Lauren Cox Cox itibaren San Francisco, Tunja, Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia
One of the best novels ever to be released? In a word yes. Magician remains the greatest stand alone fantasy novel ever to be published despite being a quarter of a century old. Truly epic in scale the novels main focus is the story of Pug, from his humble beginnings as orphaned kitchen boy, to his apprentice and mastery of the magic arts. So far so normal, as far as fantasy novels go. What sets this novel apart is the sheer scale of the thing, it is set over 25 years for a start. Also it is set over two worlds, Midkemia; your typical western medieval based fantasy world, and Kelewan: An eastern based world. The sheer volume of side stories that enrich the novel and in no way detract from the main stories of the Riftwar and Pug's journey make this work special. Some of them of the top of my head; Tomas' metamorphosis into a dragon lord, the seige of Crydee, the madness of the King, possible civil war approaching, the treachery of Black Guy, martial law in Krondor, Arutha's trip to Krondor, Princess Anita and the Mockers, the romance between Princess Carline and Pug, the romance between Princess Carline and Roland, the romance between Anita and Arutha, the migration north of the Dark Elves, the effect of the invasion on the dwarven peoples, the effect of the invasion on the Elven people, Kesh taking advantage of a weak Kingdom, the great game of the Tsurani, the introduction of cavalry to the Tsurani, the Assemblies politics, the Emperor of Tsurani and his policies, the parentage of Martin and more. The characters stand out as well. From Macros the Black, surely the most iconic mysterious magician since Merlin. To Father Tully, the priest who teaches Pug to read and write the secondary characters are both memorable and fully fleshed. The plot is also fantastic, although it spans years and multiple worlds it never feels rushed and all of the various side plots add to the main story, the invasion of the Kingdom of the Isles. Any review should touch on the negatives of a novels as well. Feist is not the best technical writer in the world, his prose can be a little flat and he overuses some words. Frankly however this is one of the best novels ever published, its a pity that Feist has never written another book even half as good.
Reading this was such a pointless waste of time. Things just get worse and worse for Tess and I can't help feeling that a lot of the time it's her fault. I wanted to smack some sense into her when she continued to moon over Angel Clare - who's the worst kind of hypocrite and didn't deserve her anyway.