RIP: David Eddings

Wow. Blimey. Sad news today that David Eddings, aged 77, died yesterday evening.

The Belgariad series was one of my favourites when I first discovered fantasy, and I still remember creeping down the stairs into the dingy basement of a used bookshop in my town, and encountering the first book, Pawn of Prophecy, flicking through it, and just reading for hours. This was at a time when my father felt I was doing altogether too much reading and altogether not enough schoolwork, socialising or hard, physical graft down t' pit, and so had banned me from buying any more books.

I might as well have been banned from breathing. Pawn of Prophecy, in hindsight, was probably not that edgy or outré a book with which to break his ban, but it was jolly good fun. I think that pretty much characterises a lot of David's work. In recent years, his work hasn't had quite the reception it used to, but he still has many fans.

Goodbye, David Eddings. This mortal coil we must all off-shuffle, but few have touched so many lives with their writings as David did those who discovered fantasy in their 'teens.