Feist's latest books

growler

A mate of mine has just finished the Jimmy the Hand book and said it was infantile and pointless, worse that something written for a 10 year old and not at all what we have come to expect from the author of Magician. Now I see that the second in the conclave of shadows is due out for christmas time and am wondering whether to bother ( i skipped most of the legends of the Riftwar books as they read "sucker for parting with your cash to read this very thin plot" very quickly.

This seems to be a recurring problem with fantasy fiction authors, their imaginations dry up, or they are under pressure to produce "something" for a publisher deadline and just churn out the lost prince falls in love with elf, finds magic sword, meets strange character in teh woods, finds a new pet dragon / dwarf , slays monster / magician returns home in blaze of glory :nonsense.

Jordan should not be allowed to write anymore, except a few lines that kill everyone off , it's the only humane thing to do to us.

Feist is going that way. IMO

Hobb seems to be heading down that track

Goodkind, is soo far down the road of pointless ever expanding going nowhere plots that i suspect he will confuse the feck out of himslef for many thousands of pages to come .


others... ? or am i being to harsh to expect the same level of quality to be sustained through 3 + books ? or are us fans of fantasy so limited in choice that we buy sub standard drivel and the publishers don't feel the need to keep quality at a high level ?

jongore

I've read both books and although Jimmy the Hand was a fairly straightforward it was O.K much like many of the recent Riftwar books(Not up to the standard of Magician but then what is?)

Talon of the Silver Hawk was an enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the next book in the conclave of Shadows.

Have to agree with the point on Jordan, the WOT has gone downhill with every book after the third and Jordan has lost any plot line he had.

ixoy

Well - in defence of Feist - he didnt' want to do the Krondor series or the subsequent character books. If you search around the web, on newsgroups, you'll find postings to that effect. He was contractually obliged to write them and thus didn't put his heart into them. He was far more interested in writing "The Conclave of Shadows" saga but he had to wait forever to do it. Now that he has, the quality should improve.

I can't fully defend Hobb as I've only read Book 1 but I have faith.

Jordan - well I ain't read the latest book and frankly not pushed to get around to it. But I've bashed him to bits in another thread. More than one in fact!

Goodkind - Well after Book two I hurled his derivative pap to the wall. What a twat.

Now George R.R. Martin has only 3 books of six so I think he'll pull it off. Erikson has only done 4 books of ten but so far it's great. No drop. Janny Wurts has done six books of Who-the-fu*k-knows how many... last book was a bit too slow but it's not bad yet.

I say have more faith. Except with Jordan. He must be stopped.

Manach

Whilst I've found some fantasy writers do indeed dry up, I did enjoy Conclave of Shadows by Feist.

An author who seems to the reverse, and get better is Pratchett, his pb latest, "Night Watch", excellent. More mature and more sutble humoured.

As for Jordan, never a fan, gave up after book 1.

wyvernfriend

I think several authors need to take some time out, however the fickleness of the readership means that they will probably forget about the author if they do.

Ah the publishing world, cut-throat and stupid.

ixoy

In fairness to Feist, "Talon of the Silver Hawk" was a return to the level of the Serpentwar Saga.

He also hints at personal problems in the intro - anybody know what they were? I'm assuming a messy divorce, but am I wrong?

wyvernfriend

No Idea what happened to him, life sometimes makes a mess of thing!

jongore

Just finshed King of Foxes (Conclave of Shadows book 2) and although it was O.K. it wasn't as good as Talon of the Silver Hawk. It'll be interesting to see how he continues the story from here.

midget lord

I am a big fan of Feist. I enjoy his work and undoubtadly the Magician and Faery tale are two of the best reads i have had. However, contracually obliged or not, the character series and constant returning to midkemia and kelewan are a step too far. But then this is the essence of Fantasy writing.

Is the conclave of shadows based in midkemia? i assume so.

ixoy

Conclave of Shadows is based in Midkemia, yeah.

I imagine there's some life left yet in it all. FWIW, Midkemia comes from Feist's role-playing days. It was the world he and his friends played in - they're often mentioned in the Acknowledgements.
They developed a back history and it's this back history that Feist is writing about. His RPG world is set waaaaayyy into the "current" Midkemian timeline and, according to him, only a handful of people are remembered, mostly in whispered myths (Pug being one of course). There's - and this is the bit that leads me to think there is more to come for a while - been FIVE incidents involving rifts. Now, as of the Book of Shadows series,

THREE have taken place - the first one in "Magician", the second in the Krondor series, and the third in the Serpentwar Saga. Presumably the fourth is in the Conclave series and the fifth in some yet, unknown, series.

. So get used to sticking around Midkemia.

BTW, it may interest you to know it's set in Midkemia but on the other side of the continent. May make things a bit better.

jongore

Confirmation of ixoys spoiler.

In King of Foxes a rift has been formed by an evil magician but the conclave have been unable to determine where. It's mentioned almost in passing at the end of the book

.

DapperGent

I've completely given up on Feist at this stage. I loved Magician, Faerie Tale, Daughter and Servant. Rise of a Merchant Prince wasn't bad. But apart from that there's been a whole lot of trash written.

Most of the Serpent War stuff was of Eddings like awfulness not to mention really depressing stuff like Mistress and Prince of the Blood.

Why do so many SF/Fantasy writers spew out so many bad bad books. One every few years is great as long as it's actually good. I'd like to see more authors taking a leaf out of Neal "One every four years" Stephenson's book.

growler

I saw King of Foxes in the shop over the weekend , I'm going to wait and keep it as a fallback option for christmas day.

If anyone does read it , I'd be interested to see what you think of it.

Ta.

sweep_101

King of Foxes while not terrible isn't as good as Talon of Silver Hawk but still worth reading if you like Feist's books

growler

it's utterly pointless nonsense, it's readable, but it is so poor in comparison to what any Feist fan knows he is capable of that he should be embarassed about selling it to people for money.

He's off my Christmas card now.

Tenshot

Can't agree with the comment on Robin Hobb going down the Jordan/Goodkind/Feist road - Tawny Man was a great series.

Apparently she's working on something quite different for her next project, having finished with the Six Duchies for now; should be interesting...

growler

I completely and unreservedly withdraw my comment about Robin Hobb, I just finished Fools Fate and it was pure quality, it wasn't rehashed nonsense it was 800 pages of new and intersting story !!
Even more amazing iwas the fact that it ended!!!

Feist and Jordan will never see another penny of my hard earned cash though !