The Redemption of Althalus is a stand-alone fantasy novel by David and Leigh Eddings about... well, the Redemption of Althalus.In his early adult life, Althalus was a thief. Since he was neither strong enough to rob people by force nor small and fast enough to steal via stealth, he aspired to become successful by outwitting his targets. He did, and he managed to gain a reputation as the best thief in the northern wilds of the world. After hearing of the wealth available in the cities to the south, he decided to try his luck there. When things didn't go well, he returned home and accepted a job to steal a Book from the House at the End of the World.Upon reaching the house, Althalus met the goddess Dweia and became her disciple, spending multiple centuries preparing for the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil, before embarking on a journey with her to find those needed to unite and destroy the evil that threatened the world.This book provides examples of:
Because Destiny Says So: Lampshaded: Each good character has an evil counterpart, and they are the only ones who are allowed to confront them, despite Althalus preferring to get things over with quickly.
Book Ends: The last section of the book is Althalus going back in time to revisit his adventure in Gosti's hall and his meeting with Ghend, and making it play out differently this time.
Eternal English: When Althalus emerges from the House after two thousand years, he has no trouble understanding anybody, this may be part of his training.
Evil Counterpart: Everybody has one (Ghend for Althalus, Argan for Bheid, Koman for Leitha, Khnom for Gher, Gelta for Andine, Pekhal for Eliar and Daeva for Dweia).
Expy: Many, many expies for characters from Eddings' earlier books.
Notably, Althalus himself bears many similarities to both Silk and Belgarath from The Belgariad.
Fate Worse than Death: How Gelta is dealt with, by sending her to a room in The House. "It's a fairly nice room, it just doesn't have any doors or windows."
I Have Many Names: There are dozens of gods in the world, known by names like Kherdhos and Apwos. Turns out that there's only three gods- Deiwos, Daeva and Dweia. Apwos, Kherdhos and all the others are just other names for Deiwos- cultures looked at what was most important to them, like lakes or herds, and turned that into the names of their god- Apwos means 'water god' and Kherdhos means 'herd god'.
Omnicidal Maniac: Daeva is literally the god of destruction, and the job he does is important- it's when he decides to destroy everything that things get out of hand.
Painting the Fourth Wall: The scenes where the villains and Dweia attempt to change history or the future are printed in a different font than the rest of the narrative.
Purple Prose : The "hey-let's-change-history" parts (in a different font, no less) are not as purple as most fanfiction, but more purple than the rest of the text.
Slap-Slap-Kiss: Andine's relationship with Eliar starts out with her wanting to brutally and slowly murder him for the death of her father, and ends with them getting Happily Married.
Weaksauce Weakness: The telepaths, Leitha and Koman, are vulnerable to people thinking lists of numbers and fractions- specifically, out of order numbers and fractions.
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