Magician: Apprentice

A good book, but for children. I liked the writing style, but the story just did not resonate with me. It talks about a young boy coming to maturity, having to choose a profession for himself and dealing with his feelings for the princess.

He is chosen, rather then choose himself, to be a magician, while his best friend becomes a soldier. The story is very cheerful and with promise of adventure, but there is no conflict and the plot which could be interesting is developed very slowly.

The plot is about the protagonist, Pug, having to learn about his mysterious powers and the threat of an invasion of his homeland from an army from another world. Elves and dwarfs may come together with the humans to fight a common enemy.

By the time the elven prince goes to his room and they're both start to talk it became painfully hard to read the child-focused discussion between them.

Very good sequel the power ramp was satisfying I don't know how there can be problems in the following books when Pug is so strong. The writing is really incredible as always and I felt really engaged the entire time, except for some parts where were pulled away from the action to follow another character. Overall pretty good, there's a couple dull moments but that's to be expected. Ending is super satisfying and as someone who doesn't want to get too involved in the 31 book saga I felt like this was a good stopping point.

I was immediately hooked from the onset. At the start of the first book we are introduced to the main character ‘Pug' who is a local teen-aged orphan boy of limited prospects. He is shortly chosen for an apprenticeship to the local magician Kulgan, much to Pug's surprise as he isn't even aware that he has any magical skills at this point.

Some other notable characters introduced are Pug's best friend Tomas, and also the Princess Carline whom Pug has a slight ‘crush' on. The characters themselves at this point seem a little... flat. It's quite difficult to connect with them or get too emotionally attached to them or the story. Kulgan is a fairly stereotypical wizard, he wears robes and a pointy hat, he has a beard and smokes a pipe, he is mysterious, he has a weird pet creature thing (a sort of small dragon) etc.

Not much happens for a fair chunk of the book. Pug chills out with his buddy, has awkward meetings with the princess, reads a lot of magic books etc. It isn't until the characters become aware of the upcoming invasion that the plot really starts to develop. The plot itself was very promising at first. The invasion via ‘Rift' from an otherworldly race was genius but poorly presented. Feist could have done a lot more with the plot than he did. The plot kept jumping ahead by years and missing out a lot of the action. We didn't even really see the start of the war. They were about to be invaded and then suddenly it was years later and they were tired of fighting? Also the supposedly main character Pug disappears for quite a large chunk of the book.

This is one of the best fantasy that I have ever read. It also happens to the first book of Raymond E. Feist that I've read and I've been hooked to his works ever since. The tale follows the life of two young men looking to be squires and aspiring for glory. Little did they know that the events they would set in motion would put them as unwitting catalysts in a war that engulfs two worlds, and potentially existence itself. The story is very well written and is an engrossing read, filled with intrigue and unexpected twists, but surprisingly still very easy to follow. A definite must-read for fantasy fans.

I read this book for my book club, which always prides itself on choosing SFF books from a wide range of publication dates. This month, we went back to some 80s high fantasy, and it was ... fine. In the book club, people were taking about how books are all essentially “dated” because they are written for the audience of that time, and I definitely see the point. Magician is pretty well written, but also not written for me. It's male-centric and euro-centric, the protagonist is an orphan boy with a great power he doesn't understand, it liberally uses Tolkien-esque conceptions of elves and dwarves and has evil foreigners who show up and must be kept out. The few women in the story are all extremely beautiful (even when the put on PANTS!) and exist mostly for decor. It gets compared a lot to the Belgariad, but the Belgariad had much cooler female characters.

It's also only half a book. In the US, apparently they chopped one book into two to make publication easier (Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master), but the chopping point is abrupt and apparently arbitrary. I know it feels like half a book because it is half a book, but honestly a better ending was about a hundred pages earlier when the protagonist essentially disappears from the story. Not a good move, US publishing.

That said, it is well-written and has some unique things about it (parallel dimensions in high fantasy!), but overall, I'm kind of glad it was chopped into 2 books because I don't feel obligated to read the second one. It gets a “fine” on my list.

Update upon completion: as others have said, the second book (or half) is a vast improvement on the first. Consequently I am upgrading this to a 4 star rating.

The second book feels much more like it's own thing, and less an imitation of other books. The action and events are far more varied and the epithet “epic” seems more appropriate.

Having said that, I don't feel a desire to read more in this universe.



Previous review: At the half-way point (i.e. the end of Book 1), this is proving a bit of a slog, although, on the plus side, at least it is feeling less derivative then the beginning of the story. From reading other reviews, it appears it may pick up from here on in - finger's crossed...

I read this years ago as an adolescent and took the notion to give it another try. I find that many of the fantasy books I read as a kid, before I got my degree in Russian literature, bore me to tears. This started out feeling a little bit that way, but it got better and by the time I got to the second book, I was drawn right in.

I feel that it still lacks a certain something, depth perhaps. Although it's not a short book, so perhaps it's just about right. I'd have liked to have followed Pug's journey at the Academy in more detail; that was the section I enjoyed the most. Although I realise that a lot has been left unrevealed for the sequels. Thankfully I'm blessed with a poor memory and can't remember anything about the sequels. I'm not going to dive straight in to Silverthorn though.

I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could, but I'm happy to round up rather than down for this one as enjoyed re-reading it more than I thought I would.

So many names, to go with all the races and peoples and legends and languages and countries and cities and histories, that they all start to blur into one random character string and you forget who everyone is supposed to be. And sooooo loooooong. But I guess that comes with the territory.

Thought I was a fantasy fan, but perhaps not the sweeping epics. I was bored by LOTR, I was bored by this for much of the time. Horrified to discover that this is part one of a trilogy - and that trilogy is only one of a set of NINE sequences about the Riftwars. You're very welcome to it.

Having said all that, I can't deny I was swept up at times, and despite the tedium I found I did care and even though most of it was entirely formulaic and predictable, I was still happy when “things turned out alright in the end”.

I debated reading this after the first installment, and am glad I did. The story gains strength and depth in this second half of Magician, in my opinion.

I really liked getting to know the Tsuranni. The contrast of the two cultures appeals to me. There is a deeper look into Pug's magical power, but it remains mysterious. It's like having a quick glimpse of a Christmas present that must wait to be revealed.

Overall, I like the characters and how they play out in the story. I look forward to more adventures in the Kingdom.

A fantastical tale of war between two nations across a rift in the fabric of the universe. At it's heart it is a tale of invasion from an eastern influenced and highly martial people. Told from both sides of the rift, this is a wonderful story where one is introduced to characters from the lowliest orphan boy and his best friend to the children of royalty. Experience the lives of these characters irrevocably change as Feist weaves his magic and creates a truly masterful fantasy epic. As strong a beginning to a fantasy series as you can get where the author introduces the reader to the Kingdom of the Isles and world of Midkemia.

A book that has been read multiple times with the sense of joy never diminishing. I already look forward to the next time that I read this book and reacquaint myself with Pug, Tomas, Arutha and Martin.

Can be read as a standalone should the reader so choose.

It's readable, but it's basic in terms of fantasy novels. This book is thirty years old at this point. Fantasy has come a long way, but it's fun to revisit some of the cliches and clunky dialogue that launched the genre. Feist is a capable author and creates characters and situations that will bond you to them, but there are better books. Feist's later works are good examples of that.