For fun, Aldur decided to live in isolation, make an immensely powerful and destructive magical artifact, called The Stone, and train a generation of sorcerers. Two of these gods, Aldur and Torak, took to tactics slightly different than their siblings.

Each deity made humans based on their ideal personalities and temperaments and created a number of powerful nations for them to live in. Many centuries ago, seven gods looked down on creation and decided to populate it with people in their image. The five books tell a fairly continuous fantasy version of the hero’s journey focused on Garion, our young protagonist. It is a series that has some surprisingly timeless strengths and some possibly insurmountable baggage. Several of these tropes have their origin in this iconic story. It’s the classic coming-of-age story about a prophesied farm boy with a sword who gathers a party of unlikely companions, an aged mentor, and sets out on a quest to smite a great evil. An iconic five-book series ( Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, Magician’s Gambit, Castle of Wizardry, and Enchanters’ End Game ) by David Eddings (and his wife, Leigh Eddings, to an unclear degree) that took the torch from Lord of the Rings and expanded on what fantasy could be. Enter my recent decision to read The Belgariad. But first, I wanted to fill a number of gaps in my genre reading around certain iconic series from fantasy’s formative years. Since I have a number of pocket recommendations from those decades already I decided that this year I would make a guide myself. I was looking around on the internet last year for a list of fantasy recommendations from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s and found the results wanting.

Belgariad pawn of prophecy