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Mimi's Reviews > Magician: Apprentice
Magician: Apprentice (The Riftwar Saga, #1)
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I. . . can't take the words in this book anymore.
Well, it's not entirely the book's fault. Everything makes me want to take a shot of hard liquor at the moment, and this book didn't do a good job of taking my mind off of that.
I guess I'm not cut out for retro high fantasy. Didn't grow up reading SFF or playing RPG and didn't start reading Tolkien until the movies came out. So I have zero memories connected to these genre classics and absolutely no appreciation for chosen farm boys with extravagant destinies to fulfill and/or empires to save.
However, in a way, I did finish this book. By which I mean I skimmed about 80% of it, read the middle until it lost me, and then read the ending to see if I should go onto Part II. I should not as it is clearly not for me.
In all that skimming though, I did come across something interesting around the half-way point. There's a rift in the space-time continuum--RIFTwar, I see, I see--and a hoard of something from an alien world comes through the portal to invade the world of Midkemia (e.g. fantasy Dark Ages Western Europe). This was interesting for about a dozen pages as most wars in secondary worlds are, but I couldn't get into it because the prose started to drag again. So rather than going back a few chapters to catch what I had missed leading up to the rift and the war, I skimmed right on to the end.
I think the bones of this story are good and the story itself could have been a lot more interesting if the pacing had been faster and the prose--better? tighter? shaved down to the bare minimum?--had more focus on the scene at hand. I get that you have to show characterization and a character's inner life, but there are just so many characters to work through, and high fantasy in general has a tradition of dragging these things out, even for minor characters. I'm not sure there is a way around this; I'm just I'm not a fan of explain-y prose styles and uninspired narration.
* * * * *
This edition was not the edition I read...
Apparently this book was divided into two halves when it was first released, Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master. It wasn't until relatively recently that the two halves were re-released as one book as Raymond Feist had originally intended.
I read/power-skimmed through the re-released edition, but am too lazy to update this write-up to the proper edition.
* * * * *
Cross-posted at
Well, it's not entirely the book's fault. Everything makes me want to take a shot of hard liquor at the moment, and this book didn't do a good job of taking my mind off of that.
I guess I'm not cut out for retro high fantasy. Didn't grow up reading SFF or playing RPG and didn't start reading Tolkien until the movies came out. So I have zero memories connected to these genre classics and absolutely no appreciation for chosen farm boys with extravagant destinies to fulfill and/or empires to save.
However, in a way, I did finish this book. By which I mean I skimmed about 80% of it, read the middle until it lost me, and then read the ending to see if I should go onto Part II. I should not as it is clearly not for me.
In all that skimming though, I did come across something interesting around the half-way point. There's a rift in the space-time continuum--RIFTwar, I see, I see--and a hoard of something from an alien world comes through the portal to invade the world of Midkemia (e.g. fantasy Dark Ages Western Europe). This was interesting for about a dozen pages as most wars in secondary worlds are, but I couldn't get into it because the prose started to drag again. So rather than going back a few chapters to catch what I had missed leading up to the rift and the war, I skimmed right on to the end.
I think the bones of this story are good and the story itself could have been a lot more interesting if the pacing had been faster and the prose--better? tighter? shaved down to the bare minimum?--had more focus on the scene at hand. I get that you have to show characterization and a character's inner life, but there are just so many characters to work through, and high fantasy in general has a tradition of dragging these things out, even for minor characters. I'm not sure there is a way around this; I'm just I'm not a fan of explain-y prose styles and uninspired narration.
* * * * *
This edition was not the edition I read...
Apparently this book was divided into two halves when it was first released, Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master. It wasn't until relatively recently that the two halves were re-released as one book as Raymond Feist had originally intended.
I read/power-skimmed through the re-released edition, but am too lazy to update this write-up to the proper edition.
* * * * *
Cross-posted at
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Reading Progress
April 27, 2020
–
Started Reading
April 27, 2020
– Shelved
April 30, 2020
–
6.0%
"Just remembered why I don't read high fantasy written in the style of Tolkien anymore. It was a mistake to even think that I could pick one and take it out for a spin."
May 3, 2020
–
15.0%
"I'm not surprised this book isn't working for me. I'm just surprised it's taken me this long to realize that I don't like high fantasy (written in this manner)."
May 3, 2020
–
Finished Reading
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May 04, 2020 04:23PM
It is not you. It is the book. It might be an unpopular opinion, but in my opinion The Sword of Shannara aged better than this one despite the former being (justifiably) a favorite example of Tolkien's ripoff. At least Sword does not pretend to be anything else.
