Doing a complete re-read of the Midkemia books on audio. Be forewarned: I will be giving all these books 5 stars :) ( )

I did not read Feist when these were being published, though I would likely have been the ideal audience in the late 80s. Some folks say these have aged poorly and are just indicative of certain era of fantasy writing. I'm not so sure that's the case, I think they may never have been that great.
First things first, Magician: Apprentice is the first *half* of a book, split due to length. I'm going to combine the reviews for this and Magician: Master and put the review on both. But, going into the book not knowing that can lead to a very disjointed experience at the abrupt ending.
Magician is telling the story of Pug, an orphaned farm boy in a relatively idealic fantasy castle/village who through the beneficence of those around him experiences a pretty pleasant life. Up to eventually being taken in as the titular magician's apprentice despite a relative lack of talent. While Pug is clearly intended to be the focus of this bildungsroman, he's missing from vast swaths of both this and the subsequent book. Possibly for the best. His young friend, Tomas, on the path to becoming a warrior is our other main character, followed by an ensemble cast of the usual suspects in this type of fantasy (ranger stand ins, a princess or two, children of nobility having to take on various levels of responsibility) who truth be told get a lot more page time than our supposed main characters. Our main source of conflict is...an invading army from another world with a superior command of magic. Which has some distressingly stereotypical depictions of probably southeast asian cultures form the time.
So why the relatively low rating from someone who is otherwise a huge fan of fantasy? Besides some technical problems (real frequent shifts in pov and tense, seemingly at random and without purpose) and a whole lot of telling rather than showing, its just not great? Its too sterotypical of high fantasy, too simple, even within its own time, not just through the lens of the fantasy we get these days. A lot of characters are clearly thinly veiled caricatures of Tolkein characters, as are some of the plot points. We even have a very duex ex machina, two dimensional, wizard who feels like a bad Gandalf impersonator, an elf queen (and really elvish society) that seems to be a direct lift as well. There are some really unnecessary early teen love triangles involving a princess that feels pulled from any number of YA fantasy of the era. There are massive time skips throughout the book...as in years...that not only rob of us seeing the events that could cause the characters to change and grow, but seem to not result in any actual dynamic character growth or change. A lot of things happen that we're told about after the fact, and the characters (besides growing much more powerful) don't change in any fundamental way. Tomas is the only character who seems even mildly changed by the titanic events he passes through, and even in that case the changes are somewhat cosmetic and certainly not as deep as they should be.
Some of the issues can be explained by the fact that this is essentially a (less than great) novelization of Feist's D&D games from the time. Midkemia was their homebrewed campaign setting. I didn't realize that until after reading, but as soon as I learned that a lot of things from the cardboard characters to the lack of dynamism, to the massive power jumps after ever time skip, all started to make a lot more sense.
What can we find that feels more positive about these two books? I can see some very early shades of the sort of political intrigue we'd later seen so much more masterfully done by George RR Martin. I think that the world building if handled with more depth and focused more on showing rather than telling, *could* have been really interesting. And there may be a lot more of that in the subsequent books in the series that focus on less godlike, overpowered characters. Especially if it was based on a D&D campaign, there should be plenty of ambitious world building that *could* be done. I'll likely only read the next two (since I got the first four from a box at my aunt's house), and hopefully there will be more of that. While I realize that this is intended for adult fantasy readers, or maybe YA at the earliest, I think that if targeted at even younger readers this isn't necessarily a bad introduction to fantasy. Honestly, I can't see reading this past my pre-teen years and being into it, but I think for that late elementary age reader really into fantasy these would be perfect. The violence and sexuality are very tame, as is the language, and I think a lot of the structural issues wouldn't be as much of a problem. I do think if marketed in that way it would benefit from the two books being broken into maybe four smaller books, but hey, let a kid feel accomplished for reading such a big book.
So yeah, give them to a kid as an intro to better stuff, they can have fun later discovering similarities to other works. ( )

Cardboard. The characters were cardboard, the conversation was wooden, and the story was derivative. This book has sat in my to-read pile for ages, and now that I finally got around to it, I really wanted to like it. I didn't.

Bummer. ( )

A fairly straightforward adventure story in a Tolkien/D&D-esque setting. This novel is actually the first half of a book, with [b:Magician: Master|13810|Magician Master (The Riftwar Saga, #2)|Raymond E. Feist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556425333l/13810._SY75_.jpg|766896] as the second half. As a stand alone novel it has a cliffhanger ending without any real conclusion to events. It's more like characters reach a resting point, and plot development halts without resolving anything.

As for why I rated it 3 stars: I think Feist does a good job hitting the story beats for a fantasy adventure. It works as a rags to riches story: Pug the kitchen boy rises through the feudal-ish social ladder thanks to the generosity of a wealthy benefactor and tutelage of a wise old man. It works as a power fantasy: with Pug going from ordinary adolescent to wielder of arcane powers. It also works as a hero's journey: Pug having his home attacked, setting out on a journey to save it, experiencing loss, and then having the journey suspended because this is half a book. There's a lot to recommend for people who like underdogs rising to greatness.

The other main facet of this book, and its sequels, is the titular "riftwar". Reading Magician: Apprentice as a war story, it's lacking a lot of what makes a good war story compelling. There's no tactics or strategy for readers to pour over, there's no charismatic leaders on either side to transform the conflict into an expression of human will, and in general there's a lack of urgency to a lot of the battles we see. The Siege of Crydee, at the very end of the book, is the most compelling battle we see, and the one where we finally have some charismatic leaders emerge, and more human drama injected into the otherwise shapeless conflict.

As with the adventure plot, the war is largely unresolved due to this being half a book, so you can't knock it for that. While it's not particularly satisfying as a war story it does scratch the culture clash itch a bit, though only a bit. The second book is better for it, with its strong "east meets west" vibes. You get just a taste of it here.
( )

A fairly straightforward adventure story in a Tolkien/D&D-esque setting. This novel is actually the first half of a book, with [b:Magician: Master|13810|Magician Master (The Riftwar Saga, #2)|Raymond E. Feist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556425333l/13810._SY75_.jpg|766896] as the second half. As a stand alone novel it has a cliffhanger ending without any real conclusion to events. It's more like characters reach a resting point, and plot development halts without resolving anything.

As for why I rated it 3 stars: I think Feist does a good job hitting the story beats for a fantasy adventure. It works as a rags to riches story: Pug the kitchen boy rises through the feudal-ish social ladder thanks to the generosity of a wealthy benefactor and tutelage of a wise old man. It works as a power fantasy: with Pug going from ordinary adolescent to wielder of arcane powers. It also works as a hero's journey: Pug having his home attacked, setting out on a journey to save it, experiencing loss, and then having the journey suspended because this is half a book. There's a lot to recommend for people who like underdogs rising to greatness.

The other main facet of this book, and its sequels, is the titular "riftwar". Reading Magician: Apprentice as a war story, it's lacking a lot of what makes a good war story compelling. There's no tactics or strategy for readers to pour over, there's no charismatic leaders on either side to transform the conflict into an expression of human will, and in general there's a lack of urgency to a lot of the battles we see. The Siege of Crydee, at the very end of the book, is the most compelling battle we see, and the one where we finally have some charismatic leaders emerge, and more human drama injected into the otherwise shapeless conflict.

As with the adventure plot, the war is largely unresolved due to this being half a book, so you can't knock it for that. While it's not particularly satisfying as a war story it does scratch the culture clash itch a bit, though only a bit. The second book is better for it, with its strong "east meets west" vibes. You get just a taste of it here.
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