[oenrix]

I have recently finish reading "Magician: Apprentice/Master". Considering all the good review and recommendations. I was rather disappointed regarding how the story was written. The book feels unfinished, like a rough draft of a story hi-lighted by major plot points.

i have been reading "WOT", "SoT" and "A Song of Ice and fire". I have grown accustomed to their subtle details, and the time it take for a character to develop and grow. In contrast, Magician feels rather choppy as we're simply told it's happened after random narrative leaps. (eg. Four months has passed and generic male hero #1 wishes to return home, or 2 years have passed and generic male #2 is now battle hardened.) Feels too much like reading a history book.

Would like to know if the writing style is the same throughout the series, or will there be a shift and changes in the narrative style later in the series?

[Werthead]

Books 2-3 and the stand-alone Prince of the Blood are somewhat similar.

The Empire Trilogy is Feist's best work and now you've read Magician, I'd say you could check that series out. That's the closest that Feist (or his cowriter Wurts) comes to hitting a sustained high level of quality comparable to the first few books of WoT. The first three Serpentwar books are also pretty good, but after that Feist's quality-control nose-dived and pretty much every book he's published since then has been awful.

[mjolnir]

One thing to note as to differences between Magician and its sequels is that Magician covers a number of years, whereas the two books immediately after it, Silverthorn and A Darkness At Sethanon, do not. Half a year or so passes between them, but each book covers a fairly short period. What this means is that you don't get nearly as much synopsizing of events that the book doesn't have time to cover. Quality-wise they are about on a level with Magician from what I remember, [though I read them quite a while ago.] I haven't read The Empire Trilogy, which Werthead's already mentioned, but pretty much everyone who has seems to consider this colaboration with Janny Wurtz Feist's best work by a fair margin. Speaking only for his solo material, in my opinion Feist never got much better than the first four book, [or three book for those of us who read the single volume edition of Magician], Riftwar cycle. Again as Werthead has said, the recent additions to the series are particularly grizzly. The King's Buccaneer was interesting, but the characters suffered from the disadvantage of being poor man's imitations of those from Riftwar, [for the most part; there were exceptions.] The Serpentwar was not bad but ended poorly. The Riftwar Legacy was horrific, and the books following have pretty much continued with this trend. Speaking as someone who is tied to the series by an attachment to the first novels and will now be seeing it through, if you do decide to carry on I can't recommend going beyond A Darkness At Sethanon. If you haven't found the series working for you by then, later books are unlikely to change your mind. [You should check out the Empire books, though.]
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[Winter]

I discovered Feist through the APE of Price of the Blood and it still stands as one of my favorite novels by Feist, the other is The King's Buccaneer, which I read not long after that. Then I started from the beginning.

Honestly, I would suggest reading up to the series that starts with Talon of the Silver Hawk and I would skip the books that are based on the video games as well. It was the second book of the aforementioned series, King of Foxes, that turned me off of Feist. The third, Exile's Return, was better, but only marginally so and it didn't get rid of the sour taste. I've tried to read the newer books, but I haven't been able to and from most of the reviews I've seen, there is little reason to force myself to give them another go.

I haven't read the Empire series, but it seems highly regarded. As is another of the cowritten novels, Honored Enemy.

There is no real big jump in time througout the novels, but there are some pretty big ones between novels, which you would think would help since it takes away a few characters, but it really doesn't. Feist has a knack for writing the same characters over and over again. If you are looking for character development, it is probably best to look elsewhere, Feist writes archetypal characters well and there isn't much in the way of growth to be found.

[Bond]

Simply put the answer is no. Feist does not approach the same level of detail of the other series you mention. That said the two succeeding books of the Riftwar Saga do give further detail so reading those may give you a more accurate indication of how far Feist manages to develop certain ideas and characters introduced in Magician. Silverthorn in particular probably deserves mention in this discussion because it follows a far more compressed timeline. Magician isn't the whole story.

[burnsai]

Books 2-3 and the stand-alone Prince of the Blood are somewhat similar.

The Empire Trilogy is Feist's best work and now you've read Magician, I'd say you could check that series out. That's the closest that Feist (or his cowriter Wurts) comes to hitting a sustained high level of quality comparable to the first few books of WoT. The first three Serpentwar books are also pretty good, but after that Feist's quality-control nose-dived and pretty much every book he's published since then has been awful.



