Remember the fun of the original Riftwar saga? Add some polish and shine. Mix it up with new and fun characters from the last few books, and even send some rubes to Kesh. Sound like fun? Make sure the intrigue is high, the stakes are much, much higher, and throw in a mad god invading the world and make it spicy with a mad body-hopping mage.

This is Feist doing what he's best at and it shows. I'm having a great time.

And yes, Pug is in here. That means that the fate of many many worlds is at stake. And the gods are freaking out. :)

Is this series getting really good again? I'd say so. It was never all that bad, but all the things I used to get annoyed with have been excised nicely. Now it's all adventure, intrigue, battles, spies, and enough assassins and mad gods to keep anyone amused. :) ( )

Flight of the Nighthawks is the first book in the Darkwar Saga, the third-to-last subseries in the very large Riftwar Cycle.

I had mixed feelings about this one. Sometimes it held my attention very well, but at other times I had trouble focusing on it. Part of that could be outside distractions, but those distractions were no worse this week than they’ve been in recent weeks, so I don’t think so. All the books have had recaps to some extent, but they seemed especially tedious in this book. Whenever I caught myself staring off into space and thinking about something else instead of reading, I almost always returned my attention to my book to find myself reading some sort of recap. I imagine people who had a longer wait between books, especially those who read this series over many years as it was originally published, may have appreciated them more. I, however, have read these first 24 books within the past 6 months so the details are still pretty fresh in my mind.

Aside from the recaps, which were especially prevalent in the tiresome scenes with the magicians, most of the story held my attention pretty well. Feist used a lot of familiar plot devices and character types which I tend to enjoy, but there wasn’t anything really new here. I didn’t feel like any real progress was made in the overarching plot, and the end was kind of an “ugh, not again” moment, but maybe I’ll feel differently by the end of this trilogy.

I’m going to rate this at 3.5 stars since I was entertained for the greater portion of it, but I’m rounding down to 3 on Goodreads due to the frequent feelings of repetitiveness and sameness. ( )

Dit verhaal speelt verder in de toekomst dan 'De oorlog van de grote scheuring'. Puc is ouder geworden, en zijn eerste vrouw is al lang geleden overleden. Hij is nu getrouwd met Miranda, de dochter van Macros. De hoofdrollen zijn echter vooral weggelegd voor hun zonen, Magus, een grote magiër, en Caleb, die geen magische geven heeft.

Er is iets vreemds aan de hand in Kesh. Nobelen worden er vermoord, en er gaan geruchten over een groep mensen die zich in de schaduw ophouden. Puc en zijn twee zoons werken samen om de geheimzinnige moordenaars (bekend als de Nachtraven) op te rollen.

In het begin loopt het boek wat langzaam, maar gaandeweg komt de vaart er in, een nieuwe personage, Bek, wordt geïntroduceerd, en hij is een interessante toevoeging.

Wat ik jammer vond, is dat de stiefzonen van Caleb, niet echt uit de verf kwamen, en we ze weinig in actie hebben gezien.

Die nieuwe Nederlandse vertaler heeft schijnbaar niet de eerdere boeken gelezen, want anders had deze vast de naam van Claudius Haviks aangehouden, in plaats van Engelse naam. ( )

The Darkwar Saga #1 ( )

A return to form for Feist in my opinion. Fantasy tropes galore but that's what I came here for. ( )