You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions | I also have a Booktube channel You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping)
I’ve also heard from quite a lot of people that Riftwar: Empire trilogy is the best sub-series in the entire 30+ books of Riftwar Cycle, and I look forward to finding out how it will click with me. I won’t be continuing with this trilogy, but I will still attempt Riftwar: Empire, I was interested in this trilogy in the first place anyway. Unfortunately, these two situations aren’t applicable to me, and The Magician was overall disappointing. I know I would’ve loved this so much more if I had read it at least a decade ago, or maybe if I have my nostalgia goggles on. To those who commented on my Booktube channel that they have a feeling that Riftwar Saga will be too outdated for me now that I’ve read a lot of modern fantasy, they were right. Feist himself mentioned that this situation is fixed eventually in the next trilogy because of Wurts’s involvement in Riftwar: Empire, and I can’t wait to read that. Lastly, Telewan, Tsurani, and the Game of Council-though interesting to hear-felt like an underdeveloped concept.
The way the lore of the series is explored is through a crazy info dump look at chapter 22, just to give a taste. Time skips happened non-stop practically every chapter took 30-50 minutes (felt like 2 hours sometimes) to read. I’ve mentioned in my review of Magician: Apprentice that the chapters in these books felt like a bunch of connecting short stories combined. Nothing about their voices or character resembled what I enjoyed in Magician: Apprentice anymore. To make things even worse, the changes to Pug and Tomas transform them into a completely different character than what we’ve read in Magician: Apprentice. Before this chapter occurred, he was still an apprentice at magic, but after this chapter, he immediately became a master. Do you know how long it takes for Pug to become a master? One chapter.
However, what I didn’t expect or know was how disjointed the developments leading to this were. Here’s the thing the title says it already, and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Magician: Master means we will see Pug becoming a master magician. So intriguing character’s development and world-building accompanied with a memorable scene, what could go wrong? Well, the outdated executions. Plus, there’s also the memorable scene of Pug’s wrath. I also enjoyed that the majority of the story takes place in the Asian-inspired setting of Telewan. The character’s development of Pug and Tomas-for better or worse-were totally intriguing to me. And to be fair, before I get to the things that didn’t click with me, there were indeed several things that intrigued me so much. Despite the issues I had with Magician: Apprentice, I thought that book did have plenty of redeeming factors that I thought could be explored further in the second half. Magician: Master is the second half of Magician-the first book in the Riftwar Saga series-by Raymond E. I gave this an honest attempt, but I won’t be continuing with the Riftwar Saga. I feel like nostalgia goggles are needed to enjoy this to the fullest now. And to be fair, before I get to the things that didn’t 2.5/5 stars
2.5/5 stars I feel like nostalgia goggles are needed to enjoy this to the fullest now.