Having completed the popular multivolume fantasies, The Belgariad and The Malloreon, Eddings and his wife, now acknowledged as a longtime collaborator, focus on the eons-long struggle of gods and humans that led to the epic events in those two series. Here, they tell that story from the viewpoint of the sorcerer Belgarath, who became a disciple of the god Aldur when the gods still walked the world and who was a major participant throughout the 7,000-year war. After the dark god Torak cracks the world by trying to use the powerful Orb, which he has stolen from Aldur, Aldur takes on the responsibility of preparing for the day when good and evil will meet in the final battle that decides the fate of the world. Belgarath and his fellow disciples become involved in deciphering the oblique prophecies and making sure that events that are supposed to happen indeed do. The Eddingses temper larger-than-life violence and intrigue with a healthy dose of wit, particularly in the characterizations of the often testy Belgarath and his equally sharp-tongued daughter, Polgara. This rousing precursor to two five-book sagas is probably best read after them because of Belgarath's digressions into his own present, but make no mistake--the sagas' many fans will definitely relish it. (Reviewed July 1995)

Here, finally, is the imposing prequel to The Belgariad (five fat volumes) and The Malloreon (another five volumes, all just as large, most recently The Seeress of Kell, 1991). When the evil god Torak broke the world apart, the good god Aldur selected a band of faithful followers, our eponymous sorcerer chief among them, to help set matters arighta labor of seven thousand years' duration that, in the reading of it, subjectively feels almost as long. And for those who wonder at Eddings's dogged persistence and enviable productivityhe had help from his wife, Leigh: ``...it took two of us to write this book, and this has been going on from the very beginning.'' Don't get trampled in the rush. (First printing of 400,000)"