Magician by Raymond E Feist

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Summary A powerful and memorable book.

The story begins in Crydee, a frontier outpost in the Kingdom of the Isles. An orphaned young boy named Pug becomes a master magician’s apprentice and two world’s destinies are forever changed. The peace that he has known all his short life disappears and is replaced by war in the shape of invaders from another world. A magically created rift in space brings together the two worlds, the world that Pug has always known and the world of the invading Tsuranuanni.

Tomas will inherit a legacy of savage power from an ancient civilization. Pug's destiny is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic...

This is an epic tale of intrigue and action. Raymond E. Feist has an amazing imagination and here he brings to us a war between two worlds reminiscent of Medieval Europe and Japan in the time of the Samurai. This book is not short (650+ pages) but it never feels overly long as the fine narrative guides you effortlessly through the story. The character development is also excellent and they come alive in your mind and leave you genuinely caring about what happens to them. The plot twists plus the use of two culturally different worlds make for very interesting reading.

The story is set in Midkemia, a world created by Feist which also includes an impressive back history. This is the first (and by far the best) of the series called the Riftwar Saga. Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon complete the trilogy.

The chapter in which Pug sees the beginning of worlds is possibly one of the finest in fantasy literature. Magician was voted the 89th most popular book of all time in the BBC's Big Read Top 100.

This is an extremely powerful and memorable book. If you gain any enjoyment whatsoever from reading fantasy then this is a novel that you simply cannot afford not to read. Understandably, this is one of the highest regarded books in the world.

Magician (Riftwar Saga) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Raymond E. Feist
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 704
Publication date: 1993-06-28
Publisher: Collins

RRP: £8.99
Lowest new price: £2.61
Lowest used price: £0.01

Like a venerable patriarch, Magician stands at the head of a great tribe of fantasy writing. When Raymond Feist's enormous novel was published, critics called it "the best new fantasy concept in years", and Feist has refined and explored that concept over a dozen novels. His "concept" was to bring together two (and later, more) whole, intricately realised fantasy worlds. Midkemia is a Tolkienian realm, a European- Medieval series of kingdoms in which magic is prominent, and where men share the earth with dwarves and elves. Feist's genius was inventing another sword and sorcercy realm based more closely on eastern models, the Empire of Tsuranuanni, as vast as Ancient China, as formalised and devoted to the arts of war as a samurai Japan. A magical rift in time-space brings these two worlds clashing together, and the young boy Pug and his soldier friend Tomas are thrown into the ensuing maelstrom of invasion and epic battle, before embarking on a more fundamental magical journey towards the very roots of evil itself. Feist's two sequels to Magician, Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon complete the richly conceived Riftwar Saga, and Feist has gone on to chronicle other aspects of his invented worlds. More recently he has returned to the world of Medkemia, and to his hero Pug, with the Serpentwar saga, beginning with Shadow of a Dark Queen and continuing with Rise of a Merchant Prince, Rage of a Demon King and Shards of a Broken Crown. Heroic Fantasy is a crowded-enough field, but Feist stands out in it for his sheer inventive power, the scope and range of his narratives, the diversity of his characters and his thundering battle sequences. Start reading here, and you may find yourself unable to stop until you have followed the saga right up to date. --Adam Roberts
Amazon.co.uk Review

Magician (Riftwar Saga) (Amazon.com)

Author: Raymond E. Feist
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 704
Publication date: 1993-06-28
Publisher: Collins

RRP: $16.50
Lowest new price: $3.83
Lowest used price: $3.67

Raymond E. Feist's classic fantasy epic, Magician, has enchanted readers for over twenty years. The revised edition was prepared to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its publication, and incorporates over 15,000 words of text omitted from previous editions. At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master magician -- and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever. Suddenly the peace of the Kingdom is destroyed as mysterious alien invaders swarm the land. Pug is swept up into the conflict but for him and his warrior friend, Tomas, an odyssey into the unknown has only just begun. Tomas will inherit a legacy of savage power from an ancient civilization. Pug's destiny is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.
Product Description

Duncan from Scotland
"I have read many, many fantasy novels and this was one of the first. I find that this is still one of the best. The fact that the story concerns two worlds makes this one of the most interesting, thought-provoking and enjoyable novels. A must read for any fantasy fans but it is a shame that Raymond E Feist never reached these heights again."

