[...] i read a very interesting e-mail i found which i'll copy here now:
THE BELGARIAD. A great big quintology about a farm boy who learns
that he is really the heir to the throne and possesses tremendous
magical power. Naturally, he must claim the throne, start a war, and
quest across the country to stop a dark lord from doing bad stuff. He
is accompanied by many colorful companions from various countries,
most of whom are stereotyped examples of their cultures: ie, all
Tolnedrans are savvy and greedy, all Ulgos are fanatically religious,
all the horse-nomad people are austere and bloodthirsty in a noble
way, etc.
THE MALLOREAN. A time loop causes the events of the Belgariad to occur
all over again, to mostly the same people. This is not my sarcastic
way of implying that THE MALLOREAN is a scene-by-scene retread of THE
BELGARIAD. It is actually explained in the text that this is what's
going on. The audacity of this excuse to write the same quintology
twice leaves me breathless.
Eddings has written other books, which I have avoided like the plague
I suspect them to be. My comments below refer only to the quintologies
mentioned above.
When people refer to "extruded fantasy product," this is the sort of
thing they're talking about. It doesn't mean that it's utterly without
redeeming value, but that it is mostly or entirely unoriginal and
inspired by the work of others (usually Tolkien); that it possesses
many stereotyped and cliched characters, occurrances, and themes; and
that it has a (subjective, of course) cranked-out feel to it.
I will credit Eddings for telling a lively story, which captivated me
when I was sixteen and less critical. However, the flaws in his
writing make him unreadable to me now.
1. The majority of the characters possess a truly stunning stupidity
and/or lack of emotional maturity. The farmboy Garion is a blockhead.
His girlfriend Ce'Nedra is a spoiled brat. The two five thousand year
old wizards who are looking after him, Belgarath and Polgara, behave
like a pair of bossy teenagers, and repeatedly conceal information
from him that he, and their own cause, would have been better off had
they revealed it. There are not one, but two, dunderheaded knights.
Even the gods are idiots who require a good talking-to. (What did they
THINK would happen to the people who were created without a god to
guide them?) Everyone ponders totally unmysterious prophecies, and
never figures them out. When a man described as "the man with two
lives" is killed, everyone howls melodramatically. Gee, think he'll be
resurrected?
This makes the only character who isn't a moron, the rat-faced little
man, Silk, steal the show. He drinks! He wisecracks! He gambles! He
tells Garion useful things! He's a spy! He's a prince! He's tragically
and secretly in love with his married aunt! He has another tragic
secret involving his mother! The rat-faced little man is by far the
most fun character in the entire canon, no doubt about it. Which
brings me to...
2. The terrible, repetitive writing style. Silk is described as "a
rat-faced little man" about once for every year Belgarath has been
alive. No can just say anything without an adjective attached: he said
slyly, she said sheepishly, they bellowed loudly. Most horribly,
Eddings is overly fond of weasel words such as "like," "sort of" and
"kind of." They are kind of scattered across every page, sort of like
confetti, and once you, like, notice this, you will never be able to
read Eddings again.
I'm not even going to get into the stunningly immature treatment of
sex: "Baby!" "Chair!" "Baby!" Those who have read will understand, and
shudder in appalled memory.
Rachel
At the end of book two I threw it down, annoyed I'd wasted sooooooooo much time on it. For a start what is that pretentious apostrophe in witch all about? How does it change pronunciation or meaning in any way? But, more seriously, I was left feeling that I'd written these novels myself. When I was 14 and believed in my own skills as a fantasy writer. Thankfully, no more. 
thats how i usually decide