That is your opinion. The daughter series is "ok" but it is not on the level of the RiftWar or Serpentwar sagas. All the other series and books are a step down from the two mentioned above but decent reads.
No way the daughter series is better then the Riftwar that is an absurd thing to post as fact. While I was reading it I got bored. I could care less about the "acoma" junk.
I wanted to read about Tomas"ashen-shugar', Pug "Milamber" Jimmy the hand, Arutha, Amos, Macros the Black.. I could not get into the Kelewan tribal crap...so BORING... in my opinion.

If you are into the detail of the Wheel of time "God Bless You' I got 4 books in and finally I did what I should have done after the first one which was
to Rifle them with some force into my garbage can then I made sure I emptied condiments on them so noone else would have to near hang themselves from reading the most overwritten compilation of garbage with a few good ideas that were mixed in to keep you going page after page.. always hoping for something to happen.. always waiting but it does not it just drags on and on and on and on . I did enjoy Matt cauthons character ... but that story and level detail is not for me.
I am going to read Goodkinds SOT but I really hope that its not like the WOT.

[oenrix]

Hey guys, thanks for the info, I might give feist's other book another try.

Currently its the setting of the world, and the potential of the story that keep me interested. Personally, I don't really like those characters that are too perfect. i don't even know how i manage to finish SOT, since Richard of SOT is those sort of character.

If you are into the detail of the Wheel of time "God Bless You' I got 4 books in and finally I did what I should have done after the first one which was
to Rifle them with some force into my garbage can then I made sure I emptied condiments on them so noone else would have to near hang themselves from reading the most overwritten compilation of garbage with a few good ideas that were mixed in to keep you going page after page.. always hoping for something to happen.. always waiting but it does not it just drags on and on and on and on . I did enjoy Matt cauthons character ... but that story and level detail is not for me.
I am going to read Goodkinds SOT but I really hope that its not like the WOT.

I find the pace of the story pretty ok for "WOT". its rather slow at times but overall i find its lenght rather reasonable. Mat Cauthon is just Awesome! WOT really needs more of him.

if you have trouble with WOT's pacing, i will not recommend SOT to you. After the first 4 books, you will start to realise the story has been lengthen for the sake of it. This is just my opinion. One of the most annoying thing in SOT books, is the fact that the book spend about 1/4 of its pages, explaining about contents from the earlier books in "Detail". At times, Goodkind even explain a content/event mentioned just a couple of pages back.

[Werthead]

No way the daughter series is better then the Riftwar that is an absurd thing to post as fact.

It is pretty much the opinion of most fantasy fans I have encountered, and also the critical reception for those books was way more positive than for any of Feist or Wurts' solo books. Other people have other opinions, sure, but if you are looking for some kind of consensus of Feist's work, it would be, based on anecdotal and critical evidence, The Empire Trilogy by some margin.

I am going to read Goodkinds SOT but I really hope that its not like the WOT.

It is far, far worse.

[burnsai]

It is pretty much the opinion of most fantasy fans I have encountered, and also the critical reception for those books was way more positive than for any of Feist or Wurts' solo books. Other people have other opinions, sure, but if you are looking for some kind of consensus of Feist's work, it would be, based on anecdotal and critical evidence, The Empire Trilogy by some margin.



It is far, far worse.



Thanks for the info on SOT. I have a feeling that I will enjoy Wizards First Rule from what I have read about the reviews.
I just started A Game of Thrones and im excited to see what all the hype is about GRRM.

As far as Feist goes. Tomas and Pug are my favorite characters of any series especially the Valheru Tomas. Jimmy the hand , Erik, Roo Avery. Arutha, Martin Longbow, Amos Trask, Nakor, Macros the Black... are all a part of the Riftwar and Serpentwar sagas... without these cast of characters Feist would not be one of my favorite authors. If I had started with the daughter trilogy I doubt I would have read Magician.. its just not my cup of tea.

To compare the daughter of the empire trilogy set in kelewan to one of the true fantasy classics of all time is like comparing White Zinfandel (in a box) to 1787 Chateau Lafite.. in my opinion :)