Awesome turn of the tide. This was by far the best book in the Conclave of Shadows trilogy and signals the reader that good old Feist can still deliver stories with the flair and the excitement of the original Riftwar Saga. What threw me off in the beginning was to discover that the point of view in this book belongs not to Tal, the protagonist of the first two volumes, but to Kaspar of Olasko. I really wasn't ready for that and in spite of a small feeling of disorientation in the beginning, this turned out to be an incredible read which further developed the storyline in a very clever and interesting way.
Kaspar starts out somewhere in the desert, in the continent of Novindus. After being abandoned there for his crimes, he undergoes some change of spirits as he lives for the day among ordinary, struggling peasants. He soon becomes a survivor, fighting for his subsistence. Until he comes in contact with a small bunch of brigands carrying a magical artifact. In the course of dealing with this finding, he crosses the continent visiting temples and seeking help from divinities. Eventually, the plot spreads out and puts him in the context of earlier, loved characters from Feist's universe. The artifact is the precursor of a greater evil to come to Midkemia and warrior and magic-users must team up to understand this threat and fight it.
The book ends without really ending and links directly into Feist's new Darkwar Saga. If there was any flaw with the Conclave of Shadows, I would say that it was its organization for the obvious sake of marketing. It seems that fantasy readers are used to trilogies and expect books to be packaged as such. The Conclave of Shadows appears to have been written in this volume for this reason alone. In all honesty, this is not a self-contained story and I understand that not every author aspires to be a Robert Jordan writing a story that spans a dozen volumes. As much as I enjoyed reading it, I would have enjoyed finding some kind of resolution when I turned the last page of Exile's Return. What I discovered was that the beat goes on and if I want to see what happens, I must go on reading. Fine by me, I enjoy Feist anyway, but a trilogy, this Conclave of Shadows really was not.
Friday, March 16, 2007
The King of Foxes, by Raymond Feist
Another really fun volume in the Conclave of Shadows trilogy. The narrative continues exactly where Talon of the Silver Hawk ends and the plot is a natural extension of what was started in the first volume. Court politics, swashbuckling, spying and sneaking, and a tiny bit of magic. Talon becomes Talwin Hawkins, agent of the Conclave within the court of the Duke of Olasko. His task, as much as his personal mission to seek revenge for the obliteration of the Orosini, his people, is to keep an eye on the Duke and on his ally Leso Varen, the necromancer. In the course of this mission, Tal confronts deep personal, ethical dilemmas of his own when following orders given by a scrupulous master. Quite a lot happens in this book which is impossible to mention without spoiling the reading, but this is a tale of one overcoming numerous hardships, of reaching the sky and then sinking to the depths of hell. It ends with a certain feeling of resolution, but also with the promise of much more excitement to come.
Talon of the Silver Hawk, by Raymond Feist
I'm still trying to come to terms with my thoughts on this book. First of all, even though this story is set in the same universe as Magician, it couldn't be more different. While one could say that different is good because it means the author is not repeating itself, I really wanted him to repeat himself. Why? Because what draws me to fantasy is magic, and Magician and the other books in the Riftwar Saga are hard to beat in that department. Some of Feist's great characters, like Pug and Nakor, are less than sidekicks in this story, what was somewhat hard to get over. (They make very few short appearances.)
Although the plots are very different, a subtle parallel exists between Magician and Talon: both are coming of age tales. While Magician talks about a boy who turns into a great wizard, Talon talks about a boy who turns into a great warrior.
Putting aside all my feeling of nostalgia for Feist's magic and looking at this book for what it is, it is hard to deny that it is fluff. Fun, yes definitely, but just fluff. (Unless the tide turns on the last two volumes in this trilogy.) The element of revenge in the story and the personal development of the main character smell a bit like Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, but only slightly. The story progresses nicely in the style you can expect of Feist: a good investment in character development and then good, fast-paced action. A lot of sword fighting and some military strategy in the end, but hardly any magic. And to end this review, I must ask: "What's up with realism in fantasy? I want MAGIC!"
