Magician’s Gambit (The Belgariad, Book 3), by David Eddings

Magician’s Gambit by David Eddings

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

““We all have our little shortcomings,” Silk admitted blandly.”

This is yet more of the same I’ve read so far in the Belgariad. We’re still travelling, we’re still seeing some fights the result of which is crystal clear from the outset and it’s becoming stale and bland.

There’s some character development finally but mostly everyone still feels like an archetype and not like a real person.

As if that wasn’t enough, there are lots of “Deus ex machina” moments during which something that should be hard gets resolved effortlessly:

“He ran his fingers over the icy iron, not knowing just what he was looking for. He found a spot that felt a little different. “Here it is.””

And just like that, that’s it. Garion explores some more of his capabilities but is still kept small by Belgarath and Pol. The ending is rushed, anti-climactic and actually feels like Eddings just wanted to end the book which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the series.


Sometimes I wish I could “unread” books because they were so fantastic. In this case, I would have had to forget an entire genre to find any original thought or idea.

This book was actually starting to get boring and tiresome; everything feels rather mediocre about it – I just hope the next one gets better again…


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