Enchanters’ End Game

Enchanters’ End Game (1984) David Eddings

And the final book of the Belgariad.

Here we find Garion and Belgarath and Silk in Gar og Nadrak, which is one of the most fascinating places in his world building. The Nadraks don’t much care for their god, and have a disconcerting take on women, but unlike the Murgos, are fascinating (so, as we later discover, are the Maloreans) but the Nadraks are far more interesting.

“Just because someone owns her doesn’t give him any special rights to her person,” Silk told him, “and those daggers of hers enforce that. One does not approach a Nadrak woman unless one’s tired of living. She makes that decision. The wedding customarily takes place after the birth of her first child.”
“Why was she so interested in the price?”
“Because she gets half,” Silk shrugged.
“She gets half of the money every time she’s sold?” Garion was incredulous. “Of course. It’d hardly be fair otherwise, would it?”

Vella is yet another marvelous character, and I love that we see spend time with her in the Mallorean.

We also get to spend time with the various queens, who are in charge of their kingdoms while their husbands are away at war.

I love the different ways the queens use to get around the fact that their people aren’t used to being rules by women–and that they play to their own strenghts (or rather, in Islena’s case, Meryl plays to her strengths and keeps Islena from taking the kingdom to ruin.)

One of the other things I adore about this series is how dreadful and dreary war is. Terrible things happen, but also, they tried very hard to make things realistic.

Quite suddenly, to everyone’s astonishment, King Fulrach of Sendaria became the absolute commander of the host. It was he who decided how far they would march each day, when they would rest and where they would set up each night’s encampment. His authority derived directly from the fact that the supply wagons were his.

And then there’s Torak. One of the things I like is how Torak as repeatedly described as “mad” rather than evil. In some ways, there isn’t a lot of difference between the two, but in others, we see repeatedly the wish for redemption. And it is a fascinating thought–the idea of what would happen if a God were to suffer from madness.

I’ll close with some notes about the formatting of the eBook.

It’s terrible. There were many many typos and errs that come from OCR not quite being as good as it could be. Some of the typos were rather irritating (especially those that were repeated). But every time I found a typo, I used the kindle to note it and send it along, so hopefully future editions will be cleaner.

Was the series everything I remembered? No, but it didn’t need to be. It’s comfort reading, and a lot of fun.
Rating: 9/10

Published by Harper Voyager

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