Although the plots are very different, a subtle parallel exists between Magician and Talon: both are coming of age tales. While Magician talks about a boy who turns into a great wizard, Talon talks about a boy who turns into a great warrior.
Putting aside all my feeling of nostalgia for Feist's magic and looking at this book for what it is, it is hard to deny that it is fluff. Fun, yes definitely, but just fluff. (Unless the tide turns on the last two volumes in this trilogy.) The element of revenge in the story and the personal development of the main character smell a bit like Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, but only slightly. The story progresses nicely in the style you can expect of Feist: a good investment in character development and then good, fast-paced action. A lot of sword fighting and some military strategy in the end, but hardly any magic. And to end this review, I must ask: "What's up with realism in fantasy? I want MAGIC!"
Great Sky River, by Gregory Benford
To start this rant, what upset me the most in this Galactic Center series is the abrupt change in gears between volumes 2 and 3. What starts out as an interesting story about first contact (vols. 1 & 2) becomes a Mad Max kind of story of survival of the fittest in a hostile environment. The first half of the book, although mildly entertaining, is just that. There's is barely anything in the way of the science fiction that I came to appreciate Benford for writing. (Then again, I've heard somewhere that the Galactic Center Series is his space opera.)
The story progresses well, meaning that is has something in the way of good pace, but it is really a scenario that has been explored countless times in bad science fiction. (It smells a bit like movies in the vein of Damnation Alley and Mad Max, with the difference that it doesn't happen on Earth.) Even though the setting has aged and been overused, there are a few interesting ideas there, though only a few.
Humanity has scattered around the galaxy in order to survive the confrontation with the mechs, a mechano-electronical, artificially intelligent race. In the planet Snowglade, the survivors had settled in citadels where they did nothing but reuse known technology for all kinds of purposes. That lasted a while until the mechs destroyed most of the citadels putting humans on a constant race of evasion and survival. Humans incorporated technology to extend their senses, to communicate with one another, and even to move faster. There's a little bit of discussion about these technologies, and that kept me interested for a while. I liked the notion of implant-extended brains that store dead personalities recovered from flesh and blood humans before they physically die. I liked the notion of "intelligence" scattered around the components of a mechanical being in some kind of distributed processor or memory. These bits, however, are tiny nuggets of ingenuity in a vast expanse of cliches.
In spite of all this potential, though, the book is not at all what I hoped it would be. It is borderline silly at times (the barking manmech being the apex of bad taste) and has not even a smell of good science fiction. I may continue to read the series due to my obsessive-compulsive tendencies not to leave a story before it's concluded and only when I need brain dead reading material. Besides, from this rock bottom low, it can only get better. Or can it?
The story progresses well, meaning that is has something in the way of good pace, but it is really a scenario that has been explored countless times in bad science fiction. (It smells a bit like movies in the vein of Damnation Alley and Mad Max, with the difference that it doesn't happen on Earth.) Even though the setting has aged and been overused, there are a few interesting ideas there, though only a few.
Humanity has scattered around the galaxy in order to survive the confrontation with the mechs, a mechano-electronical, artificially intelligent race. In the planet Snowglade, the survivors had settled in citadels where they did nothing but reuse known technology for all kinds of purposes. That lasted a while until the mechs destroyed most of the citadels putting humans on a constant race of evasion and survival. Humans incorporated technology to extend their senses, to communicate with one another, and even to move faster. There's a little bit of discussion about these technologies, and that kept me interested for a while. I liked the notion of implant-extended brains that store dead personalities recovered from flesh and blood humans before they physically die. I liked the notion of "intelligence" scattered around the components of a mechanical being in some kind of distributed processor or memory. These bits, however, are tiny nuggets of ingenuity in a vast expanse of cliches.
