Raymond E. Feist

[Gilgamesh]

My advice: normally I wouldn't recommend them. However, as you're still young, I'd say read them now, before you're able to tell how bad they are. I really enjoyed them when I was your age. At his best, Feist is a notch above other pulp fantasy.

That's a bit patronising, isn't it!? I say give them a go and make up your own mind- certainly the early ones. They're miles better than that Harry Potter crap, anyway.

[Wastrel]

That's a bit patronising, isn't it!? I say give them a go and make up your own mind- certainly the early ones. They're miles better than that Harry Potter crap, anyway.

How is it patronising? It's simply recognising that different books will appeal to different people in different situations - because books have different strengths and weaknesses. Now, I consider that on balance Feist's books aren't very good, but that doesn't mean they don't have strengths. If you like those strengths, the books may be a good read. I think that in general experience leads one to have a more well-rounded appreciation of books, as well as to appreciate rarer and deeper strengths more highly than superficial and common ones. Inexperience means that the commonness has not yet become apparent, or the superficiality has not yet begun to grate.

So, if somebody posts on a board like this for recommendations, I wouldn't usually say "read Feist!" - because most people on a board like this are probably bored of generic, not-that-much-different-from-the-rest not-that-well-written fantasy. However, Prince is young, and seems to be relatively inexperienced. He's said in this thread that he doesn't mind about cliche. He's said he wants writing better than Eddings and Brooks. I've also noted some of his opinions in other threads. I think he'll like Feist - it's better written than Brooks, and it's grittier and deeper and more Martinesque than Eddings (except maybe the Elenium? Again, something I'll have to reread). It's cliched, but he doesn't mind that. It's not great prose, but if his standard is in the Eddings/Brooks area it won't be so bad that he's got a problem with it. It doesn't offer much in the way of depth, sophistication, or originality, but I don't get the impression he wants much of that at the moment - and if he does want a bit of it, Feist scores more highly on those scores than my impression of 'average pulp fantasy', and certainly ahead of Eddings and Brooks.

I suppose you might be trying to say that it sounds as though I'm putting myself above Prince, as somehow superior. Well, I don't think I'm superior, but yes, I do believe my literary taste is better than that of a thirteen-year-old boy (Prince: 13? or 14? Sorry, I forget) - unless he's a truly astonishing boy, I'd rather hope it was! That's no disrespect to Prince - it's not in any way his fault, and I don't think it's a problem for him either. In fact in some ways it's an opportunity - I was quite serious about reading them while he can still enjoy them, because I enjoyed them, and still enjoy the state of having read them, but I know that if I had never read them I would not be able to read them all now. [Though I will try to reread Magician at least]. Or if I could, I wouldn't get the same enjoyment out of them. I'm glad I read them while I still had fairly unformed tastes.

I'd also like to point out that this claim to better taste is not based on any characteristic of myself. The theoretical support is just that people tend to get better at things with practice, and I think reading follows that principle. And more importantly, I have my own experience. I look at what I could enjoy then and can't enjoy now, and also at what I couldn't enjoy then and can enjoy now - and I am very pleased with the exchange that has been made. What's more, I don't believe I've betrayed that younger self at any point - at every stage, my tastes have merely evolved in coherent direction. [And Prince is going to do the same, even if not necessarily in the same direction as me. He's already looking for 'better' writing than Eddings. Eventually, I've no doubt he'll be looking for better writing than Feist]

Finally, I'm not putting myself out as special at all. I'm quite willing to accept that other people here may have better taste than me.

----

An over-long defence, I suppose. The short of it: normally I recommend things to people I assume are in a similar position to me. In this case, I'm recommending things to somebody I assume is in a similar position to me-at-his-age, and me-at-his-age loved Feist. [Me-at-his-age also loved Eddings, albeit with rapidly fading fervour, and hadn't even heard of Martin - Prince is clearly developing rather faster than I did...]

