Rides a Dread Legion, by Raymond E. Feist

Rides a Dread Legion
Raymond E. Feist
EOS: 2009

Here we are with a new Riftwar novel from Raymond Feist, Rides a Dread Legion, Volume 1 of the Demonwar Saga. Set ten years after Wrath of a Mad God, Rides a Dread Legion introduces a new old threat to Midkemia, a threat that once again could destroy all life on the planet.

Rides a Dread Legion begins by introducing Arimantha, a warlock who defrauds towns by raising demons only to banish them for payment. Except, this time something goes wrong and Arimantha sees other hands at work. I wrote elsewhere about the opening pages to this novel and how bad they were. I won’t repeat them here, so click the link and prepare to be appalled.

The opening three chapters introduce new characters to the world – Amirantha in Chapter One. Sandreena, a Holy Knight on a mission of her own (to give the quick and dirty version) in Chapter Two. The most important introduction is that of the Taredhel in Chapter Three. The Taredhel are yet another race of Elves – only this time the Taredhel are Elves From Another World. Yep. Space Elves!! The Taredhel are fleeing the destruction of their once-worlds-spanning empire from endless hordes of Demons. Their last place of refuge: Midkemia, a world they only just discovered was their near-mythical “Home”, the world of their origin. Unlike other elves, the Taredhel has a serious superiority complex and a need to rule and they plan to subjugate Midkemia even as they try to fight off the demons.

It all ties together, really. Some parts of the novel are even touching, though I think a younger Raymond Feist would have handled the ending to the novel with a bit more grace and skill – taking a moment that could have been one of the most powerful of the series so far, and nailing all of our hearts to the wall. Except, he doesn’t. I would make a comparison to a semi-similar moment (though under different circumstances), but to do so would spoil what happens in this book. The ending to Rides a Dread Legion does set up the second (and concluding) volume to the Demonwar Saga duology, and provides an emotional shock to fans of the series, but even that is a shadow of what could have been.

That’s really where the overall disappointment comes from – this novel, and series as a whole, is a shadow of what could have been, of what was. Where Feist would once draw readers in and make them feel part of the story, the result of 2009 is to bluntly explain every thought and action as if the readers were children unable to understand storytelling.

Storytelling this isn’t. It’s recitation.

Like many a reader of my generation, Raymond Feist looms large in my childhood discovery and love of fantasy. I owe much of my love of the genre to Magician and the subsequent novels set on Midkemia and Kelewan. That first trip through the Hall of Worlds and Honest John’s in A Darkness at Sethanon remains a treasured memory. I can’t figure out if Feist changed, or I did.

If Rides a Dread Legion was written by anybody other than Raymond Feist, and if this was not part of the Riftwar series, I’d have quit this novel LONG before the finish. The fact that there is any resonance whatsoever is entirely dependent on having read everything that came before and having a fifteen year relationship with Pug and Tomas. If this wasn’t Riftwar, and if this was not one of the last five volumes planned for Pug and Midkemia, I’d be long gone.

But it is Riftwar, and longtime fans of the series will want to read this. Not because it’s a good book. It isn’t. Fans of the series will want to read it just to see what happens to Pug and how Feist plans to wrap it all up.

Let’s be honest here. The series isn’t what it once was and there is a sense to the prose that Feist is just coasting. I hope that I’m wrong, because I have this inherent belief that most writers truly try to do the best they can with every novel and pour as much of their talent and craft into it as possible. The thing is – Feist has done better. Much better. He has written stories with so much more heart and character than this one. He has created characters which are truly memorable. Once upon a time.

That was then.

oh, bloody hell

I'm two pages into the new Raymond Feist novel, Rides a Dread Legion, and I'm already getting pissed off at the author.

I've got three problems right now.

1. Semi-colon. If you can't use it well, don't use the damn thing.

Had his protective wards not been firmly established, he would have instantly died; the demon was powerful enough to send sufficient force through the barrier to slam the magic-user hard against the cave wall behind him. - pg 1.