In spite of all this potential, though, the book is not at all what I hoped it would be. It is borderline silly at times (the barking manmech being the apex of bad taste) and has not even a smell of good science fiction. I may continue to read the series due to my obsessive-compulsive tendencies not to leave a story before it's concluded and only when I need brain dead reading material. Besides, from this rock bottom low, it can only get better. Or can it?
Robot Visions, by Isaac Asimov
This book is equal to I, Robot minus the "Susan Calvin framework" plus additional short stories plus some of Asimov's essays on robotics. You could infer from the previous statement that I volunteered an accurate equation, but it is only, at best, a rough approximation. The story "Catch That Rabbit" featured in I, Robot cannot be found in this volume. Sure, you can argue that this was all due to an editorial conspiracy to make you buy both books, but then again, remember that Robot Visions has also the essays!
It is definitely worthwhile to get your hands on this book at least for the stories that complement I, Robot, some of which include or are centered around the robopsychologist Susan Calvin. (I enjoyed very much "Feminine Intuition" and "Galley Slave".) "Someday" is a computer fable, not at all involving robotics, but still it's a sweet and interesting story. "The Bicentennial Man", which has been turned into a movie with Robin Williams that I have yet to watch, is just plainly wonderful and worth the entire book on its own. And have I mentioned the non-fiction essays yet? It's always nice to be able to read the Good Doctor's thoughts outside his science fiction.
It is definitely worthwhile to get your hands on this book at least for the stories that complement I, Robot, some of which include or are centered around the robopsychologist Susan Calvin. (I enjoyed very much "Feminine Intuition" and "Galley Slave".) "Someday" is a computer fable, not at all involving robotics, but still it's a sweet and interesting story. "The Bicentennial Man", which has been turned into a movie with Robin Williams that I have yet to watch, is just plainly wonderful and worth the entire book on its own. And have I mentioned the non-fiction essays yet? It's always nice to be able to read the Good Doctor's thoughts outside his science fiction.
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
This was probably very first sci-fi book I ever read, back when I was 13 or thereabouts. The time was ripe for a re-read and although I was not as wowed as I was back then, it still a really interesting and satisfying book. This is a collection of stories about the three law robots conceptualized by Asimov, how they were integrated in society, how they evolved, and how the three laws constrained their behavior. In absolute terms, this is great science fiction and only gets better in the Robot novels. If you want to read these short stories, read them in "I, Robot" and not in "Robot Visions" or in "Robot Dreams". Here they are part of the story of Susan Calvin, the first robopsychologist. In other books, you will miss this background thread that gives an interesting context to all short stories.
I, Lucifer, by Glen Duncan
If you're offended by blasphemy, stay away from this book. If your religious views are more open minded and you feel like a good challenge (even if infinitely more humorous than serious) to your beliefs is healthy, then have fun with this read. The storyline is not complex, but the tone is just insanely funny and ultimately, this is what made the book enjoyable to me.
The basic idea is that Lucifer is offered a second chance before the apocalypse hits us: if he can manage to live the last days in the body of a mortal with a semblance of virtue, then he will be redeemed. The book is narrated in first person by the prince of lies himself. The language is so foul and the subject matter often so profane that even the most derelict reader will at times feel blood rush to the cheeks. Still, I found this book worthwhile for the riotous fun and for the philosophical and the religious themes that permeate the story. Of course, I had to put aside all my religious sensitivities for a few days, while I read it or else I would probably have felt like I was condemning myself to an eternity of suffering in Hades.
The basic idea is that Lucifer is offered a second chance before the apocalypse hits us: if he can manage to live the last days in the body of a mortal with a semblance of virtue, then he will be redeemed. The book is narrated in first person by the prince of lies himself. The language is so foul and the subject matter often so profane that even the most derelict reader will at times feel blood rush to the cheeks. Still, I found this book worthwhile for the riotous fun and for the philosophical and the religious themes that permeate the story. Of course, I had to put aside all my religious sensitivities for a few days, while I read it or else I would probably have felt like I was condemning myself to an eternity of suffering in Hades.
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