Flight of the Nighthawks

Remember the fun of the original Riftwar saga? Add some polish and shine. Mix it up with new and fun characters from the last few books, and even send some rubes to Kesh. Sound like fun? Make sure the intrigue is high, the stakes are much, much higher, and throw in a mad god invading the world and make it spicy with a mad body-hopping mage.

This is Feist doing what he's best at and it shows. I'm having a great time.

And yes, Pug is in here. That means that the fate of many many worlds is at stake. And the gods are freaking out. :)

Is this series getting really good again? I'd say so. It was never all that bad, but all the things I used to get annoyed with have been excised nicely. Now it's all adventure, intrigue, battles, spies, and show more enough assassins and mad gods to keep anyone amused. :) show less

I've read this straight off the back of the preceding Talon of the SilverHawk series (or whatever it was called).
I gave those books 4 or 5 stars, but this one I struggled with a bit.
Presumably the young boy characters introduced in this book will do something important in later books, as will the other new characters.
Talon, Kaspar, Caleb, etc from the last few books were central, without any of them being a real focus of this book. Pug, Miranda & Nakor also prominent enough.
I felt it built up towards the end, but despite Feist trying to keep the evil magician's identity a secret until the final climax I found it fairly predictable.

Dit verhaal speelt verder in de toekomst dan 'De oorlog van de grote scheuring'. Puc is ouder geworden, en zijn eerste vrouw is al lang geleden overleden. Hij is nu getrouwd met Miranda, de dochter van Macros. De hoofdrollen zijn echter vooral weggelegd voor hun zonen, Magus, een grote magiër, en Caleb, die geen magische geven heeft.

Er is iets vreemds aan de hand in Kesh. Nobelen worden er vermoord, en er gaan geruchten over een groep mensen die zich in de schaduw ophouden. Puc en zijn twee zoons werken samen om de geheimzinnige moordenaars (bekend als de Nachtraven) op te rollen.

In het begin loopt het boek wat langzaam, maar gaandeweg komt de vaart er in, een nieuwe personage, Bek, wordt geïntroduceerd, en hij is een interessante show more toevoeging.

Wat ik jammer vond, is dat de stiefzonen van Caleb, niet echt uit de verf kwamen, en we ze weinig in actie hebben gezien.

Die nieuwe Nederlandse vertaler heeft schijnbaar niet de eerdere boeken gelezen, want anders had deze vast de naam van Claudius Haviks aangehouden, in plaats van Engelse naam. show less

Flight of the Nighthawks is the first book in the Darkwar Saga, the third-to-last subseries in the very large Riftwar Cycle.

I had mixed feelings about this one. Sometimes it held my attention very well, but at other times I had trouble focusing on it. Part of that could be outside distractions, but those distractions were no worse this week than they’ve been in recent weeks, so I don’t think so. All the books have had recaps to some extent, but they seemed especially tedious in this book. Whenever I caught myself staring off into space and thinking about something else instead of reading, I almost always returned my attention to my book to find myself reading some sort of recap. I imagine people who had a longer wait between books, show more especially those who read this series over many years as it was originally published, may have appreciated them more. I, however, have read these first 24 books within the past 6 months so the details are still pretty fresh in my mind.

Aside from the recaps, which were especially prevalent in the tiresome scenes with the magicians, most of the story held my attention pretty well. Feist used a lot of familiar plot devices and character types which I tend to enjoy, but there wasn’t anything really new here. I didn’t feel like any real progress was made in the overarching plot, and the end was kind of an “ugh, not again” moment, but maybe I’ll feel differently by the end of this trilogy.

I’m going to rate this at 3.5 stars since I was entertained for the greater portion of it, but I’m rounding down to 3 on Goodreads due to the frequent feelings of repetitiveness and sameness. show less

FLIGHT OF THE NIGHTHAWKS is the first in a new series set in the magical world of Midkemia. Author Raymond Feist brings back many characters from earlier novels, including includes my favourite characters - Pug, the wizard and Tomas, the human-turned-Valheru. Combining experienced mages and warriors with young protagonists will appeal to both young and adult readers, and Feist has a way of bringing up philosophical questions in an intriguing context - with plenty of colourful secondary characters. One in particular, Bek, the man who contains a small piece of the Nameless God, seems destined for far more in future stories.

Most of the story happens in the great Empire of Kesh, where the two young boys Zane and Tad are forced to quickly show more grow up and acquire survival skills under the supervision of Pug's son - Caleb. The Nighthawks are back, under the command of a necromancer, who has been also responsible for past troubles. The lurking threat is actually way bigger than that - creatures from lower plane are to attack Midkemia, and the only thing the forces of evil need for the plan to be successful is a Midkemia World War, which is about to happen, thanks to Nighthawks fanatics.

I have been a fan of Raymond Feist for many years now, and I looked forward to this book's release with bated breath. Yep, this is classic Feist, with grand schemes, great magic, old friends, and new and terrible villains. I think that this is a great book, one that is sure to please any fan of grand fantasy. I loved this book, and highly recommend it to everyone! show less

This book mixes the core characters from the Conclave of Shadows with a few new (but very familiar) ones, such as Tad and Zane (think Erik and Roo from the Serpentwar saga). Thankfully, Tad and Zane's training only takes up one or two chapters and is not the main focus of this book, as it was with Talon of the Silver Hawk in his eponymous book.

If I seem to be comparing this book to earlier books in the grander Riftwar saga, it is because many of them share a common story: ordinary person actually has magical or superhuman powers and is trained to be a super-weapon against evil. Flight of the Nighthawks is a nice break because we finally get to see a bunch of these superhumans start to battle it out against the super bad guy, Leso show more Varen. The story keeps you moving along to a grand ending that makes you want to pick up the next book, Into a Dark Realm, right away. show less

I normally like Feist's books a lot, but this one feels like some of his other books, its just the same action over and over. The good guys try to sniff out the secret cabal that is threatening the world, while thinking they are just investigating some little bad guys. Along the way they get caught not being quite prepared enough for the badness, but the major good guys survive, uncover the plot, and then proceed on to the next book to uncover more hidden bad guys. I thought it was interesting, but it felt way too much like a repeat of the books featuring Jimmy the Hand, just with different characters and a different location.