A lot of readers have complained, and I certainly understand their point about this issue, that The Malloreon, of which this is the first book, is simply a more adult re-working of The Belgariad. It is that, in some ways, but it makes sense with the mythic structure that Eddings has set up. The characters even remark on the repetition of events and they use that knowledge to their advantage. It also goes a certain distance towards explaining the strange mish-mash of technologies and cultures that exist in Eddings’ world. He has technologies and customs existing side by side that developed here in our world over a period of thousands of years. Late bronze-age vikings bump up along pseudo-Romans and Elizabethan courtiers, but somehow there is a resistance, and a strong one, to real social, economic, and political advancement. Even the single democratic state simply elects a single, autonomic executive (in the form of a king, no less) rather than a collection of representatives. The societies are trying to move forward, but after thousands of years they make only superficial progress and seem to be doomed to fall back into old patterns.
Next up: King of the Murgos, by David Eddings.
