Yes. His four series (yes, I am pretending he didn't write any more ), plus Belgarath the Sorcerer and the Polgara book.

Started out with the Elenium when I was, hm, yeah, probably around ten to twelve. And as I recall, Guardians of the West was among the first books of any serious length I read in English, as my library only had the Malloreon in English.

Yes. They hold up, mostly, thanks to nostalgia, but on my last reread of the Elenium and Tamuli (incidentally, I do enjoy the Tamuli quite a lot, tons of hilarious characters), I was struck by how extreme the glorifying of violence is in those books. When you start thinking about it, Eddings is an extreme case of American warped priorities - all very innocent and "mind the children" when hinting at sexual stuff, but some of the main characters walk around cutting people in two with a sword and cracking jokes about it, particularly Sparhawk and company.

Hm, tricky. I could give arguments for each of the four, really... the Belgariad is the original, the Malloreon is a carbon copy of the Belgariad, true, but apart from that I kind of like it more and it has some great scenes. Then Elenium is ultra-violent but has Aphrael to liven things up, and an entertaining enough plot, and Tamuli is kind of camp at times, even by Eddings standards, but funny enough that it makes up for it.

Aphrael is a no-brainer, but beyond her it's also tricky to choose. Polgara or Silk, probably.

I can see the reasoning for both, yeah. Suffice to say Eddings' worlds aren't the most original ones. Though I like the breaking thing with the Belgariad/Malloreon - particularly when it suddenly turns out to be relevant at the very end (I seem to recall reading Belgarath the Sorcerer before the Belgariad or anything else, it'd probably seem less impressive as far as planning goes to someone reading in publishing order ).

Like I said, I like the Tamuli, but I see your point. Plus, Eddings' heroes have a way of becoming all-powerful as the ending of the series nears, forcing him to employ increasingly convoluted plot devices to keep things a bit exciting. Though the thing with Ehlana in the Tamuli is actually a good find, it's a cliché from a different genre so not actually over-used in fantasy books.