Raymond E. Feist

A fun book, but nothing transcendent about it. This is basically the climax of two books of buildup in the Serpentwar series: the long-feared massive army finally arrives for a colossal invasion.

Though the army in question includes hundreds of thousands of people, almost none of them are actual characters. The plot in this book is not so much "man vs. man" but "man vs. nature", with the invading army as a faceless, implacable horde against which the heroes must simply resist. Feist justifies show more this approach by literally removing agency from the invaders: they're thralls to a demon, either literally through magic or indirectly through coercion.

The struggle against overwhelming force is fun enough to read: the heroes have prepared for this for two and a half books before it arrives, and use both cleverness and determination to hold the day. But I can't help but feel that a massive war like this would have been more interesting portrayed as a struggle between two different groups of people, with their own motivations, even if one was more evil than the other. Feist did this in his initial book(s), "Magician", where the Tsurani were first introduced as faceless enemies but then humanized as rational people responding to real social, economic and political incentives. As it is, "Rage of a Demon King" is merely enjoyable, not transcendent.

Complicating things further is that the bulk of the book — the months-long last stand — is ultimately trivial. The battle is settled in an epic clash between the demon and a group of wizards and warriors; the outcome of this fight determines the physical war we've spent so much time following. It's something of an anticlimax, and in this is a precursor to the far more disappointing sequel. show less

Unfortunately, this book unambiguously disappointed me compared to the first book, primarily due to 1) Mara's incompetence, 2) the Midkemian slave plot device, and 3) the boring pace. In the first book, Mara makes mistakes, since she is a callow player of the Game, after all, recently torn from a convent of all places, but at the same time she shows flashes of brilliance, and executes a plot from end-to-end all on her own. In the second book, Mara loses all her competence - she receives show more accolades from enemies and allies alike, but never does she actually show, through her plans and actions, that she knows what she is doing, that she is a master strategist, that she's achieving her goals through her ability rather than luck or the ability of her subordinates.

I knew about and dreaded going in the Midkemian slave - he was every bit as annoying as I feared, and then some. Just as in the first Riftwar trilogy, I found the declared cultural superiority of Midkema over Kelewan to be racist and repellent. His relationship with Mara just exacerbated the annoying place he had in the plot and her character's development.

Finally, I had trouble staying awake through this book. It suffered from the uneven pacing of Feist's first Riftwar trilogy, and even worse, on multiple occasions it built up suspense only to switch perspectives at the climax so you didn't even know what happened much less get to experience the visceral payoff. I couldn't understand the decision to make the book so much less compelling than it could've been.

I had hopes that the trilogy would live up to the promise of the first book, but I'm going to have to pass on the third book. Servant of the Empire felt like a huge waste of time, and I have no reason to believe that the third book won't be even worse. show less

SPOILERS

A really limp ending for many of the threads built through the first two books. The Sisters of the Deep could've been cool, The Pridelords could have been cool, but it's all basically waved away for Hatu's set-up at the end.

Especially the Sisters of the Deep. The *entire* Donte/SotD storyline was completely pointless. Towards the end of the book Hatu says "Oh! Water Magic! I have a score to settle!" zooms his vision down the sisters of the deep.... and they're already dead. No show more explanation. Guess that solves the issue of them using Donte to kill his best friend... which is a thing we've actually build towards that just doesn't come up.

There were some cool moments but even as a standalone i'd say it's the worst of the trilogy and as a conclusion it's an abhorrent misstep.

The ending connects itself to Feist's Riftwar series and i'm assuming sets up another trilogy. I haven't previously read anything Riftwar and i don't plan on doing so. show less

I am kicking myself for not reading this novel when published, my only excuse being I was a teenager with no funds and no connections (remember the state of the Internet in 1982?). I lived twenty miles away from the nearest library back then. If my mom didn't own the book, I didn't get to read it.

This story overflows with likable characters: Pug, Tomas, Carline, Roland, Arutha, Kulgan, Meecham, just to name a few. The pacing skips, trots, canters, gallops, crashes, walks, jumps, and flies. show more The magic system teases you through Pug's apprenticeship, yet we glimpse broader examples through Kulgan and the invaders. The classic fantasy races make an appearance via elves (both light and dark or good and bad as you prefer), dwarfs, goblins, trolls and dragons.

The world building interwove seamlessly with the narrative as we followed along with Pug and Tomas as they ventured along with the Duke's expedition to seek aid to stave off an invasion of aliens from his royal kin over the mountains and east of his far western holding of Crydee. The aliens control rifts between their world, Kellewan, and Midkemia, where the Kingdom reigns through the Duke's royal relatives. Through these rifts, the aliens establish a bridgehead and proceed to slowly encroach upon Midkemia, first to mine metals in the mountains east of Crydee, and then to expand westward to gain access to the sea.

The book ends abruptly, but understandably so, since the original publication was one large volume, not the two we see today published as Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master. I look forward to reading the second half of this opening salvo in the Riftwar Saga next month. show less