Sci Fi Alert

It’s not unusual for me to read favorite novels more than once.  Hell, I’ve been through George R. R. Martin’s Ice and Fire series at least three different times; at least twice for The Wheel of Time; and I can’t remember how many times I’ve read Asimov’s Foundation novels.  Over the last three months I’ve been reading David and Leigh Eddings’ The Belgariad and the The Malloreon (I’m just about to start The Seeress of Kell), well I should clarify that as listening since I downloaded the audiobooks from Audible.com.  I find it interesting how my opinion has changed concerning these novels.
I first started reading Eddings when, at the age of 16, I picked up a copy of Pawn of Prophecy and became engrossed with the characters.  I immediately awaited each new novel and I can admit that I’ve read and re-read each novel at least three times. Belgarath the Sorcerer was the first hardbound fantasy novel I every purchased, soon to be followed by Polgara the Sorceress.  Looking back I can see why I liked these novels so much:  they were geared toward young men like me with the beautiful women and the battles and the magic and so on.  Of course, as I grew older my literary tastes matured and branched out to many different genres.  Of course, I still greatly enjoy reading science fiction and fantasy, always will, but I wanted something more than the usual quest fantasy that was quickly becoming derivative.  I started reading Robert Jordan’s more mature, original and interesting take on fantasy.  I discovered Stephen King’s dark fantasy opus The Dark Tower.  For short while I was engrossed in Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series (stopped reading after Temple of the Winds).  Of course, very recently (in the last decade or so) my tastes in fantasy has included the great A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin; Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen; and while I’m little late to the game, fellow Missourian Glen Cook’s great Black Company novels.
Of course, compared to these writers the Eddings are just hacks.  If you’ve ever had the displeasure of reading the Eddings’ Rivan Codex, a behind-the-scenes book about how Garion’s world and story came into being, you’ll find out that the authos pretty much agree with that statement.  In the forward the Eddings call Tolkien derivative, which is a an extreme case of pot and kettle, reveal that the books became ten novels only to drag the series out and make more money, and pretty much insult the entire genre of fantasy.  The Eddings even have the temerity to say that no one should even try to write a novel like theirs because they aren’t good enough to do it!  This book is one of a rare few that I actually threw in the trash.  I came away from reading that foreword feeling that I had wasted a whole lot of money so these fools could get rich, and thinking that David and Leigh Eddings were assholes. (Yes, I know Leigh Eddings passed away last year, but that doesn’t mean what I say isn’t true.)
As for the stories themselves.  Listening to them now makes me realize how much I’ve changed when it comes to what I like to read (and listen to).  No one can deny the Eddings’ novels are not entertaining, because they are, but anything derivative usually is entertaining.  I remember reading an interview with the late James Rigney, a.k.a. Robert Jordan, in which the interviewer asked what other fantasy authors he was inspired by, and the interviewer listed Tolkien, Brooks, and Eddings.  Rigney, of course, said that he was greatly influenced by Tolkien and what fantasy author isn’t (well, apparently David and Leigh Eddings), somewhat influenced by Terry Brooks, but he was influenced by David and Leigh Eddings “not at all.”  I wish I could find that interview because those were his exact words, “not at all.”
Again, I admit that the Eddings’ novels are very entertaining and they have some engaging, if sometimes stereotypical, characters.  I was a huge fan of Garion, Silk, Belgarath, and Beldin.  To me, what made The Malloreon so enjoyable was the increased use of the hunchbacked Beldin.  I remember chuckling so many times at the way the Belgarath and Bedlin characters would bicker back and forth.  Beldin was probably one of the more original characters the Eddings created.
All that being said, listening to these novels now I often found myself grinding my teeth at some of the bad characterization and the obvious plot devices meant as nothing more than filler, something the Eddings themselves admit as true for the purpose of turning a three-book series into a 10-book series. First, let’s begin with the character of Polgara, the 3000-year-old sorceress daughter of Belgarath.  In The Belgariad she often counsels other female characters that they cannot be truly happy until they’re married off and pregnant; that they are not capable of doing things as well as a man.  The character herself, of course, didn’t follow her own advice.  When you consider that Polgara was suggested to be the alter ego of Leigh Eddings I find that very disturbing. I mean, I love strong women and like it when fantasy novels feature strong female characters, but this was just a silly way of making this female character.
This leads me into my next quibble, the dysfunctional relationships between some of the male and female characters.  The men are written as the warriors, of course, but it’s the women who are secretly behind the scenes telling their men what’s right and wrong.  Men are often shown to be henpecked and often saying “Yes, dear” when belittled by their wives.  In some cases women are shown using sex as a weapon to control their husband because we all know men think with what they have dangling between their legs and nothing else; they need that woman there to show them what’s right.  That’s not a strong, functional female character; that’s a shrew.
Finally, there are the oh so very stereotypical races in the both series.  The whole East meets West plot device was derivative in the 1980s when these novels were first published, and it’s even more so in the post September 11 world.  The different races within the Eddings’ world are not all that original, either.  The Tolnedrans are a replica of ancient Rome, the Algars bear a great resemblance to Native Americans, the Nyissans are stereotypical Egyptians, and the Angarak nations are nothing more than transplanted Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries.  Of course, I know that most fantasy authors draw their creations from real life peoples, even Tolkien did it, but where they are different is they are using them only as a basis to create something new and different.  You would be hard pressed to find any current or past nation/race similar to those found in Middle Earth.
I know I’m being a bit hard on these novels, it is only fantasy fiction, after all.  I guess in my adulthood I’ve come to expect so much more from the novels I read and the Eddings, while successful, are just not that great.

There are several series out there I like to watch each week, but with none of them do I feel this sense of eagerness as I do with Battlestar Galactica.  I’m sure a lot of it has to do with this being the final run of this series, but it’s also because I think BSG is one of the finest series on television, hands down.  There’s a great article in the L.A. Times that’s worth a read as we wait for Friday to arrive.

It’s not really a surprise, is it?  Sci Fi’s cheaply made version of Flash Gordon was pretty much doomed from the beginning considering how badly the series was written, but near the end of its run I thought the series had improved greatly.  The writing was better, the effects were improved, and Eric Johnson was perfectly cast in the role.  The biggest problem with this series, I think, was the contrived way in which the writers kept most of the action on Earth (I’m sure for budget reasons).  It just didn’t work and I really think it turned off viewers.  Well, I guess I can stop bitching about it now.