Book Purge 09 – fantasy

I decided to start with my smallest fiction subject. I used to be a huge fantasy fan. If dragons and/or wizards were in a book, I bought it. I had dozens and dozens of fantasy books, almost 200 according to the booklist, actually. 219 books are tagged ‘fantasy’ in my Library Thing library, which includes library books. It is my 3rd most used tag.

But gradually my interests shifted more toward historic fiction and mystery. Plus with so many people writing stories in settings like Krynn, the quality got uneven and Raymond Feist became so prolific I couldn’t keep up.  When the time came to purge a few years ago, most of the fantasy books were shipped out.  I kept my favorites. The original Dragonlance saga books, the Rose of the Prophet series, the first 4 of the Riftwar series and everything by David Eddings.

There really aren’t that many books. If the Eddings books were not almost all hardbacks they would only fill one shelf.

hhmmm…the Eddings books…

stares at book titles thoughtfully for awhile

I *love* the Belgariad series and the Mallorean. They are great books, very well done with entertaining characters and a fine storyline. I can’t wait until I can read these books to my boys (another year maybe, if that, in Havoc’s case. Though I might just get them on mp3 and we can listen to them in the car this year.) The prequel books about Belgarath and Polgara are also good, though I think Belgarath is a better & more rounded character than Polgara, so I like his book better. The Rivan Codex is also very interesting. I can’t get rid of them.

I like the Elenium and the Tamuli series,they have a good overall plot and it started off well but it got a little too witty toward the end in that “I noticed you noticing my noticing that” sort of way. There was character repetition from the previous series but I can overlook that because there are only so many archtypes out there & there were sufficient changes to details that it didn’t seem that striking to me. The plot had similarities as well. The setting though, was different and interesting and there were enough changes to the overall plot and in the various small details that I enjoyed the series.

Except for one thing….this series introduced the Manipulative, Too Clever for Words, Child Brat Goddess character – Aphreal/Flute/Danae (one character with 3 different personas, all equally irritating). She wasn’t too bad in the Elenium but towards the end of the Tamuli I was ready to slap her. She would win my vote for single most annoying character in a fantasy series ever, except they topped her in the next series (which, honestly, I would have thought very difficult to do). Still, not enough of a negative to get rid of the books.

Then there is the Dreamers series, which kept the annoying Bratty Child  Know It All Goddess character, ratcheting up her manipulative, kissy kissy, wittiness.The other character duplication was also so strong I couldn’t overlook it. The new setting & plot were not enough to overcome it. They were entirely too close to the Belgariad’s base characters. Like they were imported wholesale with only the names changed.  Plus…

(I’d call this a spoiler but really the only thing I am spoiling is you wasting your time reading this series. You’ll thank me. I don’t tell you how it ends just in case you want to read it anyway.)

Every book in this series is the exact same plot as the other books in the series. Only the look of the landscape and a the god’s name have changed. So if you read the first one, you have read the other 3.  And the ending!!!! OMG!!! Seriously, it seemed like no effort at all went into this series apart from some minor scenery changes for each book. Not their best effort.

I can probably ditch them.

And Redemption of Althalus, which I couldn’t even finish.

I think I will sell them in a lot on eBay.  Just because I think they sucked doesn’t mean others will. I checked for finished auctions. People are buying them.

Now I just need to get a battery for my scale so I can figure out shipping.

5 whole books on their way out of my house.  I’m just rocking this purge aren’t I?