BELGARATH THE SORCERER

Here, finally, is the imposing prequel to The Belgariad (five fat volumes) and The Malloreon (another five volumes, all just as large, most recently The Seeress of Kell, 1991). When the evil god Torak broke the world apart, the good god Aldur selected a band of faithful followers, our eponymous sorcerer chief among them, to help set matters aright—a labor of seven thousand years' duration that, in the reading of it, subjectively feels almost as long. And for those who wonder at Eddings's dogged persistence and enviable productivity—he had help from his wife, Leigh: "...it took two of us to write this book, and this has been going on from the very beginning." Don't get trampled in the rush.