David Eddings

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David Eddings
Born July 7, 1931 (1931-07-07) (age 76)
Spokane, Washington
Occupation novelist
Genres Fantasy
Notable work(s) The Belgariad
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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 has since acknowledged that she contributed to them all. She was a credited co-author starting in the mid-1990s.

Contents

[edit] Biography

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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 He worked on several unpublished novels, including ‘Hunseeker’s Ascent,’ a story about mountain climbing, which was later burned as David claimed it was, ‘a piece of tripe so bad it even bored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 was not 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 did not 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.[1]

On February 28, 2007, David Eddings' wife, Leigh Eddings(born Judith Leigh Schall), died following a series of strokes. She was 69.[2]

[edit] Works

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[edit] The Belgariad and The Malloreon

Main article: The Belgariad
Main article: 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.

[edit] The Belgariad

The Belgariad if a five-book series:

  1. Pawn of Prophecy
  2. Queen of Sorcery
  3. Magician's Gambit
  4. Castle of Wizardry
  5. Enchanters' End Game


[edit] The Malloreon

The Malloreon is also a five book series:

  1. Guardians of the West
  2. King of the Murgos
  3. Demon Lord of Karanda
  4. Sorceress of Darshiva
  5. The Seeress of Kell published in the USA and UK by Bantam

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 did not 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 would not touch it, but if it were in the form of another human, one would happily fall in love with it.

[edit] 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 is created from these disparate races being forced together.

[edit] 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,[3] 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).

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] The Belgariad series

[edit] The Malloreon series

[edit] Books related to The Belgariad and The Malloreon

[edit] The Elenium series

[edit] The Tamuli series

[edit] 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

[edit] Standalone fantasy novels

[edit] Non-fantasy novels

  • High Hunt (1986)
  • The Losers (1992)
  • Regina's Song (2000) with Leigh Eddings

[edit] References

  1. ^ F.T. Norton (2007). Novelist accidentally burns down office. Nevada Appeal. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
  2. ^ Décès de Leigh Eddings. Elbakin.net (2007). Retrieved on 2007-03-06.
  3. ^ The Elenium

[edit] External links


v • d • e
David and Leigh Eddings
Garion novels
Sparhawk novels
The Dreamers
The Dreamers (series)
Other fantasy novels
Non-fantasy books
Regina's Song • High Hunt • The Losers
Persondata
NAME Eddings, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American novelist
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Spokane, Washington
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH