My original plan was to read a few chapters of Raymond E. Feist’s Magician, then write about those chapters. Instead I got through nearly half the weighty tome in one sitting.
It’s a “ripping yarn,” indeed. And what else is one to do on a groggy New Year’s Day evening?
So last night I polished off the remaining chapters of that which was released originally as Magician: Apprentice, or as this part of the story is named in the Author’s Preferred Edition doorstopper volume, “Pug and Tomas”. There’s a lot to get into. This’ll take a while.
“Pug and Tomas,” this section’s naming page reads, and you’ll note who gets second billing. As Pug is the titular magician, yes indeed a lot of the story is in his point of view, especially early on. (The book transitions to more of a roving 3rd person omniscient perspective partway into this installment.) With that said, Tomas is interesting in that he’s really the kind of adventuresome lad that you expect a sword-and-sorcery book to center on completely. Wants to be an adventurer, travel the world, meet the elves, find fame & fortune, Tomas has big dreams. He’s kind of second fiddle in the story here but he still gets his own entire journey. Neither boy rides the other’s coattails to glory and renown.
We’re given the boys’ background and circumstances in what is some of the least mindnumbing worldbuilding infodump writing I’ve seen to this day. I didn’t realize in my youth, reading this book over and over again, how rare it can be for one’s eyes not to start glazing over when people and places and societal quirks are paraded in front of the reader to lay the groundwork for investment in the story. Feist’s knack here is in tying all of the informational bits to vivid characterization. Sketched in, perhaps, but clear and distinct. Prince Lyam’s the blonde cheerful one! Prince Arutha’s the darkly gloomy one! Princess Carline’s the spoiled bratty one! Spare the details for now, you’ll get them later when relevant.
And “later” comes sooner than you think. This thing’s paced like a thoroughbred racehorse. There’s always something happening next, even if it’s just a fightfight between boys too young to have a single solitary clue about the world (or about girls, for that matter). A few chapters in and the main plot driver arrives. A few chapters after that, things have gotten very, very real for our budding heroes. After that? Political intrigue. Along the way? Bloody combat between several factions. (Let’s put a pin in that.) You don’t have time to get bored, there’s plot to get to! But it doesn’t feel rushed. You have moments of downtime, of levity, of contemplation, of remorse.
Speaking of levity.
Tomas studied them both a moment. “Seriously, what was the fight about?”
With a mixture of humor and regret, Roland said, “Our liege lord’s daughter, a girl of ineffable charm…”
“What’s ineffable?” Tomas asked.
Roland looked at him with intoxicated disdain. “Indescribable, dolt!”
Tomas shook his head. “I don’t think the Princess is an indescribable dolt–” He ducked as Roland’s cup sailed through the space occupied by his head an instant before. Pug fell over backward laughing again.
It’ll surprise absolutely nobody who knows me that this? This is one of the bits that stuck in my head all these years. I love this bit. Feist doesn’t indulge in “quippy” dialogue very often, certainly not at the rate of, say, David Eddings and absolutely nothing at all like your average Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, but every now and then you get a gem of a moment. Chef kiss, no notes, A+++ would laugh out loud again.
“Indescribable dolt” gets me grinning every time I think about it.
Let’s talk about Roland for a moment, he who’s sharing a post-fisticuffs drink with our two young future-heroes. His entire story arc flies in the face of the kind of trope we expect from this kind of heroic adventure yarn. He’s the remaining point on the triangle in the “love geometric shape” thing going on between Pug and Princess Carline. A modern reader (or television viewer) has certain expectations: This guy’s gonna be a roadblock, a jerk, but eventually Our Hero will Get The Girl and the Other Guy will get his comeuppance. Right?
Not in this story! Roland’s a decent fellow, all things considered. (Spoilers, I guess.) Pug and Roland do come to blows… and then realize, hey, that’s actually a pretty stupid way to handle the situation. Not bad for boys in their mid-teens. Mind you, they then get absolutely plastered (a scene from which the above quote is lifted) and there are regrets come morning. (Or even sooner, but… again, spoilers.) And while we’re at it, what about the really big trope… Pug will obviously Get The Girl, riiiiiiight?
Ah, well… I can’t talk too much about this without going into knowledge from the back half of this story, but let’s just say… this trope gets subverted rather neatly. Let’s come back to that in the next session. I have so many thoughts about this, especially after a lifetime of books and movies and shows where the trope is blithely obeyed just because “that’s how things are always done.”
