Magician

The worldbuilding in this series is glorious. I read this at the age of eleven or so and was half in love with all the characters. I should read this again, I don't think I'll regret it. ( )

The beginning entry into the best fantasy book series I have read in my life. IT is a little pulpy, but Feist really does a great job building the universe that the whole series exists in.

If you like book series, give this one a go, there are about 15 books that follow. All of them are pretty good and follow the events of Feist's made up world. ( )

This is the first book in the 'Riftwar Cycle', first published in 1982. Pug, a young orphan boy with undeveloped powers is apprenticed to a master magician in Crydee, a frontier outpost in the Kingdom of the Isles. Suddenly the Kingdom is overrun by alien invaders who have come through a rift from another world. Pug and his friend Tomas are swept up into the conflict which lasts for many years.

This book was originally reduced in size by it's editors, but re-published in 1992 in an edition entitled 'The Author's Preferred Edition' which has seen much of the original text restored. To be honest, I wish I had read the original version. The story seemed to drag on interminably and I found myself becoming exasperated and skimming more and more pages in an almost desperate bid to finish it and move on to something better. I found the characters underdeveloped and this meant that I couldn't really identify with and empathise with them. There also seems too many unnecessary characters - the inclusion of a character list at the beginning of the book would have helped here. Too much unnecessary detail and dialogue detracted from other good points of the story. Very disappointing, I will not bother with the sequals. ( )

A stereotypical fantasy novel. Easy to read, but not something that could be called good literature. A lot of the plot is fairly predicable. It's an easy and entertaining read, but not especially memorable.

A lot of the elements have been taken from Lord of the Rings: elves attuned with nature, dwarven miners, trolls, goblins Etc. At one point, the party are unable to cross the mountains in winter, so they go through an old dwarven mine where they meet some nasties - that bit of the plot appears to be lifted straight from the Fellowship of the Ring. But Magician lacks the grandeur of Tolkein, and seems a bit two-dimentional in comparison.

A lot seems to have been taken from Dugeons and Dragons as well: the medieval setting, a good gold dragon, and evil dark elves.

But there were some good bits as well: the alien attackers from a world devoid of metal and with a Japanese honour system, and the sword, shield and outfit that Thomas was given by the dragon. ( )

RIFTWAR