Well. This was my first Feist book. I guess I didn't realize this was a series related to earlier series by the same author. Anyway, I didn't really feel lost due to not being aware of any related/back stories. It was a super long story though... and not in a good way. Has a lot of characters and they are not particularly different from each other, so sometimes I had to go back to check a name to find out if he was prince 1 or prince 2 in the story. There are no female characters... well... of course there are females, they just have no character development. But at least they weren't prizes to be won either. Overall... I finished it. I am not very likely to read any more in the series though, unless someone dropped it off at my door... ( )

The first of the last trilogy. Wow. And SO many years after the first Magician book came out.

It feels like we're coming to a full close but doing it in GRAND style. We spend a lot of time in the fifth circle of the demon realm, following some wickedness around and just waiting to see her transformation into the Big Bad we'll have to face in a totally unprepared Midkemia.

Well, not TOTALLY unprepared, but Pug is only one man and his Isle of Wizards is only SO powerful. These demons are going to TEAR through the world. We're already seeing signs of it. Hints. And then, Kesh is going ahead after so many years of relative peace and hammering the kingdom. Hard.

Good new characters even if they're old echoes of their grandsires or great-grandsires. Echoes of Jimmy and Martin. Sigh.

The great parts of this book are the same great parts that we've loved in the prior books. Sieges, the warfare of all kinds, the scraping-by with bare survival, retreats. The sense of doom is pervasive and this is just the usual kind of warfare doom.

But what's driving the Kesh north? :)

And also... the twist at the end? The new, perhaps last BIG reveal?

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA okay. I love it. ( )

This is the first book in the very last subseries of Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Cycle. I went into this with low expectations because the last two subseries starters were full of recaps that kept putting me to sleep. Happily, I didn’t have that problem with this book at all. There was some recap info, and some of it was provided more than once, but it came in both briefer and less frequent doses and so it never got tedious.

I enjoyed this. It’s full of a lot of the things Feist does best – camaraderie, adversaries banding together to fight a common enemy, a young man unexpectedly thrown into a leadership position and taking charge against overwhelming odds, etc. There admittedly isn’t anything particularly new here, but it was kind of a comfort read with so many of the things I enjoyed most about the early books appearing in slightly different forms here as the series approaches the end. I expected this last subseries to be depressing given some of the often-repeated predictions and the title of the last book, and it will probably get there eventually, but this book was fun.

Feist does like to recycle his character types by introducing descendants of old favorite characters from the early books who have some remarkably similar personality traits and skills. I do usually like them, although they never quite recapture the magic of the originals for me because they aren’t the originals. And then there are the characters who keep showing back up in new and strange ways… I hope Feist can make it make sense that Nakor and Miranda’s “memories” appear to be living in demons. I guess it will turn out to be something the gods did again. I wasn’t particularly thrilled to see Miranda again, but I did love seeing Nakor show back up.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I’m rating it at 4.5 stars which is probably a little generous since I don’t think this story is going to stick with me for the long haul, but mostly it’s just based on the enjoyment I got from reading it. I’m rounding down to 4 on Goodreads. ( )

Overgestapt naar de e-book versie van dit boek, en opnieuw begonnen.

This review is also published at http://thebookaholiccat.com

This was my first book by Raymond E. Feist and big mistake! This book is promoted as the first book in The Chaoswar Saga Trilogy, but when I started to read it I realized that it was not a first book, but a continuation of a very extensive series, that is divided into different sagas; there are almost 20 books prior to this one.
This dampened a little bit my reading experience considering there were many references to previous events that I didn’t know and references to many characters that I also didn’t know who they were or what was their roll in the previous books.

Apart for this, I enjoy the book. The characters are complex and interesting. Mr. Feist does a great job with the description of the world, making it vivid and realistic.

My favorite character is Child, a demon we see grow from baby to a complex being. She is transforming herself page by page, developing into something else. She is a very inquisitive being who wants to learn more and more, always with and endless curiosity of the world surrounding her.
There is a twist in the end of the plot regarding this character that have me wondering how Mr. Feist is going to unfold it.

Another character I really liked is Martin. He is the second son of Lord Henry, Duke of Crydee. Martin is a quiet and very studious young man. But unforetold circumstances put him in a difficult situation forcing him to take the reins of the dukedom This situation tests him in a great level, as a second son he was never prepared to do so, but thanks to his strength and capability he is able in the best possible way to carry out this burden.
I liked seeing his transformation and acceptance, not just of this situation in which he is thrown at, but also in a more personal level in regards to his feelings towards Bethany.

Even though there are many events and situations happening at the same time, making it a very complex plot this is not a difficult read, Mr. Feist really pull it off with a very compelling storytelling.
This book is fast paced, especially the last third part of the book, making is a page-turner difficult to put away.
I don’t think I’ll read the previous books (there are too many). But I am sure I will read the next ones in this trilogy, I can’t wait to know what is coming next.

To any fantasy lover this is a series for you. I recommend you to read it in order. ( )