The Magician's Gift
Way way back in the long ago times of my youth I wanted to read. I know, what kid wants to read? But I did. First, I read comic books: The Amazing Spider-Man, The Uncanny X-Men and a few others my local supermarket carried. This was long before I'd even heard of a comic book shop or knew what treasures could be found in book stores.
While my mother was an avid read, she spent more time sharing her pulp romance books through friends than perusing the aisles of the local B. Dalton's. My grandmother, also a reader, would travel to the local used bookstore and buy her crime thrillers and horror novels. As far as I knew my father never read anything but the newspaper and none of my brothers were pleasure readers, either. No one ever introduced me to bookstores before I made the conscious decision to read a book, nor comic book stores or any other specialty shops until I was a little older and driving myself around where I could determine my own agenda, spend time where I wanted to and spend money where I wanted to do business.
I really enjoyed reading comic books and while others were talking about the cool new artists, I was enveloped in the words, my eyes following one voice bubble after the other. The stories, especially in the The Amazing Spider-Man and the X-Men were based on characters and drama not kapow!, thump! and wham! But I wanted more. Twenty-some pages gave me about 15 minutes of cognitive vacation before the story ended and I had to wait another 30 days for the next installment.
So, I decided to try a book.
There would be no pictures, instead I'd be forced to envision the story in my mind's eye instead of appreciating the artist's rendition of the writer's words. Did I want to read a book -- something more than 30 or 40 pages? Wasn't that like school work? You have to remember, I was merely in junior high, somewhere around 13 or 14 years old. The summers in Florida were hot and muggy and I needed something to while away the sweltering days. Remember, this was before I could drive and the beaches were too far for a 13 year old to walk to, or even bicycle to, on his own.
I can't remember the exact details, but one day I was at the local mall and as my mother, brother and I passed the B. Dalton's bookstore I excused myself and went inside. The store was small, maybe 1000 square feet. The walls has shelves, the aisles were shelves, and there was the occasional table which had even more books laid out to grab the passerby's attention.
At the time, I didn't know what I wanted to read. Horror, like Grandma's Stephen King? Some sort of thriller? Maybe science fiction books since I liked Star Wars and Star Trek (movies)? In the end, I decided to read books about people using magic. Since I'd started reading with comic books which focused on people with supernatural abilities, I thought if I was going to give a novel a try it should also be with supernatural abilities. So, I headed over to the science fiction section intent on finding something to keep me busy for more than 30 minutes.
At the time, and still to this day, the science fiction and fantasy sections are grouped together in most book stores. You'd find books about magical swords right next to books about warp drives; books about elves and ogres next to books about aliens and laser pistols; and books based in physics and astronomy next to books relying on prophecy and pantheons of gods.
In retrospect, I think part of the reason I wanted fantasy over science fiction is there was plenty of science fiction on the television. We had Star Trek: TNG, Star Wars movies on syndication, Alien Nation, Buck Rogers reruns and other shows. I was already getting my sci-fi fix and didn't even realize what was happening. I just knew I wanted something different.
So, I looked for the "magic" books. Books about tossing lightning, wizards and prophecy. I can't remember exactly what I looked for, but I do remember seeing a book simply titled: Magician: Apprentice. I picked it up, read the back cover, set it down and moved on. The description didn't sound attention grabbing at all:
Without any other plan I grabbed the first book in the Riftwar Saga. To be honest, I didn't know what a "saga" was, nor had I ever heard of a "trilogy" before grabbing that book off the shelf that day -- I was just grabbing a book.
