By the end I was skimming like mad, assuming I could just read the 'previously in' section of book 2 of this series to figure out anything I missed, I was that bored. Feist has a very distinct style. He is, above all else, interested in plot. The plot often meanders, and very rarely deviates from the 'quest is received, quest is eventually fulfilled' formula, but the thing that drives me crazy is that characters are pretty much ... nonexistent in his work. Locklear, my favorite character from the Riftwar series, is back here ... kind of. He's there for the first 100 pages, then just drops out of the plot for about 100 pages, then shows up again for act three along with Jimmy (now "Squire James"), basically at all times just acting like a clone of Jimmy. I was very excited to read this book (& the RW Legacy series in general) because, while its internal chronology places it next in line after the main RW books, it was actually written nearly a decade later, after stuff farther along had been dealt with, so I assumed Feist would have grown as a writer. But his worst excesses are even more bloated than normal here. I'm HOPING that this is in large part due to its being based on a computer game ('oh, we've reached a new town, what ridiculously involved plot will this setting's government get us entangled in?'). It reminds me of me playing an Ultima game. One hour in: "This is awesome! Everyone has such a full life & backstory!" Four hours in: "SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT YOUR PIGS, FARMER JOHN! WHY DO I EVEN CARE THEY HAVE THE GOUT?!?"I really WANTED to like Owyn. There just ... didn't seem to be much of a character there. And I'm SO sick of Jimmy. I've never found him interesting. He's not a character, he's a collection of reactions. Ugh.
I love Feist's writing for enjoyable, immersive, lightweight Fantasy. But this one is just awful. This volume (and maybe its whole trilogy) is based on the 1990s computer games of the same era. And rather than adapting that vintage game's premise as the plot for this book, the book instead reads like a game of that era. And while those games were a heck of a lot of fun to play, they wouldn't be very fun to watch over the player's shoulder...and even less fun to read in transcript form...which is what we get here. There's a ton of trudging back and forth with barely descriptive and barely relevant fight scenes. The dialogue from "non-party" characters (like innkeepers, shopkeepers, etc) sounds like the stilted phrases uttered in shops in games, like what the NPC character says every time you go to the Inn to heal. Similarly, there's lots of irrelevant (to the plot) side quests, that again read just like gameplay. And lots of boring and implausible interactions with characters the party encounters. Incredibly dull to read.This is by far the worst Feist I've read (I couldn't even finish slogging through it). Don't bother. He should be ashamed to have put his name to this travesty.
Do You like book Krondor: The Betrayal (2001)?
Though I read this book before, I did not remember any of it! I am not quite sure why the other books in the series stuck with me more than this one, but this re-reading was more like reading it for the very first time. It was very exciting and involved some of my favorite characters from _The Riftwar Saga_. I must admit that for a first book in a trilogy, everything was neatly tied up in the end, so I must admit I am wondering what the next two books will be about! But this was well-plotted and definitely a fast read. Feist is a wonderful storyteller and his characters remain as likable as ever.
—Victoria
Well, it's a novelization of the computer game, Betrayal at Krondor . Unlike movie novelizations, game novelizations are interesting because you can probably read the book in less time than it takes you to play the game, but you also lose a dimension of interactivity in the translation. And seeing as how we're talking about one of the greatest computer RPG's of the 1990's, this book feels a bit....light....by comparison, because you lose that extra dimension. Don't get me wrong - it's still a good, entertaining story. However, there is also almost nothing in the book that isn't in the game except for the most trivial of minor details. On one hand, this means that if you've played the game all the way through, there's not much point to buying the book unless you absolutely have to own everything that Feist ever wrote. On the other, if you became a fan of the series after Windows XP came out and never got a chance to play the game (or don't want to deal with getting it working on a modern system), this book might be worth the investment, as its plot is pretty much identical to the game....it's just a lot less fun.
—Nathaniel
(view spoiler)[ Once again the moredhel is duped into attacking sethanon under the ruse that murmandamus is alive. Just like the third book in the riftwar saga he is not. When will they stop believing that?! (hide spoiler)]
—Monique
