At Gordon Ramsey's Pétrus restaurant (1 Kinnerton Street / Knightsbridge, London / SW1X 8EA...in case you're interested), I can get a "Roasted beef fillet with braised shin, baked celeriac and Barolo sauce" for the reasonable price of £65.00 pounds.I haven't tried that dish yet (I probably never will), but it sounds fabulous. What I have tried, though, is my Mom's "Roast beef, mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables." I still make it whenever my kids are in the mood, and it costs me about $15.00...

Eddings has really created a beloved series of books that can be recommended to young and old alike. It is not deep or etremely thought provoking, it's just an enjoyable combination of adventure, humor, and fun. Garion, a naive farm boy, finds out that he is not ordinary at all. As he discovers his powers, he grows to adulthood through the ten books that comprise the Belgariad and the Mallorean. Critics might find some elements a bit formulaic, but few can deny that it is a fun series to read. F...

Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths Reviews There is nothing I hate more than trying to review one of my all-time favorite books from my teenage years. We all know the reason: the book just never lives up to your memories of its perfection. A fact - which if we are honest with ourselves - is inevitable, because we personally have changed too much, the world has changed too much, and our tastes have changed too much since the initial reading. This is true to a certain extent with David Edding’s Pa...

And there we go - after posponing and postponing I've finally kicked off the last of the old great fantasy series on my long term fantasy reading quest.Pawn of Prophecy is everything everyone makes it out to be. That is, it is a book which at first seems like a derivative, annoying teenage farmboy fantasy with very few redeeming qualities. For those who stick with it, however, it contains so much more. By the end of the book, I just wanted more immediately.After a painstakingly slow beginning, t...

When we're all looking for a good book to read, we usually look to our favourite authors and our best friends and trust their recommnendations as to what we should try next. Such as it was for me.The Belgariad was suggested to me by just about everyone I knew who enjoyed fantasy, and a number of my favourite authors. Imagine my surprise when I start reading and keep waiting for the story's plot to begin, and it begins to dawn on me that no such relief will be arriving.The problems I have with th...

It’s difficult to rate this book objectively in light of learning about the terrible abuse David Eddings and his uncredited coauthor wife Leigh perpetrated against their two young adopted children. It started out promisingly enough, with the promise being a simple, easy, enjoyably tropey old school fantasy. But as the story wore on, the overt racial essentialism in the world the Eddings created became more and more apparent, and there were an increasing number of cringey moments between husbands...

I was chugging along through Pawn of Prophecy just to get through it and viola! Saved by the ending! The prologue, including Eddings' world creation myth, had me really hopeful, but then this one got mired in the typical bratty-kid-is-the-key-to-everything-and-doesn't-know-it epic fantasy trope. That was disappointing. It's just not my jam. I'd heard good things about The Belgariad series. After the slow first two-thirds, things got interesting. I'm intrigued by the story now and one day I'll re...

This book is amazing. I realy love the genre fantasy and this book reminded me of that🥰😆👌5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is a review of The Belgariad, a fantasy series that includes the books: Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, Magician's Gambit, Castle of Wizardry, and Enchanter's End Game. Are the cares of life getting you down? Sky rocketing gas prices, financial and housing markets in ruins, high unemployment, an unending war sucking dry the country's coffers and recession looming on the horizon. Rather than resort to drink or despair, get away with some escapist fantasy! I read The Belgariad series when...

My old review from 2008 still holds. This is the beginning of a fun, 5 book series. There is another 5 book series, the Mallorean, that comes after plus several additional books, "Polgara", 'Belgarath' & the 'Mrin Codex'. If you stick with the first 5 & maybe the second 5, you'll be happy. Unless this world totally captivates you, reading the 3 additional books is kind of a waste. While there are some tidbits you can pick up, mostly they're a rehash from different POV's of the other 10 books.Tha...

3.5 starsThis was a fun classic fantasy. If you’re looking for something innovative, then this book isn't for you. It was published in 1982 so by today’s standards it is definitely a cliché. However, of course, I personally won’t judge a book as a cliché if it’s almost 40 years old. Even though it can be read to children, I don’t think it’s for a particular age only (though the older you are the less you’d enjoy it I suppose.) Pawn of Prophecy wasn’t fast-paced but it was a very quick read. It i...

Classical Fantasy in its finest! Brought back some of my childhood and the first Sparks of Love for the genre! Yes, I am sure my feelings are tainted by nostalgia, but if I had kids, I would definitely be reading this to them, just as my dad used to read it to me... Yeah, totally worth it 😊🤗💕!

The first volume in the five book Belgariad series, which I'll happily admit to reading and then rereading throughout my mid-teens. Farm boy Garion enjoys a peaceful childhood in the care of his loving and occasionally stern Aunt Pol until the arrival of assassins sees them both on the run and Garion increasingly aware that he's much more important than he could have imagined. This is where the classic 'chosen one' fantasy template gets going in earnest and it's rarely been done better. The scal...

This is the book and series that essentially sparked my interest in the fantasy genre. Now as they are slowly (and I emphasize the word slowly) being released in electronic format, I have begun to start reading them again on my Kindle. Let's be clear: Pawn of Prophecy is not Game of Thrones. It's not The Name of the Wind. Heck, it's not even Assassin's Apprentice. But what it is is an entertaining quest fantasy filled with characters who you feel you know personally by the time you finish the bo...

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME THINGS YOU MAY CONSIDER AS SPOILERS, though, I think they are just nuances because I'm not telling huge chunks of the story.I like this book because I like Harry Potter, and they are very similar, but I’ll get to that later.This is the first book in a series of five called The Belgariad, which chronicles the quest of a boy who learns he is a sorcerer. His parents were killed when he was a baby, and he lives with his aunt. Sound familiar? This book was published in 1982....

Pawn of Prophecy and the remaining four books that make up The Belgariad series are for me pure comfort reading, something that always manages to put a smile on my face and entertains me throughout.Like many others I cut my fantasy teeth on David Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean series, once in my early teens and then again in my early twenties. And it was during last week and in between books that I heard the siren song of Eddings once more and knew that I had to heed the call.I have read other...

Okay, I see all the glowing reviews and all the 4 and 5 star ratings... sigh. Here I go again. While I don't actually dislike this book I'm pretty far from liking it either. Mostly I struggled to stay awake and keep my mind on it. It starts out slow meanders around trying to find a plot in the midst of it's standard epic fantasy stereotypes and finishes telling me I should get the next book. Not for now, thanks. The book wants very badly to be a standout epic. I mentioned elsewhere that it felt

3.5*.A lovely story, very similar to Grandma's bedtime stories.

I thought I'm too old. I thought this wouldn't be challenging enough. I thought I'd be bored.Instead, I was deeply engrossed in this book, couldn't put it down. Didn't want to put it down.This book is like sipping hot chocolate wrapped in a blanket while it snows outside. It's familiar, comforting, and it's fun.Of course, it's neither deep nor complex, but it resulted in a wonderful, heartwarming Saturday afternoon, and I can't wait to continue the series.

Review here for the entire Belgariad.I noticed that most of the reviewers give this a nostalgic loved-this-when-I-was-young rating. And they're right to do so. This is the perfect series of books for a young reader: clever enough to hold its own, exciting without being too graphic, and the youth don't notice just how bad the prose is.I mean, it's hilariously bad. It's not that the Eddings machine can't write for beans; it's that the writing does all the hackneyed nasty cliched things that you're...