I read that book. Then the follow-up, Magician: Master. And then the others: Silverthorne and A Darkness at Sethanon. And then Faerie Tale. When I'd read everything Feist had written I branched out to other authors: Terry Brooks, The Belgariad and at that very same B. Dalton's I picked up The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan's first book in the Wheel of Time, a series that also wrapped up this year. I read and read and read. When Raymond E. Feist came out with a new book, I read that one and then I read more. I read really good fantasy and really bad fantasy over the years and when a new Midkemia novel came out, I read that one too. For a while I did take a break from reading (Basic Training and AIT will do that for you) and then again when I was deployed to support Bosnia and books were scarce. So scarce in fact that to satisfy my need to read I resorted to reading a couple of terrible horror books (did people find those scary?) and a crime thriller by Dean Koontz.
When my life stabilized again (re: redeployment back to Germany) I started reading avidly again. I picked up A Game of Thrones and then read even more books. I read books on a variety of subjects to have a broad knowledge-base about the fantasy novels I was reading: Celtic deities, medieval cultures, elves, dwarves and more.
And then I took another break from reading, this time for college. Who had time for novels when papers were due, case studies needed review and each class seemed to have at least three $80+ books?
I still read whenever I can. I still prefer fantasy novels over just about any other genre although I have read some hard core sci-fi, detective novels, a couple of books that were supposed to be horror and a couple that were supposed to be modern fantasy but turned out to be paranormal erotica.
However, whenever a new book about Pug and Midekemia came out, I'd drop what I was doing and catch up on old friends from my youth.
Not that I'm that old now, mind you, but there is a difference between being a young bright eyed youth and a man with years and experience behind him.
With all the reading I'd been able to accomplish over the years I noticed a change when I came back to Midkemia. It was dull. Each "rift war" was just a larger war than the last, but in the end they were all the same. The generational characters had no depth and even the arcing characters, such as Pug, seemed without passion, prejudice or personality. Pug, the main POV character in the first books, while important to the salvation of the duchy, kingdom, hemisphere, world, other worlds, other realms, etc. was always paramount to the story, his time in the books was limited. He seemed to suddenly always have the answers or skill to overcome his antagonist.
I nearly left Midkemia, writing off the series' as simple enough for new readers to the genre, but not intellectually stimulating enough for me.
This lack of character time for the main protagonist was most prevalent in the (apparently) final book in the rift war series: Magician's End. For the vast majority of the book Pug and his magical comrades are swept away by a mysterious force to learn lessons they will need in order to fight what is, apparently, a black hole given personification -- or rather, demonification. Pug's character, now hundreds of years old, must learn about astrophysics in order to stop the destruction of his homeworld and all worlds. However, much of the book is about Kingdom politics and ensuring what you thought would come to pass does come to pass. There are no surprises in this book.
What really annoys me about Feist's writing is how he retools the past to meet his current story. I understand he probably wasn't expecting to write these characters in this world for 30 years, but when you're running out of pages and need something to happen he merely has the characters say: "Oh, I've been planning on this for decades/generations." Really? Four or five chapters of how the universe expands and mentioning every character he's ever written, but we never see these "plans" that were put in place over the course of dozens of books, even to the point where other integral characters are shocked at the revelation?
Raymond Feist's writing, looking back, seems very narrow. As I said before, his characters are very one dimensional and seemed to be placeholders for actions instead of fully thought out three-dimensional people. It is as though he was trying to use perfect fantasy writing archetypes to fill his character-base instead of real people with desires and flaws. This is where George R.R. Martin excels in his writing. The characters in Feist's novels sort of remind me of the old Dragonlance books where, if a character needed a sword, a sword would magically appear; if a character needed a spell, he would devise a spell within a couple of sentences, even if he or she was using magic he or she didn't understand; if a character needed to survive, a miracle of instinct would help them survive a no-win situation.
What am I trying to say? Hmmm... Raymond Feist wrote an interesting series about a war erupting between two cultures across the stars. The one society was able to create a rift in space-time to invade a kingdom from within. Straddling both cultures was an orphan boy and his comrades. he had lofty goals and great fresh idea (even now, as a more experienced reader, it's still a novel approach to the genre), but the characters and the environment fell stale. Where there was opportunity to explore cultural differences and the evolution of a nation, he merely had the characters doing things to preserve the status quo.
