Magician: Apprentice (Turtleback School Library Binding Edition) (Riftwar Saga) ebook

It's been 35 years since I first met Pug, and it is a joy to go back and read again the start of it all from the perspective of one who has seen how it all turns out. "Apprentice" was obviously intended to be a beginning, but it is not an "origin story" in the sense of an author returning to a completed character; Mr. Feist had no idea that his series would grow into what it eventually became. He did, however, republish this volume with some additional material to tie things together a bit more, and it was interesting if not necessarily better to read this version.

The Riftwar books launched the beginning of a golden age of post LOTR fantasy series, to be followed by Weiss/Hickman's Dragonlance and, of course, R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt. If a new reader set out to read those three series -- others will certainly have different favorites, but those are mine -- they will have several years of wonderment ahead.

As thrilled as I am that the Riftwar Saga has finally come to Kindle, I loathe Feist for going back and tacking on numerous sections that were edited out in the original version. They don't change the story much, but the additions—especially in the beginning—turn Pug from a relatively somber, quiet apprentice into a total douche.

It's like Feist saw how George Lucas edited the original Star Wars trilogy for the DVD release and thought it was a great idea. It wasn't.

Additionally, the e-book conversion for this and following books was done with OCR (optical character recognition—basically scanning each page into digitized, editable text), has left it with multiple spelling errors—place where the correct letter is "e" but the software reads it as "c," for instance. It's irritating.

I originally read this series back when it first came out, and I've been (not so) patiently been waiting for the Kindle version. The story is great; always has been, always will be. The characters come to life and the action is almost non-stop. When I'm reading the series (which I've done about 25 times since it's release) I can't put it down. It draws me in and holds my attention. Thankfully I can now carry the whole series with me anytime I go somewhere.

I am going to get right to the point: Every book since the Serpent War series has been worse than the previous one before it. A Crown Imperiled is not a good book and if you are a true fan of Feist you shouldn't be able to read this book without having glaring things jump out at you.

Again, since the Serpent War Saga and really it began with the 4th book of the serpent war saga, his writing is bland and predictable. He is also extremely inconsistent. Feist claims he just knows where the characters go and sits down and writes. He doesn't keep too many notes because he knows all of the characters.

Well the further the series goes the more errors he is making and to hardcore readers, we live and breathe these characters. We notice these glaring mistakes that you just gloss over as "I don't like keeping exact details". Timelines matter when you span hundreds of years! I can't count how many times I have spotted inconsistent ages for the characters over the course of the years these books have spanned. Spend 2 hours and create a timeline for yourself and look at it before starting a new series! Jeez, writing 101.

In one of these previous books, I don't remember which, it is stated that Erik was never married and grew old without knowing what it was like. That is a huge mistake! Your main character from the serpent war saga and you can't even remember what you wrote about him? Sometimes I wonder if you have hit the drinking later on your life and accelerated the memory loss. He married Kitty in the Serpent War Saga and was happily married for years.

You state in A Crown Imperiled, and I Quote: "Ah, could you perhaps make us invisible or something like that? asked Amirantha? Pug Smiled, "I could but you would have to remain motionless". Really? Pug, the same Pug that in the Serpent War Saga was able to render himself Invisible and the Demon with him invisible as the flew over the skies of the old Saaur Planet? So now he can't make people invisible if they move? This is the kind of inconsistent crap I am talking about. Your readers are not stupid, they remember the details.

I also can't count how many times it talks about how Pug the God character of the series can do everything but can never master teleporting. However, in the early series there are plenty of times where it describes in detail him disappearing and teleporting without using a device. Not to mention that his wife, Miranda, was showing him how to do it almost a century ago! He was practicing this a century ago and still he is unable to master it? The greatest magician ever can't figure this out? It is even stated, magic is all one thing. There is really no magic, just the ability to manipulate the stuff. He doesn't have to be a Travel Mage to have the ability to use this spell. Let me tell you why you see this inconsistently brought up in the series. REF uses this as one of Pug's Kryptonite. REF realizes early on that he built a God character, something that in the literary world you don't want to do. You end up writing yourself in a corner with that character if you make them too powerful. So after Pug has been teleporting around, he decides to implement this restriction. It is a weak ass restriction and we all know it and it is increasingly pathetic when you still talk about this weakness 1 century and several series later. Are we supposed to believe the greatest mage and scholar hasn't sought to fix this weakness? He is capable of doing it, following the rules of magic you made for your books. So why hasn't he? Weak writing is why.

One more thing about Pug the great and mighty, his power levels over the years/series/books have always been inconsistent. One moment people are in awe of him and he can "LEVEL MOUNTAINS". Yet in other books he can't keep a shield up that long against the Sauur's shooting arrows at him (Book 4 Serpent War Saga) because it is weakening him. Even this book goes in detail with him fighting some demon army at the beginning of the book. He goes through his VERY TYPICAL descriptions of casting something "White Hot" and "Waves of this and that" as he drops 1 to 10 of the demons at once. This worked for me when I was a Teenager back in the early 90s. Hell it still worked in the late 90s but it doesn't WORK ANYMORE. You need to get more diversified with your magic. You use the same descriptions almost every time when it comes to Magus, Pug, and Miranda. In fact any 3 of them you can substitute their names for each other during fight scenes and not miss a beat. Back to his power level though. Let me give you one example I am referring too. In Rage of a Demon King he creates a gigantic fireball that is described as being the size of the entire ship the emerald queen is on. That is one giant fireball. So fast forward now and you have a demon army on one side and no one else around "yet". Why can't you use something more whole scale destructive? Maybe not a massive fireball that will burn your friends but maybe, well, a sink hole? A Wall of Ice, Thousands of Fire Darts? I don't know, use your imagination, you're a freaking writer for Sarig's sake! Again I can tell you why... Writers block with Pug. He created this ultra-powerful god like character and really didn't know how to handle him after that. How do you give him weaknesses, post development that don't seem contrived and make the readers laugh at you? He couldn't do it, unfortunately.

Now as if this review isn't going to be long enough already, I want to talk about his normal cast of characters. I read multiple reviews of people saying this is a good story or a great story! Are you guys new to the Fantasy Genre? Are you new to Feist? That is the only way I can imagine you calling this or any of his books since Rage of a Demon King, good. Grant it, I did like the book Talon of the Silver Hawk but that was the only one after Rage of a Demon King.

REF uses about 6 different character cutout profiles for all of his characters. They are cookie cutter characters that he re-hashes in every new series. It makes reading his books a chore! In this series you have 3 brothers from Crydee, Hal, Martin, and Brandon. Really using the name Martin again? Come on just change the name at least. Martin is the name sake of Martin Condoin from the Riftwar Saga but, hold your breath for this craziness, he is actually filling the role of Arutha. This is my point exactly. This could be Arutha or Martin's first son, or Guy Du Bas-Tyra, or Erik, Calis, The Dog Of Krondor, or any other military leader in his books. All of his characters are from the same mold with different names and backgrounds but they write the same, sound the same, think the same! This review is already too long but I could create a spreadsheet of all the main POV Characters in all of his books and draw multiple similarities to all of them. The one character that doesn't seem to have anyone like him in all the books is Nakor and oddly enough the god of Luck that is talked about a lot in his last 3 series, does seem to have similarities with Nakor.

REF is the only writer that I read now that when I read his books, it takes me literally 1 night to read them sometimes 2 and I cannot remember anything about the book a year later when his new novel comes out. Again, everything since Book 4 of Serpent War Saga has been one long, badly written, fantasy series. I am ready for him to finish. I am ready to find out what happens to Pug. I have continued buying the Hardback for every book in his series just to skim through the re-hashed crap to find out what happens to Pug.
I am hoping REF takes a LONG break, revisits himself as an author, and comes up with some new material. Material from his heart and something he would want to read. Not these books he puts out every year at the same time just to keep the cash flow coming.

-Long Time Reader, Long Time Fan, Finally setting it straight and not pulling any punches.

One of the great fantasy tales of all times, the extras in this Author's Preferred Edition make a fine story even better. If you've never read the Riftwar series, you owe it to yourself to do so. The two Magician books along with Silverthorn and Darkness At Sethanon will keep you glued to your chair and wanting more when you are through. The stories and characters are fully fleshed, with enough detail and pace to satisfy the most discerning reader.

The epic Saga begins with Magician, I cannot remember ever waiting so eagerly for the remaining books to be released, except for Eddings and The Belgariad and The Mallorean. Pug is an orphan keep boy who dreams of being a great soldier, like his almost brother Tomas. Fate in the hand of Macros, an almost immortal Magician, has other ideas. Macros guides Pug, and Tomas into a startling new future, where the rewards are immense, but death, and something worse than death is also watching and planning.

This book seems quaint almost after decades of backstabbing, incest and brutality or romances disguised as fantasy or worse yet poorly written tripe selected for the author's demographics. Rereading this after more than thirty years this book holds up as solid fantasy. If you like D&D you'll like this, if you like Tolkien you'll like this and you owe it to yourself to read something that isn't grimdark.