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Evgeny wrote: "At least Sword does not pretend to be anything else."Agreed. It's been too long and so the story is mostly a blur to me now, but I remember SoS as an unassuming, straightforward adventure kind of tale that's mostly just plot. Not much time was spent on philosophizing the existential nature of... things.
I get what Raymond Feist was doing with this first volume; I just don't think he achieved what he had set out to write.
However, in a way, I did finish this book, by which I mean I skimmed about 80% of it, read the middle until it lost me, and then read the ending to see if I should go onto Part II.You are clearly my book twin. I have totally done this.
It's the only way I can "read" high fantasy these days apparently. :D But really I'm in awe of people who can whip through these doorstoppers and genuinely enjoy the read.
I'm still on the epic fantasy train--kinda. Even though fantasy of the '80s is of some interest to me, neither this series nor the Eddings' are, particularly. So thanks for the confirmation bias? ;)
You're welcome? :D I didn't know you have an interest in 80s fantasy. Have you found any good ones?
Here are a few I've enjoyed.*Dragon Prince - over the top drama and dragons!
Daggerspell and *Darkspell - a handful of central characters are reincarnated over several centuries, slowly (very slowly) overcoming their past selves' terrible mistakes.
The Isle of Glass - an elven (iirc) child is fostered in a monastery and, upon adulthood, is called out to the greater world in a time of crisis.
Swordspoint - court intrigue and m/m melodrama!
But every single one of these comes with caveats. Some align with personal preferences/"narrative kinks" of mine and could fall totally flat for you or others. Some aren't compatible with 21st century sensibilities. For example, the ones marked with * have at least one rape. I really should go back and finish the first three series, since I enjoyed their first books so much...
Ones I haven't read yet and am looking forward to at some point: Dragon's Crown series (I know you're aware of this one), Sword-Dancer (Tiger and Del series), Pern (which started in the '60s), Witch World (ditto). Continuing with Lee's Flat Earth. Also starting her Books of Paradys. This is a lot of verbiage and I'm still probably missing a bunch.
I've read and enjoyed a lot of 80s fantasy as a child and teenager. My favorites were David Gemmell, Terry Pratchett, and all the myriad Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels (Weis & Hickman's writing starts out clunky but improved a lot and their characters are very memorable - but I'm not sure if I would still love these books now as an adult). Also: Tad Williams (he might be a good suggestion for people looking for beautiful prose and descriptions, but his pacing is slow, meant to be savored, not sped through). I also read most of these old fantasy classics in translation, which tends to smooth out prose problems because the translator can simply fix anything that sounds odd. But overall it's hard to say how much of one's affection for books is tinted by nostalgia goggles or by having first encountered it with an uncritical teenage mind.
Oh, yeah, men wrote fantasy in the '80s, too. :D Gemmell is of some interest to me because he was so influential on the grimdark troupe that came later on.
Yes, with the difference that Gemmell's heroes had a strong moral core that's no longer fashionable - they live in terrible, dark times but try to do the right thing, try to help people, sacrifice themselves for others, protect innocents. Or if they fail to do so, they judge themselves harshly, or suffer from terrible guilt. One of my favorite Gemmell characters was from Knights of Dark Renown: when we meet him, he is a broken man encased in a cursed armor he cannot remove. He's cursed because he'd taken sacred oaths to enter a portal into a hellish world with his fellow knights in order to hopefully save their world, but panicked at the last second and let the portal close without entering. Now everything's gone to shit because of his moment of cowardice and he's burning for a second chance to redeem himself and do it right this time. (Keep in mind I'm describing a book I read about 20 years ago, so this may not be very correct, just how I remember it.) Or Druss in Legend (his debut novel) who's so grumpy and much too old for this shit, but he can't just walk away from a city about to be besieged - he's got to help them, even though it's clearly going to be his death. Gemmell wrote this debut novel in hospital dying of cancer (he thought), with the besieged fortress perhaps representing a body trying to fight off disease. He pulled off a miraculous recovery and you can see the same impossible triumph in the book - that's why I'd classify Gemmell more under hopepunk than grimdark.This is why I loved Gemmell: it was never about a special snowflake farmboy discovering just how wondrously special they are, it was about warriors finding a cause worth fighting for and worth dying for, overcoming their doubts, selfishness, and cowardice. I guess his most grimdark novel is Morningstar, which focuses on a bandit whom people start worshiping as a kind of Robin Hood savior even though he's actually utterly selfish and all his heroic acts are for show (and money). Until maybe he sort of grows into his own image and starts wanting to be the real thing because he starts actually caring for others.
