Does The Magic Last? Revisiting A Fantasy Classic As An Adult
Revisiting our favorite books from adolescence is a tricky thing. These are, after all, novels we bonded with during a very impressionable time in our lives. As with our first romantic loves, we're often not willing or even able to see their faults. Even in hindsight, our judgment is colored — by nostalgia, by comfort, by the sense that these books are old friends. It's something I kept in mind during a recent re-read of the Belgariad and the Malloreon, two connected series of fantasy novels from the '80s and '90s written by David Eddings and his wife Leigh Eddings (although Leigh only began being credited toward the very end).
Runaway bestsellers in their day, the staggering 12 novels that comprise these series — five in the Belgariad, five in the Malloreon, plus two whopping standalone novels, a cycle which celebrated the 20th anniversary of its completion in 2017 — are staples of