Is there any reason that shouldn't be two sentences? Seriously? This leads into Problem 2.


2. Feist didn't always over-explain crap in simple terms suggesting that the reader was, in fact, a simple minded child, right? I've just got the feeling that the man just isn't trying as hard as he used to. Maybe I'm wrong and he is trying as hard as he used to...but he's failing.


3. The minotaur is an Earth-based legend that has no basis in the Midkemian mythos. So, while a minotaur does evoke an image in the mind of a reader, it also yanks said reader right out of the story and causes said reader to question what the hell the author is doing. Or, maybe it's just me.


Oh, and I think that whomever wrote the jacket copy is a moron. Queen Miranda of the Elves? When the hell did that happen? Does Feist have to approve the jacket copy first? Does someone who has read the damn series have to approve the jacket copy first? If not, can they?

Damn.

Mad Gods

The Book Swede reviews the new Feist: Wrath of a Mad God and I am as hopeful for this book as I have been for any Feist in the last decade. I really hope Chris is right, and that Feist nails the ending.

Quick Takes: Raymond E. Feist, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Stephen King

Murder in LaMut, by Raymond E. Feist and Joel Rosenberg: While I am glad that Feist found a publisher for his Legends of the Riftwar series (they had been available only in the UK previously), the two volumes published so far have been disappointments. Murder in LaMut is the second volume, and if I understand how the Legends series works, Feist gives approval and blessing and maybe some ideas on the setting and then the book is written by the co-author. So, really, this is Joel Rosenberg’s Midkemia novel. It exists on the periphery of the main series. Murder in LaMut takes place early in the Riftwar, before the Tsurani had laid siege to Crydee. The novel follows three mercenary soldier who have signed on with the LaMutian forces and they get entangled in the local politics. Because they are reliable and unaligned, they are given missions and jobs that they would rather not have because failure will put the blame solely on the mercenaries. They are set to protect a particular local baron of LaMut, and later to investigate a murder. The novel just happens to take place in Midkemia, and references well known characters (Borric, Erland, Kulgan, Vandros, Guy du Bas Tyra) but these characters do not make appearances. The Tsurani barely do. The focus is on the mercenaries and while they are, at times, interesting characters the story is such a minor key because we know there is so much else going on in the world. Or, Rosenberg’s story is just not interesting enough to hold a reader...even a longtime reader of Riftwar. Honestly, the novel would be better suited as a short story or perhaps a novella. There just is not enough here to fill up 300 pages of text. Very disappointing. The first Legends entry, Honored Enemy, was much stronger (though not up to a Riftwar novel)



The World Wreckers, by Marion Zimmer Bradley: Darkover. A lost colony of Earth from before there was an interstellar Terran empire. Darkover went low-tech and developed telepaths and when the Terrans rediscovered Darkover they found that Darkover wanted nothing to do with the Empire and greatly restricted the level of contact between the planet and the natives. Some seventy years after rediscovery an illegal Terran company, unofficially called Worldwreckers, Inc, has been hired by certain companies to go in and wreck Darkover’s economy and ecology in such a way that Darkover will be forced to petition the Terrans for help and open up the planet for unrestricted trade and industry. Meanwhile, Darkovan telepaths, in particular the Comyn ruling class, are targeted for assassination and the loss of the telepaths could be a killing blow for Darkover because their economy and technology is based on telepath technology. Regis Hastur, ruling Comyn lord, attemps to gather as many telepaths as possible to him – from Darkover and from the Empire, to build a new Darkover and to remain independent. The World Wreckers is a shorter Darkover novel, it moves fast, and is as clunky as the average Darkover novel has been. Zimmer Bradley can be heavy handed with her storytelling, romances, dialogue, and interactions. And yet, The World Wreckers was a pleasant enough story to read. It added very little to the overall scope of the series, though hopefully it impacts later volumes. It isn’t a good book, or one truