kale
Well-Known Member
I saw the title of this thread and thought I'll have to have a go at that.
I was first introduced to Magician by a work colleague. This was at a time when fantasy fiction was a subject I very rarely took any interest in. I found the whole concept a little twee and uninteresting. Nonetheless, I took the book home and had my first introduction to Pug, Tomas and the world of Crydee. After a few chapters the necessary concentration needed to read a book of such magnitude began to wane. I didn't find any problem with the writing or the imagining of the world. At best I thought it quite endearing, at it's worst typically generic. I returned the book and forgot all about it.
I few years passed and I came across another Feist book on one of my usual charity shop ventures.
Faerie Tale.
I liked the concept of this story. A recently moved suburban, American family's lives are changed by an invasion of fiends and creatures from a corruptive fantasy world. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it's interesting and well paced storyline.
This set me off, once again, on the Magician path. Or at the very least a self alert on a subliminal search for it.
After spotting it some months later I put aside some quality reading time with the intention of finally reading it.
Again, to my very real dismay, I gave up after the requisite chapters. I presumed I just couldn't grasp the nettle that was fantasy. Or so I thought. Then along came George RR Martin and he opened the doors to the worlds I really felt I wanted to enter.
From then I couldn't get enough of the cavalcade of different authors and the stories they had to tell.
Freda Warrington, David Gemmel, KJ Parker, Robin Hobb, the list goes on. Now I was finally enmeshed in the whole genre and I couldn't seem to find enough to sate this sudden, insatiable appetite. As you can probably guess this was the time the said book once again raised it's strange and unfathomable head.
My better half had, through mine own strangely insistent recommendations, delved into the Feist series and resurfaced entranced and captivated by it. So, blah, blah, blah...started to read it one quiet and undisturbed night.
What seemed like an endless epoch of crawling on poisoned, shattered glass I finished Magician and subsequently flagellated myself out of self hatred for having to endure those 700 + pages.
Endure is too nice a word...think of a worse definition and replace it.
I can honestly say I've never enjoyed a book less than I did Feist's magnum opus. There are so many collective problems with it that I can't possibly cite them all. I would seriously be frightened of overloading this sites database with my foaming declarations.
In Feist's defence I can appreciate that this was his first novel (I'm probably going to be put right on this statement) and his primary introduction into the world of writing fantasy. That doesn't take away the responsibility of the editorial mess that this book is. You would have thought someone in the chain of command at Harper/Collins would have used the editing marker with a lot more flourish.
But that is really by the by. If the only problem was poor editing I don't think I'd be on this particular page bleating my protestations and despair at the unlikely successful niche this book has carved in the SciFi/ Fantasy world.
The plot runs out of steam after the first Rift ship hits the beaches of Middle Europe Crydee. Not because of the lack of potential the idea has, but because of the lack of flair and imagination needed to sustain the fantastic concept of the story. And Feist just doesn't seem to have that well of knowledge at his command.
To describe Pug, Tomas and the cast of Magician has one dimensional characters is flattery in the extreme. Initially you can feel yourself cultivating a certain amount of empathy and fondness for them. But then Feist forgets about characterisation and decides to imbue all of the population and locations with about as much depth as a milk bottle top.
Dialogue is one of the mainstays of any interactive, fiction medium. It focuses the reader/viewer and stabilises the relationship between both. In this, yet again, Feist falls flat on his face. I could not believe the amount of inanities and rhetoric most of the characters let stumble out of their mouths. Pug's use of language from servant boy to trained Magician is such a mammoth gulf in character he might as well be speaking in an entirely new dialect.
I could go on, but like the contents of Feist's book, I've lost interest in trying to be interesting. That's what the majority of this tome felt like, an exercise in how not to write. I'm just happy it didn't soil my opinion of fantasy forever.
I was first introduced to Magician by a work colleague. This was at a time when fantasy fiction was a subject I very rarely took any interest in. I found the whole concept a little twee and uninteresting. Nonetheless, I took the book home and had my first introduction to Pug, Tomas and the world of Crydee. After a few chapters the necessary concentration needed to read a book of such magnitude began to wane. I didn't find any problem with the writing or the imagining of the world. At best I thought it quite endearing, at it's worst typically generic. I returned the book and forgot all about it.
I few years passed and I came across another Feist book on one of my usual charity shop ventures.
Faerie Tale.
I liked the concept of this story. A recently moved suburban, American family's lives are changed by an invasion of fiends and creatures from a corruptive fantasy world. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it's interesting and well paced storyline.
This set me off, once again, on the Magician path. Or at the very least a self alert on a subliminal search for it.
After spotting it some months later I put aside some quality reading time with the intention of finally reading it.
Again, to my very real dismay, I gave up after the requisite chapters. I presumed I just couldn't grasp the nettle that was fantasy. Or so I thought. Then along came George RR Martin and he opened the doors to the worlds I really felt I wanted to enter.
From then I couldn't get enough of the cavalcade of different authors and the stories they had to tell.
Freda Warrington, David Gemmel, KJ Parker, Robin Hobb, the list goes on. Now I was finally enmeshed in the whole genre and I couldn't seem to find enough to sate this sudden, insatiable appetite. As you can probably guess this was the time the said book once again raised it's strange and unfathomable head.
My better half had, through mine own strangely insistent recommendations, delved into the Feist series and resurfaced entranced and captivated by it. So, blah, blah, blah...started to read it one quiet and undisturbed night.
What seemed like an endless epoch of crawling on poisoned, shattered glass I finished Magician and subsequently flagellated myself out of self hatred for having to endure those 700 + pages.
Endure is too nice a word...think of a worse definition and replace it.
I can honestly say I've never enjoyed a book less than I did Feist's magnum opus. There are so many collective problems with it that I can't possibly cite them all. I would seriously be frightened of overloading this sites database with my foaming declarations.
In Feist's defence I can appreciate that this was his first novel (I'm probably going to be put right on this statement) and his primary introduction into the world of writing fantasy. That doesn't take away the responsibility of the editorial mess that this book is. You would have thought someone in the chain of command at Harper/Collins would have used the editing marker with a lot more flourish.
But that is really by the by. If the only problem was poor editing I don't think I'd be on this particular page bleating my protestations and despair at the unlikely successful niche this book has carved in the SciFi/ Fantasy world.
The plot runs out of steam after the first Rift ship hits the beaches of Middle Europe Crydee. Not because of the lack of potential the idea has, but because of the lack of flair and imagination needed to sustain the fantastic concept of the story. And Feist just doesn't seem to have that well of knowledge at his command.
To describe Pug, Tomas and the cast of Magician has one dimensional characters is flattery in the extreme. Initially you can feel yourself cultivating a certain amount of empathy and fondness for them. But then Feist forgets about characterisation and decides to imbue all of the population and locations with about as much depth as a milk bottle top.
Dialogue is one of the mainstays of any interactive, fiction medium. It focuses the reader/viewer and stabilises the relationship between both. In this, yet again, Feist falls flat on his face. I could not believe the amount of inanities and rhetoric most of the characters let stumble out of their mouths. Pug's use of language from servant boy to trained Magician is such a mammoth gulf in character he might as well be speaking in an entirely new dialect.
I could go on, but like the contents of Feist's book, I've lost interest in trying to be interesting. That's what the majority of this tome felt like, an exercise in how not to write. I'm just happy it didn't soil my opinion of fantasy forever.