All that said, I'm sure those books aren't half as good as I remember and probably full of problematic sexism, bad prose etc. that I just didn't notice back in the day. :-D
Thanks, Beth, for the list of 80s fantasies, and Eva, for the in depth look at David Gemmell's books. I'm not familiar with him or his work, so that was an interesting read. :) I'm afraid I got into high fantasy too late and missed the age threshold to enjoy the "pillars" of the genre (i.e. books and authors that get recommended ad nauseam from that era). I think what it boils down to is high fantasy is just not for me, but for some reason I can't let it go. So I keep trying to find that elusive book or series that will work for me, hence giving the first Riftwar a try even though I knew it was pretty much derivative from the start.
I think you probably have an unusual definition of high fantasy because to me, it means "fantasy that doesn't take place in our world and contains many fantastical elements, such as magic, non-humans, etc.", in contrast to low fantasy and urban fantasy. When I look at your favorite books, then there are a lot of high fantasy books among them (Tales of the Raksura, Neverending Story, Emperor's Soul, Wheel of the Infinite, Jhereg, Volksy's Illusion, The FIfth Season, The Goblin Emperor, Mistborn, Tigana, the First Law trilogy, Theft of Swords,... so many). So I'm not sure what you could possibly mean by saying you don't like the genre: /genres/high...
You're right. That's my mistake. I should've clarified. I don't dislike all of high fantasy if the definition is vague and inclusive of those books on my shelf. But I often see that when writers and bloggers discuss "high fantasy" and "traditional high fantasy," they tend only to mean the Tolkien inspired fantasies--what I meant by "pillars" of the genre--and not always everything else that has magic and is set in a secondary world. That's happening less frequently these days, which is good, but I still think of that "definition" and forget to clarify that when referring to "high fantasy" I usually mean "traditional" Tolkien inspired fantasies, which are series that have elves, dwarves, long journeys, chosen ones, and other similar D&D elements. Feist, Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, Hickman & Weiss, R. A. Salvatore, come to mind right away. I haven't finished reading every first book by these authors, so I can't say for certain how "inspired" they were by Tolkien, but their works contain enough elements/overlap for me to consider them to be similar. This style of fantasy is what I meant by high fantasy isn't for me.
That shelf, btw, is in need of editing. I had originally struggled with the definition of high fantasy when I made it and couldn't settle on one approach or definition to help me organize. In the end, I decided to include everything that wasn't urban, speculative, historical, or romantic fantasy on it (each of these have its own shelf). It was for the sole purpose of easy access and quick retrieval, and not meant to represent high fantasy as a whole.
"I mean I skimmed about 80% of it, read the middle until it lost me, and then read the ending to see if I should go onto Part II. "That toooootally counts. I generally stop somewhere at the 30% mark, procrastinate ever picking it up, then force myself to get to the 50-60% mark, only to throw it away all disgusted. Ergo: any kind of skimming counts! :P
Ikr? It's the same for me. I try to give books I'm not into about 30% before quitting, just so I'd have an idea of the writing and why it's not pulling me in, and I push to 50% if it's a group read or friend recommendation. But yeah, 30% is more than enough and should count as read.
Ah yes, now I understand what you mean. When the genre was new, publishers insisted on sticking to a rigid Tolkien formula and believed nothing else would sell. But usually what you'll find is that authors stuck to the formula a lot in their debut novel / first book in the series, and then later bloomed into originality. This is why I'm about to give Robert Jordan another chance even though when I read Eye of the World, it seemed very cliche to me: everybody and their aunt has told me that this changes very much as the series progresses and it becomes its own thing. So I'll give it another try!In terms of what people will call pillars of the genre: it's usually just what opinion makers who are 40-50 years old today read when they were 10-16. It never loses that nostalgic glow for them, even though many newer books are actually much better. And sometimes things are considered pillars because they were simply the first to do something, and if we read them now after having already read many others who did the same afterwards, it feels basic and stale.
I wish you luck with Eye of the World the second time around. Once was enough for me. I also keep hearing from friends and trusted reviewers that the series evolve with each book, however there's some pacing issues with the middle books, but I haven't been tempted to give the second book a try. RE your second paragraph: Yes, that's precisely it. You summed up exactly what I was thinking, but couldn't parse out.
Eva wrote: "In terms of what people will call pillars of the genre: it's usually just what opinion makers who are 40-50 years old today read when they were 10-16."Someone once asked when the Golden Age of Science Fiction was and editor Peter Graham replied, “Twelve.�
It’s funny because it’s true, and it’s true of so many things we love and/or remember fondly.
Trike wrote: "Someone once asked when the Golden Age of Science Fiction was and editor Peter Graham replied, “Twelve.�"Hah! Never heard this before, but it does explain a lot.
Funny, I would have said that about 'fantasy,' not 'science fiction.'
I think it works for both, but yeah, of the two, fantasy is easier to enjoy (easier to accept?) as a (pre-) teen.
