The Eye of the World
The launch of the genre's bestselling post-Tolkien saga (ninety-plus million copies): for the 1990s, this was what 'epic fantasy' meant, and Amazon's 2021 series renewed the franchise for another generation.
Book Entry · Fantasy
Pawn of Prophecy
by David Eddings · 1982 · The Belgariad, book 1
What is Pawn of Prophecy about?
Garion grows up on Faldor's farm under the eye of his Aunt Pol, the kitchen's formidable mistress, until the theft of an object he's never heard of sweeps him onto the road with her and the disreputable old storyteller Wolf — who are, inevitably, the sorceress Polgara and the sorcerer Belgarath, several thousand years old apiece and bickering like it. Eddings deals the classical hand (hidden heir, dark god, prophecy) with total confidence and spends his genius on the table talk: the journey's politics, meals and running jokes are the actual story, and the boy at the centre is allowed to sulk like a real one.
Why it matters
The launch of the Belgariad, the defining gateway epic of the 1980s: for an entire readership cohort, this — not Tolkien — was the first fat fantasy, and its conversational template echoes through the genre's found-family mode.
Where does it sit in the series?
Farm boy Garion, the Orb of Aldur, two prophecies at war and fantasy's chattiest found family on a five-volume quest. The defining comfort epic of the 1980s.
In the Guide from The Belgariad:
- Pawn of Prophecy (1982)
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