Product Description

A fabulous brand new Eddings standalone fantasy, set in an entirely new magical world. A bronze-age burglar, armed robber and sometime murderer, our hero Althalus is commissioned to steal a book by a mysterious cloaked stranger named Ghend. Althalus sets off to the House at the End of the World to steal it -- after stealing Ghend's cloak, as well, since winter is coming on. (Althalus is a rogue who can get away with almost anything...maybe with everything!) At the House at the End of the World, he finds a talking cat...in the same room as the book Ghend described. What he can't find once he's in the house is the door by which he entered. Only 2467 years and an ice age later does Althalus re-emerge with the cat, Emmy, in the hood of his (Ghend's) cloak. By now he can read. He's read the book and discovered a tool mightier than the blunt instrument he once used to disable his victims. The book was written by the god Deiwos, whose evil brother Daeva is trying to unmake the world. Emmy is in fact their sister and she's setting out to save the world with Althalus to help her. No easy task. First there is a quest to unearth the magical knife that will enable Emmy to assemble and command her band of essential helpers: Eliar (young soldier), Andine (leader of a small country), Bheid (black-robed priest), Gher (ten-year old orphan), Leitha (telepath/witch). Their respective commands: lead, obey, illuminate, deceive, listen. Althalus is commanded by the Knife to seek. Battles follow against Gelta the Queen of Night and the armies of Daeva involving many devious manoeuvres in and out of the House where Doors can be opened (solely by Eliar) to any place at any time. Daeva has his Doors, too. When Daeva can't win through battle, he tries revolution. When Dweia (Emmy) can't win any other way, Althalus will persuade her to lie, cheat and steal -- reciprocating the lessons in truth, justice and morality Emmy has been giving him for some while. The existence of the world hangs in the balance and love cannot be guaranteed to triumph in this glorious epic fantasy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165890 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 704 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Althalus was just a thief, and only a good thief by the standards of the backwoods and hick towns where he spent most of his career; a trip to the big cities of the lowlands almost proved disastrous for him, because he could recognise neither real threats nor even more sophisticated forms of wealth. Hired to steal a magic book, he finds himself imprisoned by a talking cat and subjected to the extensive education that will make him leader of humanity's fight back against a death god and his cadre of thugs. Much of what is best in The Redemption of Althalus has to do with the process whereby he recruits his team--a spoiled princess, a witch rescued from the stake, a barbarian warrior and a street urchin with the brain of a great strategist; once the team is in place and their fight back against conquest and sinister magic begins, victory is more or less assured and a matter of watching a thoroughly entertaining process. It is interesting to see Eddings working on a smaller canvas than usual--there is a fundamental niceness to his books that entirely gets its head here, along with an attractive sense of humour.--Roz Kaveney

Review
'A graceful, fluid style of storytelling rare in fantasy writing' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'Nobody writes modern fantasy like Eddings' VECTOR

Synopsis
A fabulous brand new Eddings standalone fantasy, set in an entirely new magical world. A bronze-age burglar, armed robber and sometime murderer, our hero Althalus is commissioned to steal a book by a mysterious cloaked stranger named Ghend. Althalus sets off to the House at the End of the World to steal it -- after stealing Ghend's cloak, as well, since winter is coming on. (Althalus is a rogue who can get away with almost anything...maybe with everything!) At the House at the End of the World, he finds a talking cat...in the same room as the book Ghend described. What he can't find once he's in the house is the door by which he entered. Only 2467 years and an ice age later does Althalus re-emerge with the cat, Emmy, in the hood of his (Ghend's) cloak. By now he can read. He's read the book and discovered a tool mightier than the blunt instrument he once used to disable his victims. The book was written by the god Deiwos, whose evil brother Daeva is trying to unmake the world. Emmy is in fact their sister and she's setting out to save the world with Althalus to help her. No easy task.

