Polgara the Sorceress

By: Leigh Eddings, David Eddings

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 30 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Polgara is the epic culmination of a magnificent saga, and a fitting farewell to a world that, once experienced, will never be forgotten.

She soars above a world of warriors, kings, and priests. The daughter of Belgarath and the shape-shifter Poledra, she has fought wars, plotted palace coups, and worked her powerful magic for 3,000 years. Now, Polgara looks back at her magnificent life, in this fitting crown jewel to the saga that is the Eddingses' Belgariad and Mallorean cycles.

Her hair streaked white by her father's first touch, her mind guided by a mother she will not see again for centuries, Polgara begins life in her Uncle Beldin's tower, and in the prehistorical, magical Tree that stands in the middle of the Vale. There, she first learns the reaches of her powers. There she assumes the bird shapes that will serve her on her adventures. And there she starts on the path toward her destiny as duchess of Erat, shepherdess of the cause of good, adversary of Torak the One-Eyed Dragon God, and guardian of the world's last, best hope: the heir to the Rivan throne.

Here is the legendary life story of a woman of wit, passion, and complex emotions, a woman born of two majestic parents who could not have been more unlike one another. Ordained to make peace and make war, to gain love and lose love, Polgara lives out her family's rich prophecy in the ceaseless struggle between the Light and the Dark.

Fantasy fan? Listen to titles in the Malloreon series, which is a sequel to David Eddings's Belgariad series.

©1996 David Eddings and Leigh Eddings (P)2024 Audible, Inc.

Agree on the narrator

Dina Pearlman has a great voice and she works as Polgara, but as so many Steves have already pointed out, her pronunciations are maddening. MaloREEuh and CHEWtick put my teeth on edge. I downoaded the Conan stories and that narrator pronounced it SimmuhREEuh. Almost ruins it for me. And it's why I didn't get Belgarath the Sorcerer. I was hoping it would be Cameron Bierle on that and it wasn't and the guy's pronunciations were worse than Dina Pearlman's.

Other than that, though, if the pronunciation doesn't bother you, it's a great story with a narrator with a great voice and worth the listen.

Polgara The Sorceress

The narration was well done, the book had the potential to be quite a boring audiobook because so much of is said by Polgara so I was peasantly suprised. The accents are good, took a bit of getting used to because I first listened to the Belgariad and Mallorean narrated by Cameron Bierle so I was used to those accents. My only complaint with this audio book is the pronunciation of some of the cities and countries. I think it would have main sense to keep the pronunciation the same as in the Belgariad and the Mallorean.

Good book, mind-numbing, insipid narration

I've listened to the Belgariad and found the narration excellent and engaging. Dina Pearlman was aggravating not just because at times it was like Edie McClurg reading a children's book, or the fact that she reads UL like Yule, Mimbre like Mimbray, Taur Urgas as Tower Urgas, or Issa like Eye-Sa--those will make you cringe, but she turned Polgara's story/voice into someone more likely to be President of the PTA than a nearly 4K year old sorceress. All the adult male voices, when not spoken in a horrible Lucky Charms brogue, sound like various poor imitations of Donald Trump or Obama. The god's voices, like Torak, defy description beyond "auditory excrement." Typically, I tell my co-workers and girlfriend about the book I'm listening to--this one I kept to myself, embarrassed like a 14-year-old with a Hustler (satisfying a basic need but tasteless and shame-inducing). As bad as this one is, it is light-years better than the narration of Belgarath the Sorceror--I couldn't get past the first 10 minutes and got a refund from Audible. That one should be used on the folks at Guantanamo Bay.

Pronunciation

I read the entire series in print and Loved it. The Belgeriad, The Malorean and Belgarath The Sorceror were read by the same actor who pronounced certain fictional words pretty much the way I did in my head while reading (ie: certain character or place names.).
While I understand that Polgara's story should be read by a woman and her performance was at least as good as her counterpart, I found the inconsistency of pronunciation quite jarring.

Problems with reader, but good story

I was very disappointed with the reader. Yes, I prefer Cameron B., but I was willing to listen anyway. Do the readers read the previous books before they begin? The names were mispronounced, the tones were off... Poledra sounds downright unkind... the voice inflections this reader used made our beloved characters sound rude, petulant, unkind, whiny... it was really bad.

consistent pronunciation errors.

It would be nice if pronunciations could be kept uniform through the different books. For example, the way mallorea is pronounced in this book makes it sound like diarrhea. *shudders*

great story, horrid reader.

great read, great story. horrible reader. changed established pronunciations. changed established tones and inflections of characters. struggled to get through this audible version.

Mispronounced Mallorea Mindworm...

One of my favorite stories since I was a teenager... however, the narrator mispronounces Mallorea and it hurts my brain each time she does this

Not Horrible Narration - But Not Good

There have been other posts about the narrator, but let me provide an update on Belgarath the Sorcerer - that was recently released as being narrated by Cameron Beierle, the same narrator for the Belgariad and Malloreon (first 10 books) so that was a great improvement by the publisher of the audio book. Mr. Beierle brought all those characters to life IMHO.

Now to the review of this book. A book about Polgara's life, well I like that they had a lady perform the narration - even though Mr. Beierle did a wonderful job bringing Polgara, Poledra and other female characters to life. My problem is that this narrator did not take the time to listen to how words were pronounced in the first 11 books, so she would say things and I would miss the story trying to figure out what she was referring to. David Eddings spelling was unconventional and that is why I wish these companies would agree on pronunciation when they change readers.

She also wouldn't bring in the aspects of Beldin' Wacite brogue the way Mr. Beierle did. That may not be fair to this narrator but that brogue was a large part of his character history and relationship with Belgarath.

Finally, until this book - I liked Poledra, but this narrator made her sound like a snobbish prig. Yes she is a wolf, but I hated her in this book. I liked learning more about Polgara, but I got tired of the constant haranguing and incessant digs at her father's character flaws. We all know about Belgarath's need for beer, food, women, not bathing every day. In this book, Polgara constantly reminds the reader of every flaw her father has, whether he does something she thinks is good or not.
It just gets tiring and detracts from the story. That last statement is not the narrator's fault, but the author's. It got so irritating I stopped listening around chapter 31.

I agree with the other review, where all of a sudden Polgara and her mother are the saviors of the entire world and have powers we never heard of in prior books. Why Eddings took this approach I will never know, but this is the only book I didn't enjoy.

Love the story, not the narrator

This is the last book after 11 other books. All the others were narrated by a male but this was a female perspective book so the narrator was different. She should have listened to the other books because it was maddening to here her pronounce all of the names of people and places completely differently! I really love the book so I tolerated this anyways.