Anonymous

In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power - the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord Sauron’s evil dominion. Thus begins J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic tale of adventure, which continues in The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

Time was running out for Garion and his companions in their quest to recover Garion's infant son and heir. If they could not locate the Place Which Is No More, then Zandramas, the Child of Dark, would use Garion's son in a rite that would raise the Dark Prophecy to eternal domination over the universe. Only the Seeress of Kell could reveal the site of that mysterious place, and she could only do that once Garion and Polgara had fulfilled an ancient prophecy in the mountain fastness of the Seers.

Zandranias stole King Garion's infant son, planning to use the child in a ritual that would make the Dark Destiny supreme. Garion and his friends followed, but now they were captives of Zakath, Emperor of Mallorea.

It all began with the theft of the Orb that protected the West from the evil God Torak. Before that, Garion had been a simple farm boy. Afterward, he discovered he's a sorcerer. Now, at last, the Orb has been regained and the quest nears its end. Of course, the questors must still escape from a crumbling enemy fortress, flee across a desert filled with Murgo soldiers, and avoid the Grolim Hierarchs seeking to destroy them with dark magic.

Ce'Nedra, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra, is confused. Everyone knows the tales of the Orb protecting the West from the evil god Torak are just silly legends. But here she is, forced to join a quest to recover that stolen Orb. No one believes in sorcery, but Garion's aunt and grandfather seem to be the fabled sorcerers Polgara and Belgarath. Even young Garion is learning to do sorcery. He's just a farm boy, totally unsuitable for an Imperial Princess. Yet for some reason, she has the urge to comfort him.

Legends tell of the evil god Torak coveting the power of the Orb of Aldur. Prophecy also speaks of a time when he will again awaken to seek dominance over all the world. Now the Orb has been stolen by a priest of Torak, and that time is at hand. Belgarath the Sorcerer and his daughter, Polgara the arch-Sorceress, are on the trail of the Orb, seeking to regain it before the final disaster. With them goes Garion, a simple farm boy only months before, but now the focus of the struggle.

Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil god Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgrath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe. That was only a story, and Garion did not believe in magic dooms, even though the man without a shadow had haunted him for years.

More than 3,000 years have passed since the first events recorded in Dune. Only one link survives with those tumultuous times: the grotesque figure of Leto Atreides, son of the prophet Paul Muad'Dib, and now the virtually immortal God Emperor of Dune. He alone understands the future, and he knows with a terrible certainty that the evolution of his race is at an end unless he can breed new qualities into his species.

Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.