Ed from Nottingham
"If anyone is new to the fantasy genre and doesn't really know what book to start with - this is the one! This is an enjoyable, exciting book which is well written - and is very easy to read. The character development is probably the best in any book I have ever read, and you really feel for the main character and share the experiences."

Dan from Tunbridge Wells
"This book is superb and I still remember writing a letter to the publisher after I read it (I was 15, so perhaps a little over-keen), suggesting he write sequels. Little did I know what was already in the pipeline.... All - most - of the Midkemia and Kelewan stories have been fun, but some part of me wishes he'd stopped at either the end of Magician or A Darkness At Sethanon. Everything since then has lessened the impact of this book somewhat. It's been a great cash cow, but it would have been good if he'd been able to write about a completely different universe. That said, I'm looking forward to reading Wrath Of A Mad God... albeit a library copy"

Dean from Portsmouth
"A great book with a free flowing and exciting narrative. One of the best of Feist's stories alongside the Mistress of the Empire series."

Sam from Chicago
"An absolutely horrific novel. I have to admit, the plot is acceptable. Yet the others, especially Feist's writing is almost unbearable, and his characters are too shallow and undeveloped. For instance, Feist describes Arutha as quiet and sly, and Lyam as cheerful and adorable, yet as far as the dialogues go, Arutha talks as much as Lyam. I can't even detect the slyness of his character in any part of the book except when Feist states he is sly. Another example is how Feist describes the elves. He states they "had pointed ears." Well duh! It is obvious elves have pointed ears. That's their trademark. His bad writing is even more evident in the dialogues. The characters are talking like robots, and they seemed to be talking to the readers more than to each other. For instance, Laurie does not need to say Katala is prettier than Almorella, because he or Pug does not need to know this fact. However, it is necessary for Feist to establish to the reader that Pug's girl is hotter than any other girl in the world, so he placed it there, although he probably knows clearly that the phrase is unnecessary. (Here's a funny test you should take when you read this book. Just cover up the characters' names in every dialogue and try to figure out who's talking what. Trust me, you wouldn't know who is talking what because they all talk in the same tone, language, etc." Another glaring problem with this book is that it has virtually no description. For instance, when Feist is describing the waves of Tsurani soldiers attacking Crydee, he just describes it as "And they still came." What kind of description is that? It could be described vividly like, "a horde of black-armoured men like demons from hell, ripped through the thick fabric of silence that lingered above the battlefield with their cries, and marched up to the walls in tight columns, their boots scathed through the earth like ploughs in the desert...etc." Phrases like this could always use some descriptive juices, and it would put more emphasis on the battle scenes. And the character development is too superficial and unrealistic. For instance, Roland became a man in just two chapters and was able to snag Carline with only a few choice words. Nobody matures that fast, even characters in Hollywood movies. This is just an example of bad writing, as Mittelmark in "How not to write a novel" describes it as "The Underpants Gnomes", where crucial steps are omitted since the author does not know how to get from point A to point B, in this case from a immature Roland to a mature Roland. The last problem with this book is that the worlds Feist's portrays in his book are just plainly undeveloped. They do have potential, yet Feist failed to develop them vividly. For instance, the Tsurani world is just another form of Eastern Asia, and nothing of his creation, therefore is uninteresting. And to cover this up, he creates creatures like the Then, and insect-men that are not appealing so that it appears as though he created the world. I'm not saying one cannot base off of something else. All writers do, even Joyce and Bradbury. However, in the case with Feist, it has gone offhand. Architecture, every clothes they wore (excluding armour), and their customs are all of those from Asia. To be acceptable, the book needs to create a more concise hierarchical system, and a new form of government and kingdoms that is nothing similar to Asia. He is welcomed to use the appearances of Japanese to describe the Tsurani. But Japan's institutions, and its customs should be left untouched, if that is the case. Otherwise, it makes the readers wonder where the credibility of this creation lies. Overall, Feist's failure to display a realistic view of his world to his readers, write a well developed sentences and paragraphs to enrapture the readers' attention, and show clearly the development of his numerous characters that are like stick figures in the book made me rate this book one star out of ten."

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