Ca. 445 pages.
1984.
Corgi/RandomHouse paperback.

The Orb of Aldur has been recovered, and is to be returned to Riva, where waits not only the Warders of the Orb, but also a profound change in the life of young Garion.

Before I started reading this book, I had received some vague warnings (if they can be called as much) about it being weak. I, however, found it to be a qualitative step up from Magician’s Gambit, and especially from Queen of Sorcery. Where PoP, QoS and MG were all centered around the hunt for the Orb, with a lot of chases, a few ambushes, meetings with every great leader of the West, and your typical LotR Epic stuff, I thought CoS was more ASOIAF-y, so to say. By which I don’t mean that there were a lot of intricate political intrigue or anything like that, but more that the characters stayed in the same place for more than a few days. (Granted, ASOIAF has its share of travelling, too, but it’s nowhere near as much as in LotR — although the characters whose POVs we see the story through are more spread out, of course.) And that felt kinda refreshing.

Refreshing, too, was the fact that Eddings seemed to have gotten hold of his witticisms again. Where Silk often felt contrived and not-so-much-funny in MG, he picked up a bit of slack in CoW (speaking of funny, by the way), and this made the story so much more enjoyable. And that was, to me, pretty much all I read this series for: enjoyment. (Granted, there was some interest in the trappings of stereotypical Epic Fantasy involved, too, but mostly, it was enjoyment.)

Eddings still seemed to have lived and worked in the era before thesauri were invented, but as the plot was a bit less similar to the one in the past three books, this didn’t bother me all that much.

Yet another step up, so I think I’ll reward Castle of Wizardry a shiny 6.5/10.