Markus's Reviews > Magician

Peace and prosperity flourish in the strong Kingdom of the Isles on the world of Midkemia. Upon the death of King Rodric the Third, his son Rodric the Fourth was elected king by the Congress of Lords after Prince Erland of Krondor and Duke Borric of Crydee, both prominent and powerful noblemen of the royal line, pulled out of the succession in favour of their nephew, thus solidifying his claim on the throne. But the young king is set upon a dark path towards the depths of madness, and the stability of the kingdom is threatened both by his own reckless impulses and the machinations of the scheming eastern nobles attempting to control him.

In the city of Crydee in the far west, two young boys are approaching the age of apprenticeship in a certain trade. Tomas is training to one day become a warrior in the Duke’s household guard, while his childhood friend Pug has a destiny greater still. But both of their lives are drastically changed when a strange and alien-looking ship wrecks on the shores of Crydee, carrying mysterious warriors from another world. All passengers are dead before they can be interrogated, and none of the Duke’s many advisors are able to identify the vessel’s origins.

Pug and Tomas are chosen to travel alongside Duke Borric and his son Arutha to the far east of the Kingdom, to warn the king and the nobles of the east of the imminent danger to the kingdom. Their great journey takes them through abandoned dwarven mines, the isle of a black sorcerer and the grand city of Krondor, before they finally reach the capital of Rillanon and the court of the king. And even then, the story has just begun. For when they return to the west after speaking with the King, a rift between worlds has been torn open, and an invasion has begun…

The story of Magician is mostly split into three different points of view. The tale of Lyam and Arutha is the tale of the princes. The tale of the two sons of a powerful but relatively minor duke who rise up to become two of the most important military and political leaders of a kingdom in grave peril. Lyam is the elder brother, a kindly and lighthearted man, and honourable to a fault. Arutha, in contrast to Lyam, is the pragmatic, silent and calculating kind of a man who rarely shows his face with a smile, but whose actions are still based on good intentions for the future of the realm.

Tomas’ tale is the tale of the warrior. The tale of a young castle boy who finds a dark and mysterious artifact in the depths of the dwarven mines, an artifact of an evil long forgotten. His life is spent training as a warrior among the dwarves and the elves, eventually becoming something of a legend in the lands of the elder races, for good or ill.

And finally, there is Pug’s tale. The tale of the magician. Pug has spent his childhood dreaming of becoming a warrior like his friend Tomas, but lacks the physical strength and the skill at arms. When the young boys of Crydee line up for the ceremony in which they will be chosen for the different apprenticeships, Pug experiences the worst nightmare that has befallen him so far: he is the only one not chosen by any master. But as he stands alone and in shame in the middle of the great courtyard, a voice suddenly speaks his name. The voice of Kulgan, the Duke’s court magician. And thus Pug’s career in magic begins. A career that will eventually take him through the rift and into the world of the strange invaders.

Besides the protagonists, there are lots of interesting characters in this book. One such is King Rodric, a young man of grand vision whose madness threatens to destroy all. Another is Princess Carline, sister to Lyam and Arutha, whose courage and determination are almost as great as her beauty. Then there is Guy du Bas-Tyra, the greatest general in the kingdom, but a sworn enemy of Crydee and Krondor. And last but not least there is Macros the Black, the ancient and enigmatic magician who inhabits the fabled Sorcerer’s Isle.

The most impressive part about Magician, is the pure scope of it. It is far from the longest book I have read in number of pages, but it is the magnitude of the story that is particularly impressive. The book spans more than a decade in the history of Midkemia. It tells of bloody wars, journeys to far lands and shady conspiracies. It tells of different cities and lands and continents and even worlds. There are tons of characters with completely different personalities and motivations, and the story, while mostly predictable, is filled with twists and turns and revelations.

Another remarkable thing about this book is that there is no evil. At least not in the normal sense of the word. There are ambitious and cruel characters, but there is no dark lord nor any demons to be found here. To be honest, there is actually not even a proper antagonist. Only a story of different people acting differently for different reasons.

Feist’s writing is pretty great. I would not go so far as to call it remarkable, and this is not the kind of book I will frequently quote in the future, but the overall writing is exactly as good as it needs to be to serve the purpose of the book; which is to be an entertaining and fascinating fantasy novel.

It also needs to be said that there are strong similarities with Tolkien. Occasionally even stronger than the same similarities found in books like The Sword of Shannara. The overall plot is quite unique, but certain scenes appear to be taken straight out of The Lord of the Rings. This did not bother me in any way when reading the book, but I know that a lot of people are bothered by such a thing.

I truly enjoyed reading this book. Had I based my rating solely on the objective quality of books, I would say that this one deserves five stars. My ratings are normally more or less purely subjective, however, and there were a couple of aspects about the book I did not enjoy as much as the others. The main characters, with the exception of Arutha, were rather dull and uninteresting; the switches between different point of view was done rather clumsily at times (though that can be excused as this was the author’s first major fantasy novel), and there were also aspects of the story itself I did not really care much for. Still, I would say that this book deserves a place among the greatest of the works of fantasy, and I really look forward to continuing with the series.