In Raymond Feist's latest novel A Crown Imperilled he returns to the form that made his early novels so successful. Much like Magician, Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon, the pages of A Crown Imperilled are filled with action, political intrigue and rich and interesting characters.
Since the time of the Serpentwar, we witnessed a dilution in the line of kings in the Kingdom of the Isles. In the Chaoswar, the ConDoin royal family returns to its heroic past.
As war once again ravages Midkemia, its brave and loyal defenders battle to survive. In each kingdom a single petty noble has risen from obscurity to threaten the throne. Enemies march across the realm wreaking destruction — a struggle made more perilous now that Jim Dasher's trusted intelligence network has been cleverly dismantled. Region by region, Midkemia is being ripped apart, and the loyal spy and his allies find themselves overpowered at every turn.
In thirty years of publishing, R.E.F. has had his ups and downs. His excellent stories in the Riftwar Saga and Empire trilogy preceded the very good Serpent War Saga and Conclave of the Shadows. But along with the good came the mediocre and the bad such as the Darkwar and Demonwar books.
With A Crown Imperilled Feist discards some of the weaker characters introduced in his last few novels, focusing in on the stronger heroes, and brings back three of the most popular.
The novel A Crown Imperilled serves as a perfect cliffhanger and leap to the final chapter that has been thirty years in coming. We are left with some intriguing questions. Who will be the next king? Who is behind the turmoil? If not the Pantathian serpents, if not the Valheru, who is behind the war? Much is happening and we have not figured out why. We know a new war is coming and that Midkemia will look different politically and geographically. The return of Nakor and Miranda, Thomas and Calis are hopefully a sign that they will have bigger roles in the final book Magincian's End due for release in early 2013.
Reading reviews like this make me feel so ignorant, yet I read a lot, but I've never heard of this author. I guess this kind of book in in the genre I don't typically read. I will say that your own writing is pretty dang good. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good word Margaret. Feist's books have made the bestseller list but you would have had to be a fan of the genre to have heard of him.
DeleteIf you were to pick up his novels, I might suggest you start with his 4th, Daughter of the Empire, one he co-wrote with Janny Wurts. It reads like a historical novel and the main character is a strong heroine.
Today, I went to the beach front with my children. I found
ReplyDeletea sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said "You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear." She put the
shell to her ear and screamed. There was
a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants
to go back! LoL I know this is entirely off topic
but I had to tell someone!