The King's Buccaneer, and other posts

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Michael Still
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	These posts mostly relate to books I am reading or series I am collecting to read in order (I tend to collect the series and then read it in one block). You can see a see a list of the books I am currently seeking, as well as a list of all the books I've bothered to catalog if you're interested.


	Tue, 06 Oct 2009

The King's Buccaneer

ISBN: 0553563734
Spectra (1994), Paperback, 560 pages
LibraryThing

I really liked this book, as I do most of Feist's work, although he does have a talent for writing books which are long. This book continues the story line from the Magician (Apprentice and Master), Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon. I like that, and have felt for a while that Prince of the Blood was a bit of a tangent from the main thrust of the series -- although characters which are used in later stories are introduced through that book.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 23:47 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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	Sun, 19 Apr 2009

Servant of the Empire

ISBN: 0553292455
Spectra (1991), Mass Market Paperback, 704 pages
LibraryThing

This is the sequel to Daughter of the Empire. The book is long at nearly 700 pages, and contains two basic plots, although both are related and use the same characters. They could easily have been separate books -- one of the things I like about this book is that it tells more of the story than it absolutely has to, whilst still being continuously engaging. The events of this book run parallel to Pug's time on Kelwan from Magician (Apprentice and Master) and its also nice to see an alternate perspective on those events. The main thrust of this book is that while tradition is important, not being wasteful of the resources you're handed is important too.

This book is excellent.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist_and_Janny_Wurts()

posted at: 19:23 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist_and_Janny_Wurts | permanent link to this entry

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	Fri, 23 Jan 2009

Prince of the Blood

ISBN: 0586071407
Voyager (1990), Paperback, 400 pages
LibraryThing

This is a follow on to the Riftwar Series that follows Borric and Erland (Arthura's sons) as they travel to Kesh for the Empress' 75th birthday celebrations. Along the way they grow up quite a lot, and learn what it means to rule.

To be honest, the story is ok, but a little shallow. Its not as good as the Riftwar Series or Daughter of the Empire. Its about as good as A Darkness at Sethanon I guess.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 05:33 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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	Tue, 30 Dec 2008

Daughter of the Empire

ISBN: 055327211x
LibraryThing

This is a really good book. It was a delight to find something so good that it kept me up well past my bed time several nights running. I really enjoyed this one -- its set on Kelwan, the planet that invades Midkemia in the Riftwar series, and is written from the perspective of the invaders.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist_and_Janny_Wurts()

posted at: 17:16 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist_and_Janny_Wurts | permanent link to this entry

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	Sat, 15 Nov 2008

The Riftwar Series

Year	Title
1982	Magician (later sold as Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master)
1985	Silverthorn
1986	A Darkness at Sethanon

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 14:39 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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A Darkness at Sethanon

ISBN: 0553263285
Spectra (1987), Mass Market Paperback, 464 pages
LibraryThing

This book took longer to read that I would have liked, because I have been busy with other things. Its a good book though, and a fine conclusion to the Riftwar Series. I liked this book a lot, although I do think that Magician (Apprentice and Master) was a better book.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 14:33 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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	Sun, 26 Oct 2008

Silverthorn

ISBN: 0553270540
Spectra (1986), Mass Market Paperback, 343 pages
LibraryThing

The characters of the Magician Books battle a new enemy in this book. The book centers around Prince Arthura's poisoned wife and the quest to find the cure. There seems to have been some criticism of this book for being a fantasy cliche (something which people seem to say about a lot of Feist's books), but that's a pretty easy accusation to make with fantasy works -- they all seem to have the same basic them. I guess that's what a genre is -- a shared theme. The book is well written and quite readable.

Wikipedia page on Silverthorn has this rather startling accusation to make:

Since its release, the term 'Silverthorn' has been adopted to describe any book in a series (although typically the middle book of a trilogy) that has served little purpose other than to set up a climax in the final book. This term can also be applied to a similar phenomenon in film or television series. This style of book typically has little overall substance, and is often quite poor when compared to the other books in the series.

That's a pretty unfair thing to say. This book has a story that stands on its own, and progresses the plot of the overall series as well. If I was to make the "does little but setup the next book in the series" accusation, I would point the finger at Tilley's First Family, which does nothing apart from setup Iron Master.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 14:12 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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	Thu, 16 Oct 2008

Magician: Master

ISBN: 0553564935
Spectra (1994), Paperback, 544 pages
LibraryThing

Perhaps it would have been better if Feist had kept Magician all as one book. In the first book you hear of Guy (a bad guy!) briefly, and then nothing more. Then, hundreds of pages later in the second book he comes up again as a major plot element. If you haven't recently read the first book, then you are at a disadvantage.

Apart from that, this is a good book that I would have preferred to read faster. Unfortunately work has kept me unusually busy recently, so this one took a while to read.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 14:57 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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	Sun, 12 Oct 2008

Magician: Apprentice

ISBN: 0553564943
Spectra (1994), Mass Market Paperback, 528 pages
LibraryThing

This is the reworked version of Magician, although its split into two books and there is some content that was dropped as part of the editing process for the original version. This version was developed for the tenth anniversary of the original publication. I read the original version as a kid and was so proud of myself when it finished it -- it was by far the longest book I had ever read at the time.

I've seen people online complain that this book is just a big ball of cliche. There are dwarves, wizards with funny hats, elves, and so on. But there are also new ideas here, such as alien invaders in a fantasy novel and so on. Overall I think the cliches don't get in the way and are largely used a sort of short hand... Feist doesn't need to explain what a dwarf is, so he can skip that bit and get on with telling the story.

After rereading this as an adult, I still really like this book.

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 19:30 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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	Sat, 28 Jun 2008

Raymond E Feist's Serpentwar Saga

C	Year	Title	Notes
	1994	Shadow of a Dark Queen	Stored in Australia (Box 1). Purchased from a garage sale
	1995	Rise of a Merchant Prince
	1997	Rage of a Demon King	Stored in Australia (Box 1). Purchased from a garage sale
	1998	Shards of a Broken Crown

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 17:06 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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Raymond E Feist's Empire Trilogy

C	Year	Title	Notes
	1987	Daughter of the Empire	Stored in Australia (Box 1). Purchased from a garage sale
	1990	Servant of the Empire	Stored in Australia (Box 1). Purchased from a garage sale
	1997	Mistress of the Empire

Tags for this post: book() Raymond_E_Feist()

posted at: 17:06 | path: /book/Raymond_E_Feist | permanent link to this entry

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Tue, 06 Oct 2009

Sun, 19 Apr 2009

Fri, 23 Jan 2009

Tue, 30 Dec 2008

Sat, 15 Nov 2008

Sun, 26 Oct 2008

Thu, 16 Oct 2008

Sun, 12 Oct 2008

Sat, 28 Jun 2008