[Prince Who Was Promised]

Well, Wastrel...I am an a truly astonishing 13 year old. ;)

I guess what I'm in the mood in right now is something not as complicated as GRRM, about the same level as RJ, a series that uses cliches and is a bit simple, but is better than Brooks/Eddings, and something that can keep my interest.

After I've checked out Riftwar, I'll get PoN. I wouldv'e gotten PoN already but I'd have to buy that and I'm not going to the store anytime soon. So I'm gonna lay back and read a simpler tale.

My reading list has gotten MUCH longer than intended...

P.S. After I check out Riftwar, and if I still havn't gotten PoN, I might start a thread. Please, continue your discussion. ;)

[kissoon]

I personally think Magician is a ripping yarn that can be enjoyed by all ages, not just young folk.

[Gabriele]

Well, I read Dostoyevsky and Balzac at 14, so I won't assume that people who are 14 have somehow 'inferior' reading tastes.

Liking those books didn't prevent me from also enjoying the early Feist novels, even at a later age. It depends on mood and what you expect from a book - and from Magician I expected pure, unadultered entertainment, like a good ol' Erroll Flynn pirate movie, and that I got. :)

[Foreverlad]

Well, I read Dostoyevsky and Balzac at 14, so I won't assume that people who are 14 have somehow 'inferior' reading tastes.

Liking those books didn't prevent me from also enjoying the early Feist novels, even at a later age. It depends on mood and what you expect from a book - and from Magician I expected pure, unadultered entertainment, like a good ol' Erroll Flynn pirate movie, and that I got. :)

Indeed.

Feist grew up with the same kinds of influences George Lucas did and it shows in his novels. Errol Flynn was, IIRC a big influence on him. Unless I'm mistaken, Feist's father was a producer or director in Hollywood, and that serialized action carried over to his work.

He has enough knowledge of history and general swashbuckling adventure to add a certain credence to his books, but his novels aren't what I'd consider deep. Like you said, unadulterated entertainment.

[Gabriele]

I guess what I'm in the mood in right now is something not as complicated as GRRM, about the same level as RJ, a series that uses cliches and is a bit simple, but is better than Brooks/Eddings, and something that can keep my interest.

Definitely try the early Feist books. Another author worth checking out may be David B.Coe. I think one of the Lon Tobyn Chronicles volumes is out of print, but the 5 books of the Wind of the Forelands series are avaliable.

[Werthead]

I think Magician is a wonderful book and well worth a read by anyone, starting in fantasy or not. Other than that, only the Empire trilogy is anything near the standard, most of the earlier ones being uneven at best but with moments of greatness while the latest ones seem to be more consistent but, as has been said, fairly dull. Oddly it's his prose not his plots that have faded - some of the recent ideas are very good and quite brave (although others less so) but the writing is leaden.

I also think Magician doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for the changing effect it had on the genre. People seem to see the very LotR-similar section near the start and overlook the fact that Magician was doing a lot of the things Martin gets praised for years before and is clearly a huge influence on aSoIaF. Hell, (very minor spoilers)

SPOILER: Magician

even Westeros is The Kingdom turned on its side with the hardy noble fellas at one end and the decadent scheming bastards at the other.

Erm, whilst Feist has read GRRM and is a fan (cover quotes on AGoT and ACoK) I'm also pretty sure GRRM hasn't read Feist. They did a joint-radio interview thing years ago (2001-02, or thereabouts, whilst GRRM was working on AFFC anyway) and GRRM was asking Feist how he coped with writing a huge series and Feist was talking about his scheme of dividing one mega-narrative into smaller cycles, and GRRM didn't seem familiar with the series at all.

The weirdest thing about Magician is that Feist did do one thing enormously different to other fantasy writers of the time, but then seemed to retreat from it:

SPOILER: Magician

Magician doesn't have 'bad guys' or prime evils or anything like that. Just internal politics in the Tsurani Empire that make them invade the Kingdom. No-one is a genocidal maniac bent on mass slaughter, Macros isn't a 'dark lord' (despite the cover blurb's attempts to make him out to be one), Pug may be an orphan destined for greatness but his parents were never anyone of importance and so on. Some of the Kingdom people were much greater villains than anyone in the Empire. The Warlord was the closest to a bad guy and he doesn't even do much. Even Guy du Bas-Tyra is later revealed as having a good rationale for his actions. All mildly revisionist and revelatory for 1982. What is weird is that, Empire Trilogy aside, Feist never went down that road again and his later books have evil gods, dark lord-like forces, cackling moustach-twirling cartoon bad guys and all the rest. Basically, as he went along Feist's writing style and originality actually devolved.

[Black Wizard]

He's willing to kill off characters (the books span several centuries) but has an annoying tendency to replace them with their offspring, who almost inevitably have the exact same personality type.

I find that they're inferior versions of their ancestors. Aruthra's ancestors have never been have interesting as he was and James' ancestors lack the uniqueness which the original had.

Is there a reccomended reading order or is it published in chronological order?

Refer to this: http://crydee.com/raymond-feist/reading-order

Start with Magician. My copy (before it got burned up) was 1 large hardcover. I understand the paperback is two books.

How did your book catch fire? :stunned:

In the UK Magician is all one volume.

Well, Wastrel...I am an a truly astonishing 13 year old. ;)

Blowing your own trumpet I see.

[Wastrel]

Well, Wastrel...I am an a truly astonishing 13 year old. ;)

But bear in mind that it's easy to be astonishing by comparison with the average 13-year-old. The internet, however (and speculative fiction fandom in particular) collects otherwise astonishing people together, and they end up being average again in the new context...

I guess what I'm in the mood in right now is something not as complicated as GRRM, about the same level as RJ, a series that uses cliches and is a bit simple, but is better than Brooks/Eddings, and something that can keep my interest.

Yes, I'd say Feist fits that pretty exactly.

I also agree with Werthead - the series becomes more and more simplistic as he goes along - in one direction at least. The first series (of which the first book is the best, iirc) is, as he says, more complex on the large scale, but the individual story arcs are pretty cliche. I think Serpentwar, on the other hand, tries to be more inventive with characters and plots, but the large scale (the ultimate villains, for instance) becomes more simplistic.

[polishgenius]

Erm, whilst Feist has read GRRM and is a fan (cover quotes on AGoT and ACoK) I'm also pretty sure GRRM hasn't read Feist. They did a joint-radio interview thing years ago (2001-02, or thereabouts, whilst GRRM was working on AFFC anyway) and GRRM was asking Feist how he coped with writing a huge series and Feist was talking about his scheme of dividing one mega-narrative into smaller cycles, and GRRM didn't seem familiar with the series at all.

That's very surprising to me... I haven't head the interview thing but perhaps he'd read Magician and not the others? It just seems oddly coincidental otherwise how similar aspects of the setting are - I know they're both working in a traditional medieval one but it goes further than that.

On the other bit

SPOILER: Feist

It is actually very disappointing how Feist went backwards. It's not just the complexity and originality he seemed to lose, as I said the writing style devolves, the characters in Magician seem to do more progressing in that than the ones that remain do across the entire series after that and although he does some brave things with the world, there's less and less of the moments of magic (as opposed to just people hitting each other with spells, which is not quite the same) that littered Magician and were still liberally applied in the next two. I don't think he's ever bettered the Tower of Testing sequence, still one of my favourite moments in fantasy fiction

[Black Wizard]

But bear in mind that it's easy to be astonishing by comparison with the average 13-year-old. The internet, however (and speculative fiction fandom in particular) collects otherwise astonishing people together, and they end up being average again in the new context...

I know exactly what you mean! Compared to most of the people at my school I was a fucking genious, but since I've started University I've noticed that there are plenty of other genii out there. There's also lots of other super-intelligent people on the internet (along with the average internet moron) which reduced my ego a bit. :(

[murphy]

(snip)

How did your book catch fire? :stunned:

In the UK Magician is all one volume.

