Magician: Apprentice & Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist

 

    Good Day, good day, and welcome to the Empty Shelf, where we discuss and review Fantasy and Sci-Fi novels and series. My name is Mike and I’ll be your reader and reviewer. As usual, there are some spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution.

Today, we’re going to discuss Magician, by Raymond E. Feist. Now, Magician is the first novel in the Riftwar Saga, which is the trilogy that started the Riftwar CYCLE. The Riftwar Cycle encompasses some 30 novels, with a few other novellas and short stories thrown in for good measure. The most recent novel, the one that ended the cycle, is called “Magician’s End” and it was released in 2013. So the whole universe was told over a span of about 30 years. In world, it takes place over about 50 years, across several kingdoms and worlds. It really is quite the epic achievement.

The original concept for the world of the Riftwar, called Midkemia, came from Feist’s time in college, where he and his friends were fond of RPGs. Together, they created Midkemia, including its magic and some of its mechanics. He graduated in 1977, and in the years following began to write what would become Magician (Partially funded by those same friends who helped him develop the world.)

So Magician was originally published in 1982. It’s a little over 210K words, or about 545 pages, hard back. A few years later, in 1986, it was split in two and re-released as Magician: Apprentice, and Magician: Master. I’m not entirely sure why they did that, but they did. Still later, in 1992, a tenth anniversary edition was released (still in two volumes) called the Author’s Preferred Edition. Basically it’s a director’s cut. It includes a series of scenes that were cut from the original release. It was followed by Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon, which completed the original Riftwar Saga. 

That trilogy was then followed by several more Trilogies, Duologies, and Tetrologies. Some of them occur concurrently with the original trilogy, some after. Some occur in different parts of the world or focus on one specific character. But enough about that.

Magician (as I’ll start referring to it from here on in, since it’s a mouthful to name both novels) follows three primary POVs: Pug, Tomas, and Arutha. There are a few others, but those are where the main story takes place.

Pug is an orphaned kitchen boy of Crydee, a small duchy on the western most coast of The Kingdom of the Isles in the world of Midkemia. After being trapped in a storm, Pug is given shelter by Kulgan, a magician and counselor to Duke Borric of Crydee. Pug is of an age where he is to be selected for apprenticeship in a process called The Choosing. It’s relatively informal, but all young men go through it. So Pug and his best friend Tomas attend the choosing. Tomas is taken by the swordmaster Fannon to become a soldier. Pug is selected by Kulgan to become an apprentice magician. 

He struggles with magic and is not able to do too much with it. Some time later, Pug is assigned to look after Princess Carline, the youngest child of the Duke, while she is out on a ride. The two bicker and don’t seem to like each other much, but Pug saves her from an attack by trolls by using some magic he doesn’t understand or know how to control. As a reward for saving his daughter, the Duke makes Pug a Squier.

After a mysterious shipwreck with strange people is discovered, seemingly from another world, the Duke sets out for Krondor, the capital of the western part of the kingdom to seek aid from his cousin, Prince Erland. En route, the party - which includes Pug and Tomas - is attacked by the Dark Brotherhood, which are sort of like Dark elves. They are saved by dwarves and their leader, Dolgan, offers to see them safely through the mines of Mac Mordain Cadal. Here, the party is separated with Tomas becoming lost and stranded in the mines. 

Dolgan goes back into the mines where he locates Tomas chatting merrily with a dragon. The dragon gives both a gift. To Dolgan, he gives a hammer that once belonged to a great dwarven king. To Tomas, he gives a set of gold and white armor, including a sword and shield. Dolgan leads Tomas out of the mines and they make for the Elven city of Elvendar.

Back with Pug and co, they eventually make it to Krondor, though with far fewer men than they set out with. They relay their story to Prince Erland, but he is powerless to give them any aid without the permission of the King himself. So they have to travel on to Rillanon. By the time they arrive at Rillanon, the invasion has begun. The people are called the Tsurani, and they come from a world called Kelewan through a rift in space-time. Hence The Riftwar.

