Magician - Hardcover

Feist, Raymond E.

4.32

67,451 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007491530 ISBN 13: 9780007491537

Publisher: Harper Voyager, 2013

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Voyager Classics – timeless masterworks of science fiction and fantasy.

A beautiful clothbound edition of Magician, the original masterwork of magic and adventure.

At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master Magician – and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever.

Suddenly the peace of the Kingdom is destroyed as mysterious alien invaders swarm the land. Pug is swept up into the conflict but for him and his warrior friend, Tomas, an odyssey into the unknown has only just begun.

Tomas will inherit a legacy of savage power from an ancient civilization. Pug’s destiny will lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.

And so the Riftwar begins.

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Review:

Like a venerable patriarch, Magician stands at the head of a great tribe of fantasy writing. When Raymond Feist's enormous novel was published, critics called it "the best new fantasy concept in years", and Feist has refined and explored that concept over a dozen novels. His "concept" was to bring together two (and later, more) whole, intricately realised fantasy worlds. Midkemia is a Tolkienian realm, a European- Medieval series of kingdoms in which magic is prominent, and where men share the earth with dwarves and elves. Feist's genius was inventing another sword and sorcercy realm based more closely on eastern models, the Empire of Tsuranuanni, as vast as Ancient China, as formalised and devoted to the arts of war as a samurai Japan. A magical rift in time-space brings these two worlds clashing together, and the young boy Pug and his soldier friend Tomas are thrown into the ensuing maelstrom of invasion and epic battle, before embarking on a more fundamental magical journey towards the very roots of evil itself. Feist's two sequels to Magician, Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon complete the richly conceived Riftwar Saga, and Feist has gone on to chronicle other aspects of his invented worlds. More recently he has returned to the world of Medkemia, and to his hero Pug, with the Serpentwar saga, beginning with Shadow of a Dark Queen and continuing with Rise of a Merchant Prince, Rage of a Demon King and Shards of a Broken Crown. Heroic Fantasy is a crowded-enough field, but Feist stands out in it for his sheer inventive power, the scope and range of his narratives, the diversity of his characters and his thundering battle sequences. Start reading here, and you may find yourself unable to stop until you have followed the saga right up to date. --Adam Roberts

Review:

‘Totally gripping’ WASHINGTON POST

‘Epic scope...fast-moving action...vivid imagination’ WASHINGTON POST

‘Tons of intrigue and action’ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Epic scope... vivid imagination... a significant contribution to the growth of the field of fantasy.”
Washington Post

“Well-written... intelligent... intriguing.”
Publishers Weekly

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