Magician: Master (1982)

Magician: Master is the second book in Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Cycle, the first subseries in the longer Riftwar Saga. Although there are two more books in this subseries, this one finishes the main storylines that were begun with Magician: Apprentice and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

I enjoyed this nearly as much as Magician: Apprentice, but it did have a bit less of an ensemble feel with some characters going off in different directions for most of the book, so it lacked some of the camaraderie that I had enjoyed in the first book. There are definitely some great moments though, especially toward the end! Several characters were paired off, and it got a bit insta-lovey at times. Fortunately the relationships didn’t play a very large role in the story so they never reached the point of annoying me, although I did find one of the relationships uncomfortable to read about. I’ll discuss it a bit more in the spoiler tags at the end of my review. Aside from that, I did continue to enjoy the story and the characters very much.

I think I was almost through the end of the book when a female character (Katala) was once again being brave and supportive before I finally noticed that females are really underrepresented in these books. They’re all minor characters and they mostly just show up so that their admiring men can see them being brave in the face of danger and hardships, and so we can see them being supportive of the men they care about. This isn’t too big of a deal to me. I like strong female characters of course, but I don’t need every book I read to have them. However, I know some people care about that a lot more than I do so I thought I’d mention it. From what I remember, the Emptire Trilogy co-written with Janny Wurts has a much stronger female main character.

So this review doesn’t sing as many praises as did my review of the first book, but I don’t want to leave the wrong impression. I did still enjoy it very much, and for a lot of the same reasons. I just noticed a few more small flaws this time around. I’m rating this 4.5 stars, the same as the previous book, but this time I’m going to round down to 4 stars on Goodreads. I’m really looking forward to the next book, which if I remember correctly focuses more on the characters who grew to be my favorites.

The rest of my comments will have to go in spoiler tags:
The relationship I found disturbing was the one young Tomas had with Aglaranna, the Elven queen that we’re told is centuries old. I get that the armor Tomas was wearing gave him memories from a very old, powerful, and experienced being, but Tomas himself was not that person. He was a young man whose own identity took a backseat to this more powerful identity right around the time he was coming of age and learning who he was. I felt like the Queen barely knew the real Thomas and, aside from Thomas’ childish infatuation with her when he was 15, I didn’t get any sense that the two of them would have ended up together if not for the influence of the armor. The Queen seemed more turned on by his power than anything. I don’t know, I just found the whole thing creepy. I can’t remember if I felt the same way the first time I read this. I vaguely remembered the relationship, but not how I felt about it.

I also would have liked to see Tomas fighting the influence of Ashen-Shugar more. We were told he did, and that his good-hearted nature was influencing Ashen-Shugar’s past actions (which doesn’t really make a lot of sense if you think about it too hard, so I tried not to!) in the same way that Ashen-Shugar was influencing Tomas, but I just never had any real sense that he was truly fighting it until near the end when he went on his Tsurani killing spree. And then suddenly it was all over and he was fine. So in general I had some trouble with Tomas’ storyline, I guess. I enjoyed Pug’s more because even though he went through quite a bit of changes himself, I could understand his actions more easily and I could still see in him the character that he started out as.

I laughed at the end when Amos told Arutha he took all the fun out of life, because that was the first occurrence of an oft-repeated phrase that I remembered fondly from the series. I loved seeing Lyam and Arutha take on the roles that I best remembered them in, Lyam as King and Arutha as Prince of Krondor. I was also ridiculously happy to see Jimmy show up, considering how little of him we actually saw. I really wanted more Arutha in this book. It’s impossible for there to be too much Arutha, but he didn’t even show up until around page 150! If I remember correctly, I think finally we get more of both Arutha and Jimmy starting with the next book.

Continuing Pug's story on the alien planet and Tomas story as he struggles with the changes happening to him since he donned the magical armor and sword. Toss in a little romance on the side of this epic tale of the ongoing war.
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Finished my re-read of Magician and it was as good as I remembered. ( )

Magician Master is about a man named Pug, who, at the beginning of the story, enslaved by the Tsurani, warriors from a different world. Then he's transported to a new master, where he's found by a magician, which recognizes his powers, and teaches him how to better use it. Later, he becomes Millamber and is a citizen of Tsurania. He gets married and goes back to his homeland later though. After that, the 2 nations meet for a truce, but apparently, the Tsurani are like, "Hey, they're going to attack us for no reason, so lets kill there leader", so of course Pug and everyone else fights back, and Pug shuts down the portal which allows Pug to close the portal. After they close the portal the new king is crowned and that's pretty much all that happens in the story. Pug probably lives a happy life with his wife and his kids after that in the castle.

I think you would like this book if you like stories about magic. This is a pretty good one because it also inter-crosses with technology. You learn a lot of interesting characters and it's a pretty short series: only two books. There are some mythical animals, like trolls and ogres. There are two worlds you can learn about too. ( )

fantasy ( )