The redemption of Althalus - Rated 
Althalus is a thief who is hired to steal a book and ends up getting caught in a war between gods.
The first 100 or so pages of this book were fantastic, witty well written and fresh.
The other 600 were rubbish.
All the characters were exactly the same, the "witty one liners" were pathetic and no character could enter the story without meeting someone else and getting married.
I don't know how I got through this book as I knew the outcome, who would marry who, who would win etc.
The characters all had the same personality and the ridiculous Leitha bleating daddy all the time drove me up the wall, how old was she meant to be?
The writing was horrendous, I wish I knew how many times that characters said "for some reason" and "sort of" The authors atempt at high style writing throughout parts of the book was awful as well.
The only redeming facotr was Althalus himself who I have to admit I quite liked.
I do think that younger teens may like this book, as for me, this is the first and last book I will read by the authors.
However never one to leave a book unfinshed I ploughed onwards and now I'm saving you the trouble. Please, don't bother.
Terrible - Rated
Having read, and thoroughly enjoyed, the Belgariad and the Tamuli, and also read, but thought less of, the Dreamers, I was hoping this would be good. Unfortunately, having been warned about it, I found the warning to be apt.
The only way I can describe this is as a bad parody of a David Eddings novel. Sadly, it's written by David Eddings. You've your thief/murderer as the hero (surely they should be anti-heroes?), the small child that people pay attention to despite them being a small child, the god, and the rest of the motley bunch that make up the cast of an Eddings story.
As same old, same old as it sounds, what really drags it down is the use of Dream Visions. They basically ruin the story. I thought the ending to the Dreamers series was bad, but this precurser to that is far, far worse.
I can't recommend this to anyone, veteran Eddings readers or new readers. It's awful.
No Stars No Good - Rated
David Eddings is my all time favorite author, and I refuse to this day to believe that he had anything to do with this rubbish, and I am being polite. I had eagerly anticipated the release of this book and was one of the first in line to buy it when it finally came out. With excited shaking hands I cradled it home, and as soon as I had a cup of coffee ready I sat down to read. It was dreadful. This could not possibly have come from the pen of the man who gave us The Belgariad and The Tamuli. I was horrified. Having struggled my way through, I have vowed never to read anything else by David and Leigh Eddings. I would prefer to remember the great writer that gavid Eddings used to be. The only reason it got the one star is because I could not warn others about this tat without issuing at least one and they don't have a minus star.
Not bad at all - Rated 
I have read all of Eddings' offerings, and cannot understand all the negativity. Admittedly there are striking similarities between this book and others, but it's still a great story with some real depth in terms of theology, which Eddings doesn't normally deal with very well.
I am a fan of his work, and though this is not the best of his books, it is by no means the worst, perfect for taking on holiday, or in a relaxing bath, not so good if you want to escape to a different world. If you're looking for complexity go for James Barclay or K J Parker, if you want a fun read that doesn't tax you stick with Eddings.
Winter warming... - Rated 
Like a mug of hot chocolate or candyfloss, if you're after nutritional (or intellectual) value, you won't find it here. If, however, you're after some comforting fantasy fun that doesn't take itself too seriously, this is perfect.
A lot of fantasy can be heavy going, but you can't say that for this book. While it can be sugary, if you like that sort of thing, it's not unpleasant at all. Yes, a lot of the characters are cliche, but I personally found their interaction endearing. Again, this might not be to everyone's taste, however. What to some people is 'childish' is to others light-hearted. The prose itself is even usually tongue-in-cheek.
The length is both offputting and deceiving, too. There is a lot of filler. Perhaps had there been less cutsey banter and therefore less pages, it would have read a little easier.
There are the odd moments of genuine invention of even intellectualism. The roots of the place names and the gods' names can be traced to real-world word roots ('os' for God, for example). The triad of related gods and their relationships is intruiging and I find myself wishing Eddings had gone into more depth with this as he had in his previous books. I also liked Althalus' character, although Emmy grates after a while. To be honest, most of the female characters grate, with the possible exception of Leitha, although her attachment to Althalus is a little clumsy.
The male characters are perhaps more interesting (Eliar is very young, you must remember, which might explain some of his more childish nature). Gher was something of an uneasy mish-mash between a genius thief and a plain genius, although this in itself had a lot of potential. Bheid was genuinely interesting to follow, as was his 'evil' counterpart, who SERIOUSLY needed more screentime (and who reminded me more of Zedar than anyone, to be honest. Definately misunderstood above truly evil. Here's for an Argan spin-off?). I think the male characters suffered from simple lack of expansion. They had potential. It just wasn't very well-developed. Given the length, this is the major disappointment.
The plot was standard but generally readable enough. The time travel concept could have been handled better. I honestly think there are too many issues and paradoxes for something as essentially frothy as this book to be able to handle well.
I think people have picked it up with too many expectations. No, it's not Tolkien. It's not even the Belgariad. But it's not dreadful, provided you know what you're about to read. Take it on a plane, curl up with it in bed on a long winter night with a hot drink, look at it as a bit of relaxation after something heavy, but don't expect to be analysing it for a dissertation.
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