Afterwards there was a Serpent War, a Demon War and a Chaos War. In between these wars were other trials and tribulations for various characters, giving Feist a chance to flesh out his world making. However, in the overall scheme of things, it seemed like he was trying too hard to tie past events together as one large multi-generational plan by the ultimate antagonist, a being that defied time and space, being everywhere and nowhere all at once. Although one character barely had a supporting role in a chapter or two and his character was never truly explored, he was a pivoting point for the heroes to save the day. It seemed as though the author was trying to wrap up his first trilogy with the last book. I don't know, it just came across as though whenever something convenient needed to happen, something convenient happened although there was no buildup to those "convenient" events.
Which could be understandable if he's trying to wrap up the books nice and neatly, but the way the story played out made me wanting -- wishing -- for more. not more stories, but more depth of this story, one of his better books in years.
As a older kid, or a young man, the Rift War Saga brought me into reading fantasy books. It was light, easy to digest and had all the fantasy 13 or 14 year old boy could want: magic, elves, swords and dragons. Would I have read every book in the series had I picked up the first one as an adult? Probably not. Well, maybe. At least the original 4 books of the Rift War Saga, probably not the continuing sagas of Raymond Feist's series of escalating wars.
Regardless, the characters of the books have been with me for more than 20 years. Whenever a hot summer day comes along and a cool breeze lessens the blow of the scorching sun, I think about Pug learning magic on the western coast in the duchy of Crydee. When certain songs come on the radio they take me back to days when Pug was a orphan kitchen boy with no expectations of a future other than a lifelong servant in a rural keep. As dull as they are, the characters Tomas, Pug, Arutha, the twenty or so Jimmys or James', Nakor and more were pivotal in shaping my preference for fantasy books. Had I picked up another book, a sci-fi novel or not picked up anything that day in the mall, would I be the same person I am today?
Who knows?
While my mother was an avid read, she spent more time sharing her pulp romance books through friends than perusing the aisles of the local B. Dalton's. My grandmother, also a reader, would travel to the local used bookstore and buy her crime thrillers and horror novels. As far as I knew my father never read anything but the newspaper and none of my brothers were pleasure readers, either. No one ever introduced me to bookstores before I made the conscious decision to read a book, nor comic book stores or any other specialty shops until I was a little older and driving myself around where I could determine my own agenda, spend time where I wanted to and spend money where I wanted to do business.
I really enjoyed reading comic books and while others were talking about the cool new artists, I was enveloped in the words, my eyes following one voice bubble after the other. The stories, especially in the The Amazing Spider-Man and the X-Men were based on characters and drama not kapow!, thump! and wham! But I wanted more. Twenty-some pages gave me about 15 minutes of cognitive vacation before the story ended and I had to wait another 30 days for the next installment.
So, I decided to try a book.
There would be no pictures, instead I'd be forced to envision the story in my mind's eye instead of appreciating the artist's rendition of the writer's words. Did I want to read a book -- something more than 30 or 40 pages? Wasn't that like school work? You have to remember, I was merely in junior high, somewhere around 13 or 14 years old. The summers in Florida were hot and muggy and I needed something to while away the sweltering days. Remember, this was before I could drive and the beaches were too far for a 13 year old to walk to, or even bicycle to, on his own.
I can't remember the exact details, but one day I was at the local mall and as my mother, brother and I passed the B. Dalton's bookstore I excused myself and went inside. The store was small, maybe 1000 square feet. The walls has shelves, the aisles were shelves, and there was the occasional table which had even more books laid out to grab the passerby's attention.
At the time, I didn't know what I wanted to read. Horror, like Grandma's Stephen King? Some sort of thriller? Maybe science fiction books since I liked Star Wars and Star Trek (movies)? In the end, I decided to read books about people using magic. Since I'd started reading with comic books which focused on people with supernatural abilities, I thought if I was going to give a novel a try it should also be with supernatural abilities. So, I headed over to the science fiction section intent on finding something to keep me busy for more than 30 minutes.
