Fantasy Novelist David Eddings Has Died

David Eddings, the acclaimed fantasy novelist and author of such series as The Belgariad and The Malloreon, has died at the age of 77. David Eddings was predeceased by his wife and writing partner Leigh two years ago.

David Eddings started his adult life as a college lecturer. However David Eddings soon found that writing was his main love, so he quit the job, worked at a grocery store to survive, while working on his writing.

The early efforts of David Eddings did not bear much fruit, producing one adventure novel The High Hunt, about a deer hunt that goes wrong. Then a chance encounter with a copy of The Lord of the Rings suggested to him that he should try his hand at fantasy.

David Eddings' first fantasy novel, The Pawn of Prophecy, was published in 1982. The Pawn of Prophecy was the first of a five part series called the Belgariad, a sweeping epic that centered on a young boy, raised in a peasant village, who turns out to be the hope of his world that is involved in a war of good vs. evil that not only involves nations, but ancient gods.

The boy of destiny and the cosmic war of good vs. evil are well worn themes in modern fantasy fiction. But David Eddings made the themes fresh with humor and sharp characterizations. The Belgariad spawned a sequel, the five part Malloreon, and several stand alone novels set in the same fantasy universe.

David Eddings also published two series, The Elenium and The Tamuli set in a different fantasy world and featuring a questing, medieval-style knight named Sparhawk. The Dreamers, another series set in yet another fantasy world, involves a battle of the gods and humans against an evil called the Vlagh.

David and Leigh Eddings also published a stand-alone fantasy novel entitled The Redemption of Althalus, about a thief who finds redemption fighting evil throughout the ages of his world.

The fantasy works of David Eddings contain many of the elements of epic fantasy that was pioneered by J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, particularly the battle between good and evil brought to life with the clashes of armies, magic, and even dieties. The fantasy worlds of David Eddings are filled with various nations, races, religions, and cultures that make for a rich background against which the epics unfold.

What seperates David Eddings from Tolkien, with whom he is often compared, is the nature of his characters. Tolkien's characters, with the exception of the hobbits, seem like figures out of myth and legend, dire and distant. The characters of David Eddings, seven the powerful wizards, mighty Kings, or heroic warriors, are often like people one has met in real life, only in extraordinary circumstances and roles.

The stories of David Eddings are often infused with humor, sometimes nodding and winking at the genre of epic fantasy. There is one classic scene in the Belgariad in which a character, an imperial princess, persuades an army to switch sides by bribing it with gold. That is something that Tolkien would nevver have conceived of, not the lest written.

David Eddings was considered, along with Raymond Feist and two or three others, one of the best and most popular fantasy novelist of modern times. Eschewing not only a computer but a typewriter, he wrote out the first drafts of his novels in long hand. David Eddings' style was to lightened the dire, epic stories that he was telling with wry humor.

So far the works of David Eddings have not enjoyed the big screen treatment that many other lesser works have enjoyed in the post Lord of the Rings fantasy film boom. Hopefully one day that state of affairs will change, though unfortunately without David Eddings around to enjoy it.

Source: David Eddings Is Dead, Mark Wilson, About.Com, June 3rd, 2009