Eddings is ok for the Belgariad/Mallorean, a good series of books, but, as has been said before, the Elenium/Tamuli struck me as just the Belgariad with a different backdrop, mega-powerful gem, hero who is both a warrior and a mage, guided by a powerful mage, a mighty warrior, a Thief etc, and the exact opposite of the mega-powerful gem being the final confrontation.
It's different enough IMHO... The writing style is very similar, but aside from that there are plenty of differences. Main difference being that Elenium doesn't bother the reader to go through the main character's teenage *****ing and minor ones reaching to theology and stuff. There are similarities, but they are actually more common to the genre than common with each other. Epic fantasy is clichéd to huge extent, it's mainly character differences that make the fights against all those different evils worth reading.
And as far as characters go, Belgarion's companions are not a very deeply developed ones. Sparhawk's company of heroes is actually more interesting than Belgarion's... Not by much, but still. If only the Tamuli trilogy didn't have such happy cuddly ending with pretty much everyone living happily ever after in true Hollywood style, it would be better than Malloreon by a long shot. For making trolls so cool, if not for any other reason. But I gotta admit, the whole Anakha idea was ridiculously overpowered, and I must admit that the Klael/Bhelliom interaction made me think of the Belgariad/Malloreon's "Duel of the Fates" theme more than I wanted to.
But anyway... name a fantasy epic that
doesn't have:
-mega-powerful artefact(s) of Good/Evil/Both
-Old Wise Wizard
-Company of Heroes (The Swordfighter, The Berserker, The Bowman, The Thief, The Medic and all the other clichéd character archetypes you can think of)
-Ages old battle between Good and Evil (Light and Darkness, Us and Them, whatever)
Now that Í think of it, LOTR is actually one of the more original fantasy series out there, which is kinda paradoxal, but still... The main character doesn't have any special powers and is actually incapable of finishing his task in the end; the bad guy is not actually some kind of cosmological fundamental evil but instead was originally a maia amongst others corrupted by Melkor. It still has the Artefact, Company of Heroes and Old Wise Wizard, but it still manages to be more original than most fantasy epics.
Now that I think about it, Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy is somewhat like LOTR as far as the villains are considered... there's no cosmological evil to be fought - just an olden bad guy with olden bad powers.
...dunno if that was already mentioned in the thread, by the way. Worthy reading, but it was sadly split on 12 Finnish translations (that way the bastards can charge more
) and the reading was quite cluttered. I should read it again some day, should I find time.