(snip)

I had a small fire in my home and lost an entire bookcase. Luckily, my computer wasn't affected.

[Black Wizard]

That sucks. Did you have the books/bookcase insured?

[murphy]

That sucks. Did you have the books/bookcase insured?

No insurance on it. However, it was only half full of books, the other contents were folders of stuff I collected. My main bookcases are not in that room.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

I guess what I'm in the mood in right now is something not as complicated as GRRM, about the same level as RJ, a series that uses cliches and is a bit simple, but is better than Brooks/Eddings, and something that can keep my interest.

After I've checked out Riftwar, I'll get PoN.

I just thought this was amusing... I would describe PoN as many things, but simple is not among them. (Also it's far, far above RJ, and, incidentally, Feist)

As for the OP, I can't say anything that hasn't been said. I've only read the Magician books, and I enjoyed them, even after having read RJ and GRRM among others. The others... well, I can't give an opinion.

[Prince Who Was Promised]

But bear in mind that it's easy to be astonishing by comparison with the average 13-year-old. The internet, however (and speculative fiction fandom in particular) collects otherwise astonishing people together, and they end up being average again in the new context...

I know what you mean. As Black Wizard said, compared to other people I knew, I was a genius. But when on the internet...I'm just another semi-smart person in the mass of millions. But at the least I'm still smarter than the people I hang out with. Sometimes.

I just thought this was amusing... I would describe PoN as many things, but simple is not among them. (Also it's far, far above RJ, and, incidentally, Feist)

I wanted to read Riftwar because it was simpler. But after I've enjoyed something simple, I was going to move back to something more complex (PoN).

[Ski the Swift]

Quick question that's kind of related.

Why is it that something simpler and a very good fantasy tale about two young boys growing up in strange times have to be seen as less then something that has all these deep levels of thinking in it, such as Prince of Nothing and whatnot?

They are different, but I mean are totally different in many of their aspects and are both trying to achieve totally different goals.

Why does a book have to be complex and dark to be great? And thus leaving lighter and not so complex books inferior?

EDIT: Added last question.

[Foreverlad]

Quick question that's kind of related.

Why is it that something simpler and a very good fantasy tale about two young boys growing up in strange times have to be seen as less then something that has all these deep levels of thinking in it, such as Prince of Nothing and whatnot?

They are different, but I mean are totally different in many of their aspects and are both trying to achieve totally different goals.

Why does a book have to be complex and dark to be great? And thus leaving lighter and not so complex books inferior?

There's no "have to" about it. Speaking generally? There's nothing wrong with it. It's a bit of an assumption that if you're browsing these boards and you consider yourself a fan of GRRM, you've likely gone through your fair share of Fantasy prior to ASoIaF. With that experience comes something of an avalanche of tropes, retread ideas and outdated concepts.

Anything wrong with those things? Nope, not in the least, but a reader looking to broaden their horizons will not find much "new" content by following an Author like Feist. 20 years ago, he was practically cutting edge. Nowadays, it's the default reading experience for those breaking into SFF.

Feist entered the market when there wasn't all that much of one. Since his inception, hundreds, if not thousands of authors have come along and done the same (or nearly the same) thing.

Prince of Nothing, for example, carries itself QUITE differently than anything else out there. You won't find many authors with a narrative voice like Bakker's, nor the authorial intent or academic experience in his particular field. That makes his work stand out, whereas Feist produces "simple" works.

Again, nothing wrong with "simple", but we're looking for elements and styles that haven't been done to death.

[drawkcabi]

It's a bit of an assumption that if you're browsing these boards and you consider yourself a fan of GRRM, you've likely gone through your fair share of Fantasy prior to ASoIaF. With that experience comes something of an avalanche of tropes, retread ideas and outdated concepts.

Just as a quick aside, the way I got into GRRM is, circa 1998, I was waiting for the next Feist book to come out and I picked up AGOT in a book store because I liked the nice map that reminded me of the map of Midkemia. But hey, it got me here which I'm pretty happy about.