Once the adventuring really kicks in, you start to notice that Feist pulls no punches in describing what happens when people with heavy sharp pointy things get into a serious fight, and similar altercations. It’s not long after the adventuring party sets out that things get positively harrowing, and there are parts of these books from that point onward that verge into territory that we now might call “grimdark.”
(Spoiler alert: Later installments really don’t mess around in this respect. Consider yourself either warned or intrigued as suits your tastes. Either way, Joe Abercrombie didn’t invent gruesome realism in the realm of fantasy storytelling. He just perfected it. And then made it his brand.)
Feist doesn’t want to wallow in the muck, though. Things get better, usually, if not right away. The ebb and flow of the story is constructed such as to keep any given situation from becoming stale and tired, whether it’s a high point or a low. In fact, I’m amazed that nobody’s tried to turn this into a “prestige television” series in the vein of… you know, that big-name fantasy epic that went so spectacularly off the rails toward the end. The Riftwar would be perfect for that sort of thing, even moreso because it’s actually a completed work. Ahem. Big bold characters, intrigue, fighting, monsters, heroes, politics, grandeur, this thing’s got everything a good epic series could want. Heck, each chapter’s basically a self-contained episode.
(Yes, I see that it’s been optioned. I also see that nothing’s actually come of it so far. I’ll believe a show exists when I’m watching it with my own eyes and not one minute sooner.)
With that said, aside from the occasional gritty violence there are some other caveats for readers as well as potential viewers. Or at least whoever’s stuck adapting this thing for the screen. Arguably the most fraught part of the worldbuilding is that Feist basically mapped certain civilizations from our world onto bits of Midkemia (and Kelewan), from “all dwarves speak in Scottish brogue” to “is the Empire of Great Kesh supposed to be Imperial Rome or the Egypt of the Pharaohs?” and never mind the kind of pan-Asian blend applied to the Tsurani (“high-pitched, singsong language” indeed, oof) or the occasional individual character who’s clearly meant to be a recognizable archetype (or stereotype). I am poorly equipped to judge how offensive any of these particular elements may be, but… it’s definitely there to be wary of. Your mileage will vary. Remember not to hurl the book with great force, just set it aside lightly if you must. (It’s heavy, you see.)
One upside to the way this story’s told, in relation to the worldbuilding at the nation-state level, is that there is no “evil empire” on any side of the conflict. There’s an aggressor force, yes, but they’re never portrayed as mindless minions or a vicious horde. (Boy howdy, this sure helps offset the “oof” of the Tsurani as a piece of worldbuilding overall.) If anything, whenever we get a look from the perspective of those in the thick of things one common refrain rings true: It sure is easy for some jerk half a world (or more) away from the proceedings to make decisions about who lives and dies, isn’t it? There are characters, including Lord Borric (whose expedition eastward to petition for aid kicks off the main part of the story), who are very attached to ideas of nobility… while others try to point out that the politics of reality, of greed, and of paranoia tend to come into play far more than do lofty ideals.
“The King is the kingdom,” Borric declares, and while he’s absolutely a heroic figure who you want to agree with because it sounds like a noble sentiment, even characters present when he says this are kind of going, “Is he though?” When you have to weigh the good of the nation against one man’s… situation? Things get ugly in a hurry, and noble notions don’t have much sway.
As a quick note: One wonders how much preparation went into this story overall. Was there a full plot prepared in advance or did Feist mostly “wing it”? I ask because the sudden introduction of Macros the Black feels a bit weird. He’s mentioned in one chapter, more-or-less shows up in the very next, then disappears for a long, long while. Basically he feels like what I’ve heard tabletop gaming types call a “DMPC,” someone the game runner cooked up to deliver plot-crucial information or equipment to the adventuring party. Given that there were apparently some D&D gaming sessions at the heart of the creation of this story and its worlds… well, there you go.
The end of this section (or the first half of the book, you get what I mean) is our first point of view scene with the man in charge of a Tsurani fighting force engaged in the assault on Crydee, our heroes’ home town. In it we get insight into the politics involved, a clear picture of the deep respect he has for the foes he’s been facing, and a hook that prepares us to care about some of the factions involved in the invaders’ politics. It’s a neat way to end this part of the story. Not with Pug or Tomas, but with a previously-nameless invader, an erstwhile enemy. And we instantly want to know more about his whole situation.
And so we shall, in the next installment. Stay tuned, won’t you?