First there is a quest to unearth the magical knife that will enable Emmy to assemble and command her band of essential helpers: Eliar (young soldier), Andine (leader of a small country), Bheid (black-robed priest), Gher (ten-year old orphan), Leitha (telepath/witch). Their respective commands: lead, obey, illuminate, deceive, listen. Althalus is commanded by the Knife to seek. Battles follow against Gelta the Queen of Night and the armies of Daeva involving many devious manoeuvres in and out of the House where Doors can be opened (solely by Eliar) to any place at any time. Daeva has his Doors, too. When Daeva can't win through battle, he tries revolution. When Dweia (Emmy) can't win any other way, Althalus will persuade her to lie, cheat and steal -- reciprocating the lessons in truth, justice and morality Emmy has been giving him for some while. The existence of the world hangs in the balance and love cannot be guaranteed to triumph in this glorious epic fantasy.

Customer Reviews

No Stars No Good
David Eddings is my all time favorite author, and I refuse to this day to believe that he had anything to do with this rubbish, and I am being polite. I had eagerly anticipated the release of this book and was one of the first in line to buy it when it finally came out. With excited shaking hands I cradled it home, and as soon as I had a cup of coffee ready I sat down to read. It was dreadful. This could not possibly have come from the pen of the man who gave us The Belgariad and The Tamuli. I was horrified. Having struggled my way through, I have vowed never to read anything else by David and Leigh Eddings. I would prefer to remember the great writer that gavid Eddings used to be. The only reason it got the one star is because I could not warn others about this tat without issuing at least one and they don't have a minus star.

Not bad at all
I have read all of Eddings' offerings, and cannot understand all the negativity. Admittedly there are striking similarities between this book and others, but it's still a great story with some real depth in terms of theology, which Eddings doesn't normally deal with very well.

I am a fan of his work, and though this is not the best of his books, it is by no means the worst, perfect for taking on holiday, or in a relaxing bath, not so good if you want to escape to a different world. If you're looking for complexity go for James Barclay or K J Parker, if you want a fun read that doesn't tax you stick with Eddings.

Winter warming...
Like a mug of hot chocolate or candyfloss, if you're after nutritional (or intellectual) value, you won't find it here. If, however, you're after some comforting fantasy fun that doesn't take itself too seriously, this is perfect.

A lot of fantasy can be heavy going, but you can't say that for this book. While it can be sugary, if you like that sort of thing, it's not unpleasant at all. Yes, a lot of the characters are cliche, but I personally found their interaction endearing. Again, this might not be to everyone's taste, however. What to some people is 'childish' is to others light-hearted. The prose itself is even usually tongue-in-cheek.

The length is both offputting and deceiving, too. There is a lot of filler. Perhaps had there been less cutsey banter and therefore less pages, it would have read a little easier.

There are the odd moments of genuine invention of even intellectualism. The roots of the place names and the gods' names can be traced to real-world word roots ('os' for God, for example). The triad of related gods and their relationships is intruiging and I find myself wishing Eddings had gone into more depth with this as he had in his previous books. I also liked Althalus' character, although Emmy grates after a while. To be honest, most of the female characters grate, with the possible exception of Leitha, although her attachment to Althalus is a little clumsy.

The male characters are perhaps more interesting (Eliar is very young, you must remember, which might explain some of his more childish nature). Gher was something of an uneasy mish-mash between a genius thief and a plain genius, although this in itself had a lot of potential. Bheid was genuinely interesting to follow, as was his 'evil' counterpart, who SERIOUSLY needed more screentime (and who reminded me more of Zedar than anyone, to be honest. Definately misunderstood above truly evil. Here's for an Argan spin-off?). I think the male characters suffered from simple lack of expansion. They had potential. It just wasn't very well-developed. Given the length, this is the major disappointment.

The plot was standard but generally readable enough. The time travel concept could have been handled better. I honestly think there are too many issues and paradoxes for something as essentially frothy as this book to be able to handle well.

I think people have picked it up with too many expectations. No, it's not Tolkien. It's not even the Belgariad. But it's not dreadful, provided you know what you're about to read. Take it on a plane, curl up with it in bed on a long winter night with a hot drink, look at it as a bit of relaxation after something heavy, but don't expect to be analysing it for a dissertation.