Raymond E. Feist, mediocre at best?

AngryBadger

I'm on book four of the Serpentwar saga, and while I think Feist's really improved since Silverthorn, and Sethanon. I still have gripes with the guys prose writing, and why are all the women whores? I mean every single female character...practically. I had more but it's late and I'm tired...or lazy, one or the other, take your pick

RandyMan

I liked magician and the riftwar saga but it was a bit childish:p
However I loved the empire series for the depth of the politics of Kelewan or whatever the damn thing was called....anyway I think the serpent war saga is his best work to date but maybe he should leave the worlds of Midkemia and Kelewan alone for now...it's getting a bit overdone!

AngryBadger

yeah I guess, gotta agree about the riftwr saga, fairly childish, didn't like the way he kept skipping decades at a time, that pissed me off, I'm a little bit high right now though, so I think perhaps my elucidations on the wittery and talent of Mr. Feist are a little lop-sided....my new sound scheme is kinda starting to piss me off, you read Prattchet?

Terminator

I've only read "The Magician" and I wasn't exactly bowled over. The story had huge, massive, gaps that defied explanation. It was like he skipped all the interesting bits to concentrate on the boring stuff.

RandyMan

Even though he did sort of fast forward in Magician it was still a pretty damn big book!!
What would it have been like if he did include everything????
Besides I still found it to be an enjoyable read, but it ain't nothing compared to George RR Martin or Steven Erikson!!!

AngryBadger

My problem wasn't that he skipped huge bits, it's that evolutions in characters took place and you were expected to accept it at face value, and this wasn't done in the ven of the story in a way that fit wit everything, it totally suspended disbelief because it didn't fit, like any of the times when pug suddenly ages anywhere between 5, and 20 years. It's not that I have a problem with authors skipping arbitrary periods of time, but it has to fit the story, and if something important is supposed to be happening during that time, then you really should be told, or at least informed on what's relevant, sufficient that you don't feel like you're missing the point of the story because you haven't been told the plot.

Look at Robert Jordan and the wheel of time, in book two when rand takes the Shienarians what is it,4 months into the future on Toman head? I can't be bothered to check it right now, but the point is Jordan just skips a large space of time, (particularly given the nature of Jordan's writing, and timelines), but that's ok, it doesn't feel like it's out of sync with the rest of the universe.

But when Feist does it, at least in his earlier books, I feel like it's almost a new story, not very related to what i was reading. I'd prefer longer stories dran out over more books with the gaps filled in....

well there's my rant, it's 1:30am, and I'm tired, goodnight

RandyMan

What big time gaps are you talking about?????
Feist filled in all the neccessary details please show me a specific place where Pug aged 20 years??

bonkey

Originally posted by RandyMan
What big time gaps are you talking about?????
Feist filled in all the neccessary details please show me a specific place where Pug aged 20 years??

Yeah - the entire first trilogy is set during a war which lasts less than that. The serpentwar saga is written in a timeframe of (IIRC) 4-ish years, and after that, you're looking at the timeframes between the series, or between individual book. So where "its like reading a different story" - it is supposed to, because it is a different story.

The only major gaps in the Riftwar trilogy are at various stages of Pug's education. To me, it would unfeasible to write about several years of magical education, not to mention boring. Then, of course, the same woul dahve to be done to everyone else as well.

The timelines in Feist's writing are all pretty solid. He skips chunks of time where nothing of interest is happening. The war continues, or (as in Serpentwar) preperations for the war continues, or someone's education continues, or whatever. Nothing interesting is skipped, and there is nothing implausible ever introduced which you have to just assume "came from the missing time".

Having said all of that, I think Magician was his best work, by a long margin. I dont count the Empire series (which is superior), because he had a lot of help on that from Janny Wurtz. Faerie Tale was pretty good as well, but still only second place.

I'm slightly concerned that with stuff like "Honoured Enemy", Feist is beginning to tread the same path as Clancy did with his Op Force and Net Force drivel. I'd prefer to see him do something really different. Maybe sci-fi. Two of the best sci-fi series in the last decade (IMHO) came from fantasy authors who turned their hands to sci-fi.

jc

Terminator

I got the impression that he skipped Pug's magical education because he quite simply couldn't explain clearly how it all worked. In short he didn't have a believable magic system - admittedly a big problem for a lot of authors - not just Feist.

Even George RR Martin doesn't get down to the nitty gritty of how the magic works in his universe. Which is fair enough since he only rarely uses "magic" in his plot devices.

IMHO Robert Jordan and Katherine Kerr are one of the few authors who've managed to build a believable magic system.

AngryBadger

Originally posted by RandyMan
What big time gaps are you talking about?????
Feist filled in all the neccessary details please show me a specific place where Pug aged 20 years??

I haven't read all of Feist's other books, I've read the Riftwar saga, The Serpentwar saga, The king's Bucaneer, and Princes of the blood, and a lot of stuff isn't addressed in those.

Gaps, ok, Pug is kidnapped and appears what, 4 years later working as a slave, Pug is picked up as a magician and suddenly we jump forward another couple of years and he's in the middle of assembly training, another jump and he's an established member of the assembly who's putting forward new political ideals, when Pug goes through the rift and finds the Eldar,

Tomas grows in much the same way, one minute he's a kid, then he's a man wearing magical armour, then he's leading the armies of the elves, and so on...

My point is that I didn't find any of these jumps to be satisfactorily coherent. I haven't read and of Feist's other series, maybe they're addressed there, in which case fine, but either way I didn't like the way he dealt with all that stuff. It was acceptable, and I appreciate that it does "fit", but it doesn't fit well enough in my opinion, assuming for example that Robert Jordan is the pinnacle of successful story-telling.

AngryBadger

Additionally I think it's worth mentioning that in the serpentwar saga none of these kinds of gaps exist, and it is in my opinion a far superior series for it, although the prose is still somewhat under par