[[magician-feist-cover.png|150]]
No. 66 on Top 100 scifi and fantasy list
I enjoyed this book and I’ll probably read the rest of the series but I have one major complaint about the writing style. Feist tends to jump ahead in time, which is fine, but then he gives a backward-looking summary of what’s happened in the intervening time, and the way he writes it is just… boring. Lots of dry summary and passive voice instead of first-person action. The result is that scenes and events which could be interesting read like a dry history textbook instead of a fictional narrative. So that’s annoying.
But I like the world itself and the characters mostly though everyone is a bit one-dimensional. But there’s groundwork and foreshadowing of some good stuff, I just don’t know if that’s my hopefulness or if that’s the direction he’ll go. I’m interested enough to read the second book and hope there’s more depth and less of that dry summary writing style.
Kulgan said, “There will be ample time for you to gawk at elves, boy, in a few hours. Then there will be little time for studies. You must learn to make the best use of what time you have.”
Trial and error, trial and error is the way.
You have a very well-ordered mind, Pug. You understand logic far better than most, even those much older than yourself. You see things as a system, rather than as a haphazard collection of events. Perhaps that is part of your trouble.
I’ve spent enough time with humans to know that you choose how you feel; Roland makes you feel clumsy only because you let him.
This worrying about the future is a dry sort of work. I think it would be benefited by a mug of strong ale.”
’Tis a wise thing to know what is wanted, and wiser still to know when ’tis achieved,” said Dolgan. “True. And still wiser to know when it is unachievable, for then striving is folly.