Young Garion, with his 'Aunt Pol' and an elderly man calling himself Wolf -a father and daughter granted near-immortality by one of the Gods - set out on a complex mission.

In German the Belgariad is called Das Auge Aldurs, The Eye of Aldur.A fierce dispute among the Gods and the theft of a powerful Orb leaves the World divided into five kingdoms. In Spanish the series is known as Las Crónicas de Belgarath ( The Chronicles of Belgarath) There are matronly hobbit ladies, and female hobbit puppies, but no girls.’ Most previous fantasies had followed suit with this idea. David wanted to convince both his agent del Rey, and the world of fantasy, that women did exist ‘below the neck.’ As he pointed out in The Rivan Codex, ‘There are no girl hobbits. The Belgariad developed many new technical and philosophical ideas when it was published in 1983, which helped to contribute to its almost immediate success. David’s partner, Leigh, managed to talk him out of the idea, insisting that, ‘ Alornia sounds like a sort of cookie!’ David also had a disagreement with del Rey, who wanted to rename Aloria Alornia. Amongst other setbacks, David was forced to reduce the length of his prologues to under eight pages. A second copy was sent, and David was finally on his way to completing his vision. On finishing his first draft of the Belgariad, David sent his proposal to Ballatine books, which got lost in the post. Ironically in the modern fantasy market, the series is often published as just two thick volumes. Del Rey constructed the ‘chess-piece’ titles we know today and although Eddings envisaged the final book entitled ‘ In the Tomb of the One-Eyed God,’ del Rey thought the title too long to fit on the front cover of the book. The series began to take shape, originally in the form of three novels, entitled ‘ Garion,’ ‘ Ce’Nedra,’ and ‘ Kal Torak.’ His agent, Lester del Rey, was convinced that only books under three hundred pages long, and sold for less than three dollars, were going to be publishable.

He began to create ‘The Belgariad Preliminaries,’ in 1978 and 79, which eventually became The Rivan Codex. Having studied the world of Middle English fantasy at graduate school, Eddings believed he had a fair idea of how to go about creating a secondary universe.

Belgariad book 1