Exile's Return

This book took a slightly awesome direction, breaking the usual storytelling mold we've gotten used to in Feist-land.

The previous novel's villain just became this novel's hero. :) He was so crafty, so unpredictable and cool, he needed an encore. :) And he got an encore, exiled in a distant land, in chains, and left to his own devices.

And yet, he gets transformed in his journey. :) Not bad. Not bad at all. :)

Oh, and the Geas had nothing to do with it. :) Or the revelations that the whole world was about to become a feeding ground for evil pouring in through thousands of portals. Or the discovery that evil really is madness. :)

I think I had more fun with this one than I have in the last five or six novels. Maybe more. But then, I'm a show more sucker for redemption novels. :) show less

Exile’s Return is labeled as the third book in the Conclave of Shadows trilogy, a subseries of Feist’s larger Riftwar Cycle. Unlike his other subseries, this book did not bring the current storyline to a clear conclusion. It ended not exactly with a cliff hanger, but with a looming (if not unexpected) problem revealed right at the end of the book plus a major unresolved mission.

For the most part, I enjoyed this story as much as the previous two in the trilogy, although it really veered off on a different path. The second book had wrapped up the main story surrounding the main character of the first two books, and this book has a different main character, one we have some reason not to be very fond of. He isn’t an unsympathetic show more character, but I didn’t warm up to him as much.

I thought the story was pretty interesting. It started off as one thing that I liked and that was told well, but I wasn’t sure I wanted an entire book of it. Before I could get tired of that, things got a bit stranger, even a tiny bit creepy for a brief time, and my interest grew. Then we started to learn how that fit into the bigger picture and that was interesting too, and there was some good action at the end.

I wasn’t quite prepared for the incomplete story after all the previous subseries had ended more conclusively. For me it’s not a big deal since I’m reading the whole series more-or-less all at once, with usually just a single-book break between each subseries. Still, it left me undecided on whether to take my usual between-subseries break after this book or jump straight into the next subseries while I still have the momentum going. I decided to go ahead and take my break anyway, but I’ll use one of the shortest standalone books on my list. If I had it to do over again, I’d have taken the break after the second book and then gone from this book straight to the next subseries. There are only 3 subseries left to go, and I’m wondering if the next two will both end in a similar way. Hopefully the last one won’t! The title of the very last book certainly sounds final. show less

De beschrijvende tekst klopt niet helemaal. Claudius Haviks (Klauw) heeft nimmer Hertog Kaspar van Olasko gedood!

De hoofdpersoon in dit boek is niet Claudius Haviks, maar Hertog Kaspar, zijn vijand uit de vorige delen. De hertog heeft verschrikkelijke dingen gedaan. Na te zijn verbannen uit zijn land en naar Novindus te zijn gebracht is het aan Kaspar om te overleven. Dit lukt hem, ternauwernood. Kaspar zweert om terug te keren naar zijn land, en wraak te nemen op Claudius en Quint Havrevulen die zijn tirannieke regime omver wierpen. Niet langer onder de invloed van duistere magiër Leso Varen begint hij meer en meer zijn daden uit het verleden in twijfel te trekken.

En nu.. komt Kaspar in het bezit van iets zo duister en krachtig dat show more het het leven op Midkermia en de rest van de wereld kan vernietigen. En de enige die hem kunnen helpen om het te vernietigen zijn diegene die hem afgezet en verbannen hebben.

Langzaam begint de Hertog te veranderen, en uiteindelijk zal hij het Conclaaf der Schaduwen helpen.

Dit boek is het derde deel in een trilogy, maar is meer een op zich zelf staand verhaal dan een voortgang van de vorige twee delen Klauw van de Zilverhavik en Koning der vossen. Hoewel het boek traag startte kwam het al snel tot een goed te lezen verhaal. Hoewel ik het einde wel zag aankomen, kwam het toch als een verrassing.

Op naar De vlucht van de nachtraven.

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As with the first 2 books in this "trilogy" easy and enjoyable reading.
However it felt more like the first 2 were a duology and this book links it to the next trilogy.
I started the Conclave of Shadows about 20 years after reading the Serpentwar saga, so I can only vaguely recall the past history and characters brought up.

I like the story but found Kaspar to be a rather bland character. He seemed to be more real and almost likeable as a villain in the previous 2 books. In this book he just seems to go with the flow and get dragged along without making too many decisions himself.
Fair enough he has woken from the spell he was under and perplexed by his previous actions but I find his switch from villain to a basically good man a little too show more quick and easy. As is the forgiveness and acceptance by all the people whose lives he tried his hardest to completely ruin for no real reason.

Anyway onto the next trilogy.... show less

After assiduously following the exploits of Talon in th eptrevious two entries in this series, he is rather callously dumped by Feist and we follow the exploits of Kaspar, the former duke of Olasko. Left weaponless and alone on th ewindswept plains of Novindus the former duke has to survive that inhospitable continent's many perils if he is to regain his former throne.

But is he the same person as he was before he was deposed? As he makes his way through all that Novindus can throw at him, Kaspar reluctantly comes to the conclusion that he isn't - not just because the evil influence of his court magician has worn off, but because he has genuinely come to see that his previous life wasn't leading him anywhere he really wanted to be. show more Along with that revelation, Kaspar falls in with a group of other exiles from the Kingdom and it's environs. A trio of traders are all that remain of a larger venture that had attempted to find wealth in this distant land but their discovery of a strange suit of armour was, instead, leading to their deaths. As Kaspar began to understand what they were up against he realised that the.. thing represented a threat to all life on Midkemia and the only ones who could help were the members of the Conclave of Shadows who wanted him dead...

By this time I found the series was getting a little too repetitive in many respects and while it was interesting to see Kaspar changing some of that was a bit unlikely in my opinion show less

(Alistair) So, a return to what I think of as more usual Feist form with Exile’s Return, the third book in the Conclave of Shadows trilogy. Still not the greatest books I’ve ever read or anything, but quite acceptably good high fantasy.

And, yes, an improvement on the former two of this trilogy, which I attribute to my theory, at which I hinted in my review of King of Foxes, that Kaspar of Olasko – especially with redemptive introspection under way – just is a more interesting character than Talwin Hawkins.

On to the next – yes, while this is the third book of a trilogy, that’s only for publishing purposes. This story isn’t complete, and in fact, leads pretty well seamlessly into the Darkwar trilogy which follows it – show more almost a hexalogy sold as two trilogies, you might say. Which is irritating, but what the heck. Already have the next three, after all.

( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/cerebrate/2009/11/exiles-return-raymond-e-fei... ) show less

Given the arse, revenge becomes secondary.

After Talon gets the better of Kaspar previously he is not happy, being stranded and penniless, and somewhat understandably, wants to get some of his own back.

However, events he discovers give him something more important to do with the whole evil magician and associated threats that the Conclave of Shadows wants to stop.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/10/exiles-return-raymond-feist.html