Product Description

The demon has been defeated and the Kingdom rejoices as the threat to the existence of every living thing on Midkemia has passed, but out of the ashes of war new problems arise, in the brilliant sequel to Rage of a Demon King! Shards of a Broken Crown, Volume IV of Raymond E. Feist's Serpentwar Saga, tells the story of the survivors of the great assault on the Kingdom by the hordes of the Emerald Queen. An ambitious General has picked up the fallen reins of command and seeks to build a personal empire out of the wreckage of the Western Realm. It is up to a handful of committed men and women to oppose him. In the forefront of this conflict stand Jimmy and Dash, grandsons of the legendary Jimmy the Hand, who alongside Erik von Darkmoor and Roo Avery must contest on every hand as rival Empires seek to gain from the Empire's loss. While war rages on two borders, mysterious agencies of dark powers move behind the scenes, from the mountains to the north to the sewers under the burned-out cities of Krondor.Dark powers move, too, behind the scenes, and Pug the Magician and his allies attempt to engage and defeat them, while the Kingdom struggles to gather together the shattered pieces of the nation and forge a new future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18742 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Shards of a Broken Crown takes us again to the distinctive Fantasy worlds Feist created 15 years ago with the first of his Riftwar epics, the acclaimed Magician. The four-book Serpentwar Saga, which this novel concludes and which started with Shadow of a Dark Queen, is surely Feist at his most characteristic. He writes sword-and-sorcery in a rip-roaring old-fashioned manner, grand and magical, human an involving, by turns. Shards of a Broken Crown picks up where the previous volume, Rage of a Demon King, left off: there James, noble Duke of Krondor, defeated the evil of the Demon King and his army by sacrificing himself and his city--pouring Quegan fire oil into the sewers of Krondor and torching everything, including himself. Now a new menace has risen from the ashes, in the scarred shape of one of the army's surviving generals, Fadawah. Jimmy and Dash, grandsons of the dead Duke, try to piece together the wreckage of the shattered Kingdom of the Isles, the Shards of the title's Broken Crown.

Feist isn't the world's most sparkling stylist, but there is a cumulative something, a genuine power, about the various treks his characters make across this desolated landscape. The characters themselves are diverse and appealing, and Feist's great strength is in the way he is able to deploy the conventions of heroic fantasy with which we are so familiar (even over familiar) --the sweeping landscapes, titanic battles, the maelstrom of the clash of good and evil--while never losing sight of the particular. He is good on aspects of his fantasy world other writers tend to gloss over (for instance, mundane things like the worlds of trade and work, the jobs ordinary people do--the Serpentwar saga in particular tells us as much about merchants as it does about warriors and magicians). A gripping read.--Adam Roberts

Review
Praise for Raymond E. Feist: 'File under guilty pleasure' Guardian 'Get in at the start of a master's new series' Daily Sport 'Well-written and distinctly above average! intelligent! intriguing.' Publishers Weekly ' Epic scope!vivid imagination!a significant contribution to the growth of the field of fantasy.' Washington Post

Fourth and final part of Feist's Serpentwar Saga (Shadow of a Dark Queen, 1994; Rise of a Merchant Prince, 1995; Rage of a Demon King, 1997). The Emerald Queen and the Demon King have both been vanquished, but poor old Midkemia, battered and smoking, is still threatened, this time by the Queen's sidekick, General Fadawah. He'll be opposed by supremo magician Pug's great-grandsons, Jimmy and Dash Jameson, as war (again) gets under way. Simultaneously, Feist seems to be setting up yet another series, as Pug, Miranda, and other good-guy magicians declare a Conclave of Shadows to oppose the madness of the Nameless One. Meantime, readers can amuse themselves by rearranging the Serpentwar titles into new, likely-sounding combinations: Rise of a Demon Crown, or Rage of a Broken Prince? Fans only - but there are lots of them. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
The demon has been defeated and the Kingdom rejoices as the threat to the existence of every living thing on Midkemia has passed, but out of the ashes of war new problems arise, in the brilliant sequel to Rage of a Demon King! Shards of a Broken Crown, Volume IV of Raymond E. Feist's Serpentwar Saga, tells the story of the survivors of the great assault on the Kingdom by the hordes of the Emerald Queen. An ambitious General has picked up the fallen reins of command and seeks to build a personal empire out of the wreckage of the Western Realm. It is up to a handful of committed men and women to oppose him. In the forefront of this conflict stand Jimmy and Dash, grandsons of the legendary Jimmy the Hand, who alongside Erik von Darkmoor and Roo Avery must contest on every hand as rival Empires seek to gain from the Empire's loss. While war rages on two borders, mysterious agencies of dark powers move behind the scenes, from the mountains to the north to the sewers under the burned-out cities of Krondor.Dark powers move, too, behind the scenes, and Pug the Magician and his allies attempt to engage and defeat them, while the Kingdom struggles to gather together the shattered pieces of the nation and forge a new future.

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable
Shard's of a Broken Crown is the final book in the Serpentwar saga and bring's to the end another great fantasy series from Feist.

This is the weakest book of the four but it must be difficult to keep up such a high standard of writing as the three before this were all of excellent quality. But it's still an enjoyable finale and avid Feist fan's will not be too disappointed.

Most of the loose end's are tied up and explained, there's plenty of drama, details and description are again very good and although it doesn't have the same intensity as A Darkness at Sethanon which brought a close to the Riftwar, it will still keep you on edge.

I gave this book three star's but i would award the Serpentwar Saga as a whole four and a half, many thanks Mr Feist.

Agree with both
To be honest I agree with both the praises and criticisms of the book. Yes it was not the most original book, or ground breaking however it did expertly bring the end to an otherwise excellent series. Of course, it does not capture the Riftwar's magic but on it's own it is a superbly written series, and this last book was no exception.

Feist did not sell out and re-hash time-worn fantasy cliches. Instead he kept it real and believable and this was demonstrated in the unceremonial deaths of many key characters, keeping them real and brutal - not overdressing.

I was worried when reaching the end of the book as so much was going on with little pages left. However Feist created a well thought out and un-rushed conclusion. Although it has shamefully left the door open to further adventures (as has been noted), the truth is you want more...

Disappointing, very disappointing
Like so many others I've been a Feist fan right from the start. Magician, the entire riftwar, is a masterpiece. The empire series, in my opinion was even better. The serpent war, though of lesser quality than the riftwar and the empire series, was still quite good (worth at least ****). And the end of that saga left the reader wanting more, desperately!
So here it is: "Shards of a broken crown". Our beloved Krondor lies in ruins, an enemy army has carved a large piece out of the Kingdom of the Isles, and the armies of the east and west have taken a sound beating. Everything you need for another excelent story one would think. And the book does indeed start out excelently. A series of stange encounters between the two opposing armies (one army conspicuously being absent or undermanned) account of an ever increasing tension in the reader while reading. Then halfway through the book, in only a couple of pages, Feist destroyes all this carefully build up tension as casually as one would deflate a half blownup balloon. It is as if he suddenly breaks with his original plot and instead desides to have a cliche, boring battle between two giant opposing forces. He casually summons up all the extremely powerful characters (Ashen-Shugar, Pug, Miranda, and so on) and lets them take it out on a huge monster which was created directly by the dream of a god. The story after this sudden change made me want to use the book as fuel for a nice cosy fire in a fireplace on a cold rainy day.
Maybe it's time to stop reading Feist.