http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009...d-eddings-dies

I loved the Belgariad series and was intrigued by a statement on one of the jacket covers that Eddings got into writing Fantasy to answer a question. I always wanted to ask him, "What question?". I was lucky enough to have this conversation with Keith Parkinson (who did some of his covers) and Keith told me he knew the answer and to paraphrase the answer I think "it was to see if a long fantasy series could be done". I remember that I wasn't quite satisfied with that, but I think from reading the Guardian article that Keith was right.

Anyway, loved Eddings books!

Bad day to be named David today, huh?

Was debating posting this earlier, but I was too bummed out. I've been an Eddings fanboy forever, and I still regularly read through either the Belgariad or Sparhawk stuff.

People knock on him for being derivative and what-have-you, and I don't think he'd disagree but he had the best dialog and most personable characters I've ever read and it made reading his books over and over again never get old. I can't think of another author I've ever gone back to so many times... or one that has influenced the way I think so much either.

Really sucks that he's gone, but on the plus side at least he didn't leave anything unfinished. For someone like him, that would have been horrible and I'm glad he'll be able to rest easy with his wife.

Man. That totally sucks. Silk was the originally inspiration for Sincro model 3.0, Everquest version.

Rest in peace.

My close friend died today also, he was 25 :( today just sucks

Argh! Why do people you really enjoyed always pass in groups?

R.I.P Eddings. Time to go reread the Belgeriad.

Missed this until today. And now I'm very saddened by the news.

Say what you will about Eddings, his books completely emersed his reads in his world. To me, reading the Belgariad for the first time was like the younger generations reading the Harry Potter books for the first time.