At the time, and still to this day, the science fiction and fantasy sections are grouped together in most book stores. You'd find books about magical swords right next to books about warp drives; books about elves and ogres next to books about aliens and laser pistols; and books based in physics and astronomy next to books relying on prophecy and pantheons of gods.
So, I looked for the "magic" books. Books about tossing lightning, wizards and prophecy. I can't remember exactly what I looked for, but I do remember seeing a book simply titled: Magician: Apprentice. I picked it up, read the back cover, set it down and moved on. The description didn't sound attention grabbing at all:
There were, what I discovered later, the usual platitudes to Tolkien on the cover, but as of yet, I'd never heard of The Lord of the Rings. It may have been my time limitations that caused me to finally grab Magician: Apprentice and purchase it right there and then. Like I said before, I didn't know what I wanted, just something about magic and this one seemed to fulfill that promise; but more importantly, my mom came back to the store, told me to get something quick because she was ready to go home.To the forest on the shore of the Kingdom of the Isles, the orphan Pug came to study with the master magician Kulgan. But though his courage won him a place at court and the heart of a lovely Princess, he was ill at ease with the normal ways of wizardry. Yet Pug's strange sort of magic would one day change forever the fates of two worlds. For dark beings from another world had opened a rift in the fabric of spacetime to being again the age-old battle between the forces of Order and Chaos.
Cover of the edition I read
Without any other plan I grabbed the first book in the Riftwar Saga. To be honest, I didn't know what a "saga" was, nor had I ever heard of a "trilogy" before grabbing that book off the shelf that day -- I was just grabbing a book.
I read that book. Then the follow-up, Magician: Master. And then the others: Silverthorne and A Darkness at Sethanon. And then Faerie Tale. When I'd read everything Feist had written I branched out to other authors: Terry Brooks, The Belgariad and at that very same B. Dalton's I picked up The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan's first book in the Wheel of Time, a series that also wrapped up this year. I read and read and read. When Raymond E. Feist came out with a new book, I read that one and then I read more. I read really good fantasy and really bad fantasy over the years and when a new Midkemia novel came out, I read that one too. For a while I did take a break from reading (Basic Training and AIT will do that for you) and then again when I was deployed to support Bosnia and books were scarce. So scarce in fact that to satisfy my need to read I resorted to reading a couple of terrible horror books (did people find those scary?) and a crime thriller by Dean Koontz.
When my life stabilized again (re: redeployment back to Germany) I started reading avidly again. I picked up A Game of Thrones and then read even more books. I read books on a variety of subjects to have a broad knowledge-base about the fantasy novels I was reading: Celtic deities, medieval cultures, elves, dwarves and more.
And then I took another break from reading, this time for college. Who had time for novels when papers were due, case studies needed review and each class seemed to have at least three $80+ books?
I still read whenever I can. I still prefer fantasy novels over just about any other genre although I have read some hard core sci-fi, detective novels, a couple of books that were supposed to be horror and a couple that were supposed to be modern fantasy but turned out to be paranormal erotica.
However, whenever a new book about Pug and Midekemia came out, I'd drop what I was doing and catch up on old friends from my youth.
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| Copyright: Tor Books |
With all the reading I'd been able to accomplish over the years I noticed a change when I came back to Midkemia. It was dull. Each "rift war" was just a larger war than the last, but in the end they were all the same. The generational characters had no depth and even the arcing characters, such as Pug, seemed without passion, prejudice or personality. Pug, the main POV character in the first books, while important to the salvation of the duchy, kingdom, hemisphere, world, other worlds, other realms, etc. was always paramount to the story, his time in the books was limited. He seemed to suddenly always have the answers or skill to overcome his antagonist.
I nearly left Midkemia, writing off the series' as simple enough for new readers to the genre, but not intellectually stimulating enough for me.
