The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON

I've read Eddings' fiction, including that stupid book with the talking cat, and do not see how he presumes to sneer down his nose at Tolkien, or to make such grand sweeping claims about his own work. The man's ego is out of control and far out of proportion to the standards of his work. His breed of fantasy is the equivalent of male romance novels, writing to the same formula over and over. It's clear he believes he writes 'literature', yet will break the process down to a bunch of admitted stereotype/cliches: you need a quest, a hero, a bad guy, and an object of power, and that's that.

Eddings' work has taken a dive, no doubt in lockstep with the rising belief of his own 'genius'. That's the problem of kissing an author's backside too much: he starts to think no work is required in his writing, nor any innovation. Certainly Eddings could not be accused of innovation in any case - his work is pretty much identical to an army of fantasy writers to follow Tolkien, only, arguably, his work is a deal worse.

Want an insight to the mind and processes of a hack? That's what you're buying.

I read through most of the reviews for this book, and I think that there is a very common theme among the negative reviews: they didn't know what they were buying. This book wasn't written to tell a story. It wasn't written as a prequel or followup on the books of the Belgariad or the Malloreon. This book was largely written before any of those books were written, because this book is the background of the stories in the Belgariad and Malloreon. I think that a lot of people bought this book with the impression that it was all-new material from the worlds that we already knew.

This is a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at a fantasy world that many of us have enjoyed over the years. As such, a lot of the information presented in this book is already present in the Malloreon and Belgariad. But the point of this book is that there is a great deal of development that goes on before you begin writing an epic fantasy like this. You literally have to create the world before you can create the book. Eddings spent a couple of years developing the characters and the backstory of his books, and this is that backstory. If you buy this book for what it is, you will probably enjoy it immensely. If you buy this book looking for a new story you *will* be disappointed.

As much as I enjoy the majority of David Eddings' story, a man who can only write one plotline with the same characters undergoing variation should not presume to tell anyone how to write a story. I am not disparaging the repeated retellings; I enjoy them (except Polgara) and I am buying the newest series in hardback. The fact of the matter is Eddings is not really an author; he's a storyteller. He's perfected one story and has become very good at retelling that one story in different ways. The fact that he presumes to laud himself and instruct others in their writing in his introduction has placed him squarely in the list of people whose product I love but would never wish to meet in person. The rest of the book is, frankly, boring. The piecemeal references to the various prophecies found in the book are more instructive, and mesh better with Eddings' own description of the personality of the Prophecy *anyway*. While not as self-indulgent as some such works can be, this book is not worth buying, unless you are trying to mine the world for fanfiction or a roleplaying game.

This was the perfect cap to the book series. It let you see into the mind of the author, as well as how each Kingdom and character was developed. Other than the Mallorean Gospels (which bored me to tears), I couldn't put it down! Great book!

I agree with some of the reviewer's in that this book should be read after reading the Belgarid/Mallorean. If you haven't been steeped in the world it relates to, the Codex will be a very slow and boring read. But if you are a Eddings fan, this book is a great addition to your library. I too, felt David Eddings frustrations come thru in some of his commentary, but unlike some I didn't take it personal. Give the guy a break. I highly reccommend this book to all the Eddings fans.