Product Description

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 is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #671 in Books
• Published on: 1993-06-28
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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. With Janny Wurts he wrote the Empire trilogy, which charts the rise, through the rigid patriarchy of the Empire of Tsuranuanni, of a remarkable female heroine, a woman who eventually reaches the heights of the imperial throne itself Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire and Mistress of Empire. 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

Washington Post
`Epic scope…fast-moving action…vivid imagination'

Synopsis
Raymond E. Feist's classic fantasy epic, Magician, has enchanted readers for over twenty years. The revised edition was prepared to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its publication, and incorporates over 15,000 words of text omitted from previous editions. 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 is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.

Customer Reviews

Truly Epic
Where to begin? Having only recently been introduced to the works of Feist, I now count myself a fan of sorts. This book is a wonderful introduction to his works, and is gripping from start to finish. The word epic doesn't seem to do this justice- where many authors would be content with creating one living, breathing fantasy world, Feist has given us two in the form of Midkemia and Kelewan, along with enough characters to grace several trilogies. Magician follows the intertwined destinies of Pug and Tomas as they make the transition from lowly court boys to powerful beings of almost legendary status. That the journey never once appears farcical or unbelievable is testament to Feists fantasy writing. This book will leave you yearning for more Feist.

Magic!
This is the best fantasy book I have ever read - I think it is a LOTR beater! It would make a fantastic movie, however I don't think anything would come close to the text. Characters are really well developed, the storyline is great, with every world and scene lavishly detailed. I would recommend this to anyone.

Superior fantasy
Feist first staked his claim to a hefty section of the fantasy shelves of the world's bookstores here. This is an astonishingly ambitious work in seeking to create not one but two fully-realised fantasy worlds, and the rift which throws them together is a remarkable plot device for its day (and surely the inspriation for Stargate?)

If there are criticisms to be made, I can find only two. The work is rather derivative in places and Feist uses the familiar natures of Elves and Dwarves to skimp a little on their characterisation. Secondly, subplots are too quickly resolved, and seem to queue in an orderly fashion waiting their turn, rather than many at once, which more closely reflects reality.

Perhaps Feist's greatest achievement in this book is in creating a hunger for more. At the end of these 800-odd pages it is hard to pick up any book other than the next in the series.