This lack of character time for the main protagonist was most prevalent in the (apparently) final book in the rift war series: Magician's End. For the vast majority of the book Pug and his magical comrades are swept away by a mysterious force to learn lessons they will need in order to fight what is, apparently, a black hole given personification -- or rather, demonification. Pug's character, now hundreds of years old, must learn about astrophysics in order to stop the destruction of his homeworld and all worlds. However, much of the book is about Kingdom politics and ensuring what you thought would come to pass does come to pass. There are no surprises in this book.
What really annoys me about Feist's writing is how he retools the past to meet his current story. I understand he probably wasn't expecting to write these characters in this world for 30 years, but when you're running out of pages and need something to happen he merely has the characters say: "Oh, I've been planning on this for decades/generations." Really? Four or five chapters of how the universe expands and mentioning every character he's ever written, but we never see these "plans" that were put in place over the course of dozens of books, even to the point where other integral characters are shocked at the revelation?
Raymond Feist's writing, looking back, seems very narrow. As I said before, his characters are very one dimensional and seemed to be placeholders for actions instead of fully thought out three-dimensional people. It is as though he was trying to use perfect fantasy writing archetypes to fill his character-base instead of real people with desires and flaws. This is where George R.R. Martin excels in his writing. The characters in Feist's novels sort of remind me of the old Dragonlance books where, if a character needed a sword, a sword would magically appear; if a character needed a spell, he would devise a spell within a couple of sentences, even if he or she was using magic he or she didn't understand; if a character needed to survive, a miracle of instinct would help them survive a no-win situation.
What am I trying to say? Hmmm... Raymond Feist wrote an interesting series about a war erupting between two cultures across the stars. The one society was able to create a rift in space-time to invade a kingdom from within. Straddling both cultures was an orphan boy and his comrades. he had lofty goals and great fresh idea (even now, as a more experienced reader, it's still a novel approach to the genre), but the characters and the environment fell stale. Where there was opportunity to explore cultural differences and the evolution of a nation, he merely had the characters doing things to preserve the status quo.
Afterwards there was a Serpent War, a Demon War and a Chaos War. In between these wars were other trials and tribulations for various characters, giving Feist a chance to flesh out his world making. However, in the overall scheme of things, it seemed like he was trying too hard to tie past events together as one large multi-generational plan by the ultimate antagonist, a being that defied time and space, being everywhere and nowhere all at once. Although one character barely had a supporting role in a chapter or two and his character was never truly explored, he was a pivoting point for the heroes to save the day. It seemed as though the author was trying to wrap up his first trilogy with the last book. I don't know, it just came across as though whenever something convenient needed to happen, something convenient happened although there was no buildup to those "convenient" events.
Which could be understandable if he's trying to wrap up the books nice and neatly, but the way the story played out made me wanting -- wishing -- for more. not more stories, but more depth of this story, one of his better books in years.
As a older kid, or a young man, the Rift War Saga brought me into reading fantasy books. It was light, easy to digest and had all the fantasy 13 or 14 year old boy could want: magic, elves, swords and dragons. Would I have read every book in the series had I picked up the first one as an adult? Probably not. Well, maybe. At least the original 4 books of the Rift War Saga, probably not the continuing sagas of Raymond Feist's series of escalating wars.
Regardless, the characters of the books have been with me for more than 20 years. Whenever a hot summer day comes along and a cool breeze lessens the blow of the scorching sun, I think about Pug learning magic on the western coast in the duchy of Crydee. When certain songs come on the radio they take me back to days when Pug was a orphan kitchen boy with no expectations of a future other than a lifelong servant in a rural keep. As dull as they are, the characters Tomas, Pug, Arutha, the twenty or so Jimmys or James', Nakor and more were pivotal in shaping my preference for fantasy books. Had I picked up another book, a sci-fi novel or not picked up anything that day in the mall, would I be the same person I am today?
Who knows?
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