Review: Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist

Blurb:

Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Saga—a classic of fantasy literature which no true fan should be without—opens with this tale of magic, might, and adventure.

Orphaned boy Pug is apprenticed to a powerful court magician named Kulgan in the world of Midkemia. Though ill at ease with the normal ways of wizardry, Pug soon earns his place as a squire after saving the life of one of the royals at court.  But his courage will be tested still further when dark beings from another world open a rift in the fabric of spacetime to rekindle the age-old battle between the forces of Order and Chaos.

Now the lives of Pug and his friend Tomas are thrown into danger and disarray. Only Pug’s strange brand of magic might yet turn the tide, in the struggle to repel the invaders and restore peace to Midkemia.

Review:

Strange, what novels you can find in a second hand book store. About a month or two ago I was in Detroit for a bowling tournament, and one day, after bowling I and a family member went into a second hand bookstore on the way back to the inn. And once there, I walked down to the ever familiar section of Science Fiction and Fantasy, browsing the titles. When I saw this book, I knew I had heard the term “Riftwar” thrown around before. I wasn’t sure where, but I had heard of it, and the cover had a guy thrusting a sword through a portal, with a man standing next to him holding a wizard's staff. So I added it to the purchase pile, and read it a week later. Raymond E. Feist has crafted an amazing world that I’d love to explore even more than just the books I read from the “Riftwar Saga”. As I am working through this review and adding even more, my father has also started reading it and remembers fondly the time he read this novel without added parts from the author a few years ago. Like father, like son, we both enjoyed reading this novel.

Now, if I had to keep this review short, to just about 150 to 160 characters, I’d say:

“Pug is an orphan, befriended to the son of a cook. Both he and his friend dream of adventure, but never expect it to happen to them. Wish to know more?”.

Yet, it does not fully capture everything that Raymond E. Feist has put into this rather lengthy novel. Because this book is only half of the original, just lengthened with revised and updated parts by the author, and the other half, “Magician: Master”, adds yet even more to the story.

First off, let's start with Pug, Thomas and Kulgan. Pug is an orphan, doesn’t know his parents, and has been semi adopted into the family of the castle cook. He gets into a few scraps with his best friend and somewhat of an adopted brother, Thomas. And, since this book plays with multiple years of his and Thomas' childhood, we get to see him grow from a child with high aspirations to the apprentice of a magician (we will get to the magician soon enough). As we read through the book, we get to see Pug mature and grow as he goes on a journey with the magician and a few others of importance to the capitol.

Meanwhile, with Thomas, he’s the de facto leader of the group of children, and due to this, isn’t really bothered much by the other kids. Just like Pug, he has his aspirations, and one day, at the day of choosing, he gets picked by the guard leader to be trained as a soldier. And just like Pug, he grows and matures on the same trip, yet his paths diverge wildly from his friend.

Kulgan, on a completely different note, is an acclaimed magician with a pet wyvern. He is the one to first recognize Pugs magical talent, yet cannot seem to teach him how to use it. Over the books he goes from a weird old dude with a staff and pet wyvern to friendly grandpa with a staff and pet wyvern through Pugs perspective.

Then, there’s the magic. Within this book there is explainable and unexplainable magic. On Midkemia, the explainable magic is practised by all who can use such magic, the unexplainable magic gets messed with by an occasional wild mage who doesn’t fit the norm.

However, beyond the rift, there’s another world, Kelewan, with high and low mages, known as the great ones. Low mages perform the explainable magic, whilst the high mages perform the high arts, the unexplainable kind over on Midkemia. You’d think there’d be a power balance if both worlds were to crash and you’d be right! The inhabitants of Midkemia however have had a somewhat stable empire going for them, so they’re able to keep those at bay trying to cross over, yet it’s a losing battle. More explanations are only going to be offered for the second half of this novel, “Magician: Master”, because if I lay out all the various caveats of the world and the intrinsic weave of magic, this review would be far… far longer than reasonable, and the other books would be spoiled due to those caveats being revealed there. 

After that, there’s the plot. It’s rather straightforward, with as few divergences. There’s PoVs from all of the aforementioned characters, and all their lives intersect and intertwine before splitting off and from there the plot goes from straightforward to “oh so he is over there now” all of a sudden. From that splitting off point, Kulgan and Pug go one way, Thomas goes the other. And after that, all the shenanigans start playing out. Old rivalries cannot be shaken and once again rear their ugly head, old grievances are aired, and the plotting begins. At least that’s on the mage and his apprentices plate. Thomas is off on his own adventure after getting separated from the group. At first I thought he got off easy with his story… up until I continued reading this series and realised the amount of death he could inadvertently cause.

Finally, we come to Raymond E. Feists worldbuilding.There’s Midkemia, Pug and Thomas’s world, and Kelewan, the world of the invaders.

In “Magician: Apprentice”” we get a map of Midkemia, but not of Kelewan. Which is fine, since the world of Midkemia is large enough that it takes a while to get situated with where everyone is. The details pertaining to each part of the story and location that lies within, is good enough that with enough time, it is possible to point to the nearest location to that spot in the story.

Kelewan, however, is an absolute mystery, for us and for the inhabitants of Midkemia, with the only information being that the invaders are smaller than the average human and wield blades not of metal, but of hardened wood. And I like that about this novel. It keeps the mystery world alive, hidden to us until the next one, “Magician: Master”.

Considering that the author revised his work, and that is what I read, I cannot find anything that really bugged me. I think it is one of the few novels I’ve read this year that doesn't have anything that I could say something negative about.

If you like magicians, naive youth learning the horrors of war, dragons, portals, some light chaos and back stabbings, “Magician: Apprentice” and the subsequent Riftwar Saga novels are for you.

As always, especially for this one, my 50th rambling on books that I’ve enjoyed reading to some extent, thank you for reading this review, and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next read. If not, don’t fret, there are plenty of reviews here for books that are both new and old, science fiction or fantasy, or even both. There’s something for everyone here.

Wherever you are reading this, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!