David Eddings

David Eddings was an American fantasy author whose Belgariad and Malloreon series, launched with Pawn of Prophecy in 1982, became two of the best-selling and most influential epic fantasy sagas of the 1980s, helping cement the multi-book quest-fantasy format as a commercial mainstay. Following the young farm boy Garion as he discovers his destiny as a prophesied hero, the two series (five and six volumes respectively) are known for their tight prose, banter-heavy dialogue, and a large, distinct ensemble cast that Eddings kept consistent across both series and the two follow-up prequel volumes. Eddings wrote virtually all of his later fantasy in close collaboration with his wife Leigh Eddings, who first received formal co-author credit in 1995 with Belgarath the Sorcerer -- David later wrote that the two had in fact been working together from the beginning, including on the earlier Belgariad, Malloreon, Elenium, and Tamuli, all published under his name alone. From Belgarath the Sorcerer onward, the two were credited jointly on Polgara the Sorceress and their final joint project, the four-volume Dreamers series, completed in 2006. Their books are known for a formulaic but reliably comforting structure — a young protagonist, a colorful mentor, a quest across a richly mapped world — that made them a common entry point into epic fantasy for younger readers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Eddings died in 2009.