The Belgariad, Volume 1: Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, Magician's Gambit Book

Maybe more like a 2.75 on the ratings scale. Competent but predictable fantasy. The author created the world before he created the story, and it shows. The setting is very thoroughly imagined and meticulously crafted; the story, less so. The characters are all familiar fantasy archetypes, though not bad examples of those archetypes, for the most part. The pacing is exceedingly slow, and the action depends a great deal on the people in the story not telling each other basic, necessary information about what they are doing or why, which gets tiresome. You would think that, by the forty-eleventh time the Prophesied Savior Of The Whole Universe is nearly killed because his "wise" mentors gave him a necklace and said, "Here, put this on, it's a family tradition to wear one" instead of "You must wear this magical medallion at all times and never ever take it off even to bathe or else the forces of evil will CONTROL YOUR MIND," it might clue them in that perhaps a more thorough explanation of what is going on might be in order. But no. Apparently not.

There are two more books in the series, contained in the next omnibus, which I do plan on reading. If only to see if it is ever explained why our hero, who is destined to do battle with the Ultimate Evil, and whose upbringing was strictly under the control of his "wise mentors," was never taught seemingly basic stuff like...how to read. And how to fight with a sword. Or any other weapon, really. Perhaps the next volumes will explain why our hero was raised in such a way as to make him seemingly incompetent to walk to the next village and buy a spool of thread on his own, much less fight an ultimate battle for the fate of the world.