Review for Silverthorn, by Raymond E. Feist

Each period in the lives of the favorite characters of Raymond E. Feist's books is marked by a series, and the series combined make for a continuous series: a saga. Despite not remembering whether I mentioned them here, I've read through Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master, stories which detail the life of Pug of Crydee, and the merging of two worlds.

Silverthorn takes place after these two books. Pug is still involved, but the cast of characters has changed and expanded since his boyhood, as is expected. This story continues the Riftwar, tying up some loose ends and revealing others. Personally, as someone who reads for both character and plot, I've come to really enjoy the presences of Arutha, Jimmy and Martin. They are well written, each with very distinct personalities, clear voices and decisive actions.

Because I was searching for this continuation, I actually went forward and read Krondor: Tear of the Gods ahead of time, not realizing that that book was later in the timeline than this one until well into the text. But that doesn't matter here, except to say that it was harder to get into that story - partially because I didn't read it in sequence - mostly because it was harder to care about most of the cast until Jimmy and Arutha appeared. I didn't care much for Jazhara at all.

When creating a villain, good writers know that they must create a close match, a good opponent for their protagonists. This was completed very well in this story, because Murmandamus - while a flat character who hates humans for seemingly no reason - comes up with very detailed plans and has the necessary (evil) charisma to gather millions of power hungry and greedy people across different species into his armies. He's also mysterious enough to make me wonder where he disappears off to when not orating to his subordinates, and that would keep me reading.

I wished that Aglaranna, the elf queen, were more involved, as well as Tomas, Pug's childhood friend and rival, and didn't like the explanation that they shouldn't leave their power base, but I understood that that was necessary in terms of how magic worked in that world.

I also wished that the Watchers in the north weren't also elves, because I was looking forward to another new, different species after Pug's brief encounter with the Thun. However, the Watchers' relation to the elves had been foreshadowed in the earliest pages when Aglaranna, Tomas and Arutha's party had a meeting about what to do for Anita, and the various history between the nonhumans of Midkemia. The semi-conscious reason for my wishing that the Watchers were a different species was because that ice spire reminded me of Ursula K. LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, but similar architecture obviously does not indicate similar culture.

It was good to know that Laurie the bard as a character can fight, even though he served to be primarily comedy at the beginning, what with Carline's fishwifery and all. I understand that Midkemia culture is supposed to resemble somewhat medieval leanings in society, but my own feminist sensibilities were offended at Anita's sleeping beauty storyline as well as Carline's insistence upon marriage to the unhappily committing bard. There was also no female in the band of fighters, and I know the author tries to amend for this with Jazhara in a later book, but the attempt seems weak to me, and he couldn't really let go of having that female character need a significant other as well. That stood out to me a lot, especially in direct contrast with Jimmy's vagabond lifestyle and freewheeling habit of courting danger instead of women.

Feminist dissatisfactions aside, and I imagine there is a lot of that in the science fiction and fantasy community, which seems to be why many female writers write for primarily female audiences, it was a good book. The battle scenes are impressive as usual, the settings are well detailed, imaginable to the point of being mostly real, and the plot was a definite page turner. Now I know that there is even more to the Riftwar, and that by the time the Krondor series rolls around, the denizens of darkness become less flat, which is always something to look forward to. I should pick up more books from Barnes & Noble before going in to work for the day.