King Rodric offers no real help, and he seems taken by madness and delusion. Rather unexpectedly, the king grants Borric command of the Armies of the west, so the party gets back in the saddle and heads to a place called LaMut to join the duke there in the defenses. On a mission to observe enemy lines, Pug is captured and pulled back through the rift. And that’s the end of the first book, Magician: Apprentice. 

We pick up in Magician: Master with Pug toiling as a slave some 4 years after his capture, cutting down the trees that give the Tsurani a very hard and sharpenable wood for weapons and armor. They have almost no metal on their world. Following an altercation with his foreman, Pug meets a Tsurani called Hokanu who takes him and another Midkemian slave called Laurie - a minstrel - out of the slave camp to his family’s estate. 

Once there, the pair of slaves are instructed to tutor Hokanu’s brother, called Kasumi, in the language and culture of Midkemia. Pug meets and falls in love with another slave named Katala. He begins to like his new life, but is taken from it when a Tsurani Great One recognizes magical ability in him and claims him for training. Great Ones are the Tsurani equivalent of Magicians.

Back to Tomas. He’s living and fighting the Tsurani with the dwarves of the Grey Towers. He has grown considerably as a man and a warrior. He’s injured in a raid and the dwarves are forced to flee to Elvendar, where Tomas recovers miraculously quickly. The elves are all a bit surprised and somewhat fearful of his fancy armor. 

Back to Pug, he’s completed his training, which seemed to take a few years, and his memories have been subdued. Not really erased, because they do come back. Anyway, he’s renamed Milamber, and given the rank of Black Robe, which is the highest. In something of a scandal, Milamber bucks the Tsurani trend by designing his own house, which he staffed with Midkemian slaves he gathered from around the Kingdom. On one of his trips, he meant to free Laurie and Katala, only to discover that Katala had given him a son, William. Laurie refused to leave, hinting that there was some political maneuvering he was involved in for the estate. 

Turns out Kasumi’s family, The Shinzawai, want to step around the Tsurani warlord and broker peace on behalf of the Emperor. So Laurie and Kasumi travel through the rift in disguise in order to treat with King Rodric. The warlord had been consolidating power for some time, and hoped to finalize that with a series of games to honor the emperor. Milamber is none too pleased with the way the midkemian slaves are treated and lashes out with his power causing great destruction. Knowing the repercussions will be great, Milamber gathers his family and leaves Kelewan.

Back on Midkemia, Pug, as he’s once again known, reunites with Kulgan, Tomas, and his old friends. He makes his way to see a dying Duke Borric who reveals he has adopted Pug into the ConDoin family, and given him an Island called Stardock to start a school of Magic. We also learn a secret about the duke’s family, which I won’t reveal here, but is a pretty good little twist. The Duke dies and that leaves Lyam in charge of the armies of the west. 

The king shows up and leads a charge of the armies against the Tsurani. He’s injured and, in a moment of lucidity, names Lyam heir to his throne, as the oldest living ConDoin male. Lyam then resumes peace talks with the Tsurani. Things start off well, but a mysterious magician intervenes and causes a chaotic battle. Pug helps to close the rift, stranding Kasumi and a group of Tsurani warriors, and the war effectively comes to an end. 

After the fact, Lyam is crowned King of the realm, Arutha becomes Prince of Krondor, Kasumi’s troop is incorporated into the Kingdom’s Army and Pug heads off with his family to start the Magical academy. All’s well that ends well.

So let’s get to ratings:

Story/Conflict: This story in Magician is an inventive twist on a classic invasion trope. It seamlessly blends some Sci-Fi elements with good old fashioned fantasy standards. The conflict is well thought out and pretty well planned, though there are a few parts where it seems rushed. 

