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A review by kenlaan
Magician's End by Raymond E. Feist
3.0
And so I finish book 31 of The Chaoswar Saga. This review is largely going to be about the series as a whole (though the rating is for the book itself). Overall, the book was 'good' and managed to be both satisfying and a little disappointing at the same time. I think I wanted more from the ending novel to a series that ran for 30 years, but I couldn't tell you precisely what was lacking.
I first read Magician: Apprentice maybe nearly 25 years ago as a kid and didn't continue the series past that until July 2021, when I decided to restart it. It's quite remarkable how much the series evolved over its 30 years. It began with, by today's standards (unfair, as it was undoubtedly very influential in forming those tropes), a pretty by-the-numbers Bildungsroman style story about an orphaned castle boy becoming the castle magician's apprentice. And if you reach the end, you'll have read metatextual descriptions of the base elements of matter (the manipulation of them being 'magic', which doesn't actually exist), investigations of how gods are created by people (not vice versa), entire worlds being destroyed, rifts between galaxies, time manipulation, and much more. Characters are born and die of old age, their children join the cast, and likewise exit the stage. It's quite a remarkable series.
Once the series was established, by and large, Feist concerned himself with two classes of characters (with some notable exceptions). The first is Pug, the titular Magician, and those like him - his family, and other members of Stardock and the Enclave of Shadows, which are mostly a collection of magicians who work to safeguard the world of Midkemia. The second are the non-magical nobles of the Kingdom of the Isles, largely members of the conDoin family from Crydee, where the first book begins. Without exception, I enjoyed the time spent with the second class of characters quite a bit more than the first. The stories featured interesting (if somewhat simplistic) political maneuvering with lots of swordplay, espionage, and other exciting elements. Characters like Arutha, Jimmy the Hand, Eric von Darkmoor, and Talwin Hawkins fall into this collection.
By contrast, I didn't have an especially strong affinity for Pug, the lynchpin of the entire series. My favorite books were those in which he didn't even appear ([b:Daughter of the Empire|589979|Daughter of the Empire (The Empire Trilogy, #1)|Raymond E. Feist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1672516954l/589979._SY75_.jpg|2960453], [b:Rise of a Merchant Prince|43917|Rise of a Merchant Prince (The Serpentwar Saga, #2)|Raymond E. Feist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360282060l/43917._SY75_.jpg|1844901], etc). I didn't have any problems with him, I just didn't find him all that interesting beyond what he did in Kelewan during his training as a Great One. He's a very consistent character without many interesting flaws or especially notable character traits, which is fair - people like that exist, I suppose, but they aren't that fun to read about, even if they do have all-powerful magician abilities. Feist is rather academic about his descriptions concerning the mechanics of magic, and while that works for some authors (Sanderson has made a career out of it), in Feist's case I mostly felt it just managed to make it less interesting as time went on.
Ultimately I'm very happy that I've read this series and I would recommend it to fans of adventure fantasy, but I wouldn't stress any importance on finishing the last 5 or so entries into it. Feist is to be commended for creating a compelling and interesting universe that undoubtedly influenced works that have come over - I just wish the ending didn't feel like just another iteration of the same framework I'd seen before.
I first read Magician: Apprentice maybe nearly 25 years ago as a kid and didn't continue the series past that until July 2021, when I decided to restart it. It's quite remarkable how much the series evolved over its 30 years. It began with, by today's standards (unfair, as it was undoubtedly very influential in forming those tropes), a pretty by-the-numbers Bildungsroman style story about an orphaned castle boy becoming the castle magician's apprentice. And if you reach the end, you'll have read metatextual descriptions of the base elements of matter (the manipulation of them being 'magic', which doesn't actually exist), investigations of how gods are created by people (not vice versa), entire worlds being destroyed, rifts between galaxies, time manipulation, and much more. Characters are born and die of old age, their children join the cast, and likewise exit the stage. It's quite a remarkable series.
Once the series was established, by and large, Feist concerned himself with two classes of characters (with some notable exceptions). The first is Pug, the titular Magician, and those like him - his family, and other members of Stardock and the Enclave of Shadows, which are mostly a collection of magicians who work to safeguard the world of Midkemia. The second are the non-magical nobles of the Kingdom of the Isles, largely members of the conDoin family from Crydee, where the first book begins. Without exception, I enjoyed the time spent with the second class of characters quite a bit more than the first. The stories featured interesting (if somewhat simplistic) political maneuvering with lots of swordplay, espionage, and other exciting elements. Characters like Arutha, Jimmy the Hand, Eric von Darkmoor, and Talwin Hawkins fall into this collection.
By contrast, I didn't have an especially strong affinity for Pug, the lynchpin of the entire series. My favorite books were those in which he didn't even appear ([b:Daughter of the Empire|589979|Daughter of the Empire (The Empire Trilogy, #1)|Raymond E. Feist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1672516954l/589979._SY75_.jpg|2960453], [b:Rise of a Merchant Prince|43917|Rise of a Merchant Prince (The Serpentwar Saga, #2)|Raymond E. Feist|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360282060l/43917._SY75_.jpg|1844901], etc). I didn't have any problems with him, I just didn't find him all that interesting beyond what he did in Kelewan during his training as a Great One. He's a very consistent character without many interesting flaws or especially notable character traits, which is fair - people like that exist, I suppose, but they aren't that fun to read about, even if they do have all-powerful magician abilities. Feist is rather academic about his descriptions concerning the mechanics of magic, and while that works for some authors (Sanderson has made a career out of it), in Feist's case I mostly felt it just managed to make it less interesting as time went on.
Ultimately I'm very happy that I've read this series and I would recommend it to fans of adventure fantasy, but I wouldn't stress any importance on finishing the last 5 or so entries into it. Feist is to be commended for creating a compelling and interesting universe that undoubtedly influenced works that have come over - I just wish the ending didn't feel like just another iteration of the same framework I'd seen before.