Pawn of Prophecy

A few years back, I got a hold of all five books in David Eddings' Belgariad. I decided to give the series a try last week. I have read one of his other series in the past, and enjoyed it, so I was hoping that the Belgariad would also be enjoyable.

Unfortunately, I've had a real struggle with the first book, Pawn of Prophecy. Pawn of Prophecy follows Garion, a young boy raised by his Aunt Pol on a farm. Unfortunately, Garion gets caught up in world shattering events when his friend, Mister Wolf, comes to the farm in desperate need of Pol's help. And so Garion is dragged from the farm life he knows into the company of kings as they attempt to find an important object that was stolen.

I didn't like that the book followed Garion. While he was an alright character, everyone treats him as a child throughout the entire book. No matter what he does, he is looked down upon by his Aunt. And even though he is quite obviously in the middle of things, and has a right to know why he was uprooted from his life, no one wants to tell him anything. I also found the beginning of the book threw a lot of information at you that was hard to follow or care about (especially when it then heads to a simple farm for a good quarter of the book), and lots of things were extremely predictable. This last thing, especially concerning certain characters like Aunt Pol was most likely done on purpose, but I thought the book would have been better if things were concealed a bit better for the reader.

As I struggled through it, I kept thinking that I would not attempt any of the other books in the Belgariad. Pawn of Prophecy was one of those mediocre books. Like Tim Lebbon's Fallen, it wasn't a good book and it wasn't a bad book. But unlike Fallen, Pawn of Prophecy didn't really keep me wanting to read it. I made it through by sheer stubbornness (or maybe stupidity) alone. I never really found myself interested in what was going on through the majority of the book. Only at the end did something interesting happen, but I'm not sure it was enough to make me want to read the next book. Knowing me, I probably will; I'm hoping that the Belgariad will get better as it goes.