Pug’s training for example is very quick and almost completely ignored. I think it focuses more on the history of the Tsurani than anything else. The Assembly (the council of magicians) takes him for training, we see a strange flashing history, then Pug emerges as the highest rank of Magician and has tremendous power. It felt sort of like a cop out. The good news is that it’s just one small section of an otherwise well written book.

I do feel the need to address the mines of Mac Mordain Cadal. That is a pretty obvious...I'll say “homage” to the Mines of Moria, and that’s being generous about it. Of course, all fantasy eventually traces itself back to Tolkein, and Feist wrote this story after developing a D&D campaign, which itself traces its roots to LoTR. So, I suppose I can understand, even forgive. 

We don’t really discover the motivations of the Tsurani until somewhat later in the story, but they still read as understandable. I like the overall effect and the general story in Magician. I’ll give Mr. Feist an A- for Story.

Pacing: I believe the pacing to be generally good, but a little uneven in parts. Had it not been broken into two novels, the middle bit (which is actually the beginning of the Second book) would have felt very slow. However, since they DID break it up, it works. Most of the time, a book takes a few chapters to get rolling, and this would be no different. As a single novel, it would have been a low point. The split removes that problem. 

There’s also the matter of Pug’s training in Magician: Master. It’s very vague and glossed over. It rushes through a bit of story that could have been very compelling and probably a novel on its own. 

The first book moves VERY quickly. It was hard to put down, and that’s a good thing. There was one part in the mines that was a touch protracted, but after everything else that had happened to that point, the break was refreshing. 

I’m grading this as a single story, rather than two novels. As such, I’m giving pacing a B+. It was generally very good, but there were a few small problems in the back half that I can’t overlook.

Character: Feist does a great job with character in Magician. Now, it’s the first of a series, so there’s only room for more improvement. I’m looking forward to that! But, for Magician: I love Pug’s character. His development is linear and reads as real and very sympathetic. I’ve already addressed the issue I have with Pug’s training on Kelewan, but it doesn’t really change the fact that he ends up in a very logical place. 

Tomas has an interesting arc. I like where he ends up as well, but I wish we’d spent a little more time with him. He’s a bigger player in the following two novels, so maybe we see some of it there. I like the concept behind his character growth very much, but it felt a bit underwritten.

The other major character we see really grow and change is Arutha. He’s definitely the star of the next book, so we’ll see even more of him there. But he goes from being a withdrawn and not overly expressive second son, to being the leader of Crydee, a bold warrior, and a fair politician. Seeing him get there was interesting.

I should mention that there is a four year gap between the end of book one and the beginning of book two, so there’s some off-page character work we don’t see, but Feist is skillful enough to bridge that gap. All in all, I’m giving an A- for Character.

Magic System: Magician is the very definition of soft magic. Almost no rules are explained at all. All we know, or at least all I got out of it, is that there are two “paths,” as they call it. The greater and lesser paths. Magicians can apparently harness the elements, but it doesn’t seem to be elementally based. What I find really interesting is that, despite being called “Magician,” this story doesn’t really rely on magic except for one bit at the end. When a story doesn’t rely on magic to move the plot, the system doesn’t have to be a hard and fast thing. I’ll give it a B+. I like a little more explanation, even on a soft system, which kind of defeats the purpose I guess.

World Building: There are 2 worlds in this story, Midkemia and Kelewan. Midkemia is the one where we spend the most time. And there, we spend the most time in the Kingdom of the Isles. There are hints at other lands and broader geography (which is explored in further books.) So for this grade, we’ll stay in the kingdom, and the parts of Kelewan we see.

The Kingdom is a well fleshed out world. The peerage and gentry are very well designed, and it’s clear that Feist sat down and really figured out the family lines and their relationships to one another. The political alliances and feuds are all nicely detailed and those motivations are appropriate.

Landscapes are vivid and the geography is logical (which can be more of a problem than you think.) The thing with some of these “classic” fantasy novels is that the world itself is not all that different from ours. There are no major geographical features that you wouldn’t find here (mountains, forests, etc.), unless you count, y’know, a big ol city of elves. 

The point is that there wasn’t a lot to build geographically. He needed to name some towns, cities, and provinces. What he DID do was create a lovely population of races and cultures. The elves, while basic from a physical standpoint, are a nice addition, same for the dwarves. Their social structures are a little different from the norm and those changes are effective. I love the idea of the Dark Brotherhood. I’d like to see more about them. Are they more elven looking, are they like orcs? There are goblins, trolls, and who knows what other creatures he borrowed from a D&D style campaign. I like all those other races and I think they add a fun dynamic to the world. It’s been a while since I’ve played any D&D, so I'm not 100% sure if he kept the descriptions and mannerisms the same across platforms.

Kelewan is a bit different. Mr. Feist had to create a whole new series of non-earth creatures with 6 legs, or some other odd feature. They are mentioned, but don’t really get much screen time. I’d love to see more of them. We see a good bit of the Tsurani culture, especially through the historical flashbacks during Pug’s training, and I like what he did there. The militaristic culture adds to the stakes of the overall conflict, and some of the history helps to explain what magic system we have. That said, there’s not much geography to note on Kelewan. Now, a comparatively small part of the story takes place there, so that’s not a huge deal, but we probably could’ve gotten more.

Overall, I'm going with a B- for world building. When you account for BOTH worlds he had to create, there are some blank spots. The import of various races from a D&D style campaign is nice, but he didn’t really have to do much in that respect…just type the words. I’d have liked a more complete world and a deeper understanding of its geography and politics. 

Writing Style: Since it was released in 1982, I’m considering Magician a classic fantasy. Perhaps because of the time in which it was conceived and the genre standards at the time, this book has a formal turn of phrase. Modern fantasy is much more straightforward and comes very close to using modern slang. In fact, things like Fourth Wing DO use modern slang. 

Magician, on the other hand, is much more flowery. It’s not Tad Williams, or George RR Martin, by any stretch, but it definitely has several archaic sounding passages in it. Sort of a Tolkein-ian vibe to it. Real people do not speak that way. “I lose much face in my lord’s sight.” “As I hanged the slave master, so am I free to keep you alive should it suit my needs.” Again, real people don’t talk like that. It definitely has the ring of an old medieval British epic. And that’s not a bad thing, by the way. For some reason, it works for this story. In someone else’s hands, this could sound somewhat clunky, but Feist nails it. He has a degree in Communication Arts, so maybe that explains it. 

I’m giving writing style a B+. It’s an old style turn of phrase, but it’s well handled. I’m not used to it, so it can be a bit jarring, but I ended up enjoying it.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Magician is a tight story with a clear 3 act structure. It has a very satisfying ending, some wonderful characters, and is a brisk and very fun read. The audio book is pretty good, and I can recommend both.

The soft magic system is frustrating for me, but that’s just because I’m a big fan of very detailed magic systems. I’d have liked a bit more in the world building category, and the writing style - while very good and expertly crafted - can feel a little awkward.

I really enjoyed Magician. Despite the bits I “complain about,” I think it’s a wonderful classic fantasy and a great entry point for people hoping to get into the genre. There’s no language, gore or sex, so it’s perfect for young readers. I look forward to finishing this trilogy, and perhaps reading more of the overall series. 

Magician, by Raymond E. Feist, gets 79 of 90 possible points. That’s good for an 80% or a B-. I think that’s a fair grade. I think, and I hope, that with the completion of the other books in the series, the bits that I docked points for will be improved and the grade can only climb.

Well, thank you so much for listening to the Bookless Shelf. I hope you’re inspired to give the Riftwar Saga a try. If you do, let me know what you think about it. I look forward to reading again with you next time. Until then, Keep reading.

*These books were read between December of 2023 and March of 2024