less evidence of his Superman Syndrome. The disgruntled Sparhawk is certainly not the archetypal hero, despite being the best knight in the world. There is no resident wizard, but rather close interaction with pagan Gods, one of whom eventually becomes Sparhawk’s daughter, Danae, in a stretch of the theological imagination.
After the initial success of the Elenium, it was obvious that a sequel would follow. Both David and his readers wanted to see how a man with no destiny would fare with a goddess for a daughter.
The Dreamers and other works
After the publication of his thriller, David decided to concentrate on fantasy once more and, with his wife, began work on ‘The Dreamers.’ The final book of this saga was published in 2006, although many of David’s fans feel that it didn't contain as much appeal as his previous books, and that the characters were too reminiscent of those in the Belgariad.
The Redemption of Althalus is a simple tale about a thief who mends his ways. Within this story, however, is a strange, twisted, fantasy world, unlike anything David and Leigh had created before. A group of people, with various unusual gifts, are all brought together into a house where time stands still and has doors to every conceivable place on the planet. Time and its effect on relationships between people are dealt with, within an adventurous quest. As the people in the house form bonds with each other, David wanted to explore what would happen if they found out that they were all related, the children of a goddess and her mortal lover. A theme previously dealt with in the Belgariad was how humans conceive form, that if a sentience was in an animal a human wouldn't touch it, but if it were in the form of another human, one would happily fall in love with it.
Worldbuilding
When building a 'world' for his characters to inhabit, Eddings generally starts with a fictional map, sections off areas of that map, and populates each area with a different race. In generating races, Eddings will first pick a race or people from our history, then base his fictional race within his new 'world' almost directly on them (with some minor renaming). Examples of this can be seen throughout his fantasy output. A great deal of the sub-storyline elements depend on the tension that's created from these disparate races being forced together.
Characters
Individuals belonging to each race tend to be painted in broad strokes, and one or two distinct stereotypical characteristics are generally used to define them fully. For example,
Chereks are warlike and drink heavily,
Sendars are dependable and practical, etc. Most characters are ultimately facets of the same basic personality, with one or two key character traits added. Some readers have expressed distaste at this approach, feeling that the constant stereotyping borders on racism, although interracial couples seem to crop up continually throughout all four major story-lines, and characters who go against their racial stereotypes also appear in both series (Beltira & Belkira, the gentle
Alorns; Ontrose, the quick-witted
Arend; and The Blind Prophet, a kindly Angarak).
Bibliography
Guardians of the West (1987)
King of the Murgos (1988)
Demon Lord of Karanda (1988)
Sorceress of Darshiva (1989)
The Seeress of Kell (1991)
Books related to The Belgariad and The Malloreon
Belgarath the Sorcerer (1995) (Prequel) with Leigh Eddings
Polgara the Sorceress (1997) (Prequel) with Leigh Eddings
The Rivan Codex (1998) with Leigh Eddings
The Diamond Throne (1989)
The Ruby Knight (1990)
The Sapphire Rose (1991)
Domes of Fire (1992)
The Shining Ones (1993)
The Hidden City (1994)
The Dreamers series
The Elder Gods (2003) with Leigh Eddings
The Treasured One (2004) with Leigh Eddings
Crystal Gorge (2005) with Leigh Eddings
The Younger Gods (2006) with Leigh Eddings
Standalone fantasy novels
The Redemption of Althalus (2000) with Leigh Eddings
Non-fantasy novels
High Hunt (1986)
The Losers (1992)
Regina's Song (2000) with Leigh EddingsFurther Information
Get more info on 'David Eddings'.
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