Silverthorn by Raymond E Feist

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Summary Characters are many, varied and full of life.

This is the second volume in Raymond E. Feist’s trilogy The Riftwar Saga. Silverthorn begins a year after the events of Magician and Prince Arutha’s reign has been peaceful. Jimmy the Hand, a young thief, uncovers a plot to assassinate him and the young King now faces new challenges.

The first attempt on the King’s life is unsuccessful but another attempts ends with his bride, Anita, being struck by a poisoned arrow on their wedding day. The cure lies with the plant Silverthorn and this can only be found within Dark Elf capital of Sar Sargoth.

Arutha, with the aid of Jimmy the Hand must find the antidote and discover the truth behind the power that can raise the dead.

Silverthorn, being the sequel to Raymond E. Feist’s majestic Magician, had an extremely tough act to follow. It doesn’t manage it but the magnitude of the task is similar in stature to asking Professor Tolkien to write a sequel to the Lord of the Rings that was more impressive. This is not easily achieved.

The book takes quite a long time to get started but is worth the wait. Silverthorn centres on Arutha, the young King of Rillanon and Jimmy the Hand from the Guild of Mockers. There are excellent twists and turns throughout the story and the action is more intense than in Magician. This leads to a completely different “feel” than to that of its predecessor and perhaps this may be why few would regard this as an “epic”.

Silverthorn, as already mentioned, is a sequel but can be classed a stand-alone novel in it’s own right. There are familiar characters in the form of Pug, Tomas, Laurie, Carline and Marcos the Black but you need not have read Magician to follow the storyline here. The book begins with a discussion between Laurie and Carline as to the best time to get married!

This addition to the Riftwar Saga is an enjoyable read without, understandably, reaching the heights of its predecessor. The characters are many, varied and full of life and you will happily join them on the road to the Dark Elf capital but you will not be left breathless as you were with the original. All in all, a worthwhile read without pushing out any boundaries.

Silverthorn (Riftwar Saga 2) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Raymond E. Feist
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 432
Publication date: 2006-09-04
Publisher: CollinsVoyager

RRP: £8.99
Lowest new price: £4.02
Lowest used price: £3.68

Silverhorn is the sequel to Magician, which, like a venerable patriarch, 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 Fiest has gone on to chronicle other aspects of his invented worlds. With Janny Wurts he wrote the "Empire" trilogy, which charts the rise, through the rigid patriarchy of the Empire of Tsuranuanni, of a remarkable female heroine, a woman who eventually reaches the heights of the imperial throne itself Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire and Mistress of Empire. 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

Silverthorn (Riftwar Saga 2) (Amazon.com)

Author: Raymond E. Feist
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 432
Publication date: 2006-09-04
Publisher: HarperVoyager

RRP:
Lowest new price:
Lowest used price: $18.87

Cameron from North Carolina
"Simply put, it's a great book, and worth the price."

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