The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of the "Belgariad" and the "Malloreon" - Softcover

Eddings, David; Eddings, Leigh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0002246961 ISBN 13: 9780002246965

Publisher: Voyager, 1999

Synopsis

Comprising the ancient texts of The Belgariad and The Malloreon, The Rivan Codex is a book which stands in the same relationship to the Belgariad and Malloreon as The Silmarillion does to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Before David Eddings started to write his first fantasy series, the BELGARIAD, in the late 1970s, he spent a year working on the design and mythology of the fantasy world in which it is set.

The Rivan Codex comprises the immensely readable background material to Eddings’ best-loved series, repeated information a lot of it, but it’s the books that repeat the information, and these seminal documents have about them an air of original inspiration, world-building in action. The rest of it is background which is taken for granted but not spelled out.

History, geography, myths and folktales, peoples, gods, customs, social organization, political hierarchy, laws, dress, modes of address, produce, culture, flora, fauna, all presented with so light a touch one can only yearn for Eddings to be taken up by academics so that his style might catch on in the real real world.

The 12-book long series grew out of these delightful preliminary sketches like a river growing from a spring of striking purity and constancy. Magically, the information reads fresh each time, minimal Eddings prose, beguilingly arcane, in which massive events attain an all-time perspective.

About this title

Review

David and Leigh Eddings take readers on a fascinating behind-the-scenes tour of the extensive background material they compiled before writing their epic fantasy "The Belgariad" and the "Malloreon" and the two companion volumes, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress.

The tour stretches from the wealthy Empire of Tolnedra to the remote Isle of the Winds, from the mysterious mountains of Ulgoland to the forbidding reaches of darkest Mallorea. Readers visit the time before Time when two opposing Destinies began the cataclysmic struggle for supremacy that would involve Gods and men alike, crack a world asunder, and threaten to unravel the fabric of the universe itself. One also gets to see the origin of the Orb of Aldur and glimpse the final act upon the Sardion Stone. --Amazon.com

Review

From reviews of Belgarath the Sorcerer:

‘My ideal summer read... Having enjoyed the entire ten-book serial, I was delighted to be able to read this latest addition as it not only provides fantastic escapism in itself, but, being a prequel, will make my re-reading of the other books all the more fascinating.’
The Irish Times

‘All the verve and pace we’ve come to expect.’
The Dark Side

‘Offers an absorbing storyline and some memorable characters as, once again, the author touches all the right fantasy bases, with warring gods, political intrigues, supernatural creatures and appealingly human magicians involved in a titanic war over the course of seven millennia. Eddings fans will no doubt snatch this novel off the shelves while readers new to the authors’
world won’t find a more appropriate place to begin exploring it.’
Publishers Weekly

‘There’s no denying Eddings’
offerings do entertain. This novel is for fantasy fans fed up with more fusty fare, or for anyone who likes mischief and merriment.’
West Australian

Edition details

• Publisher: Voyager
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0002246961
• ISBN 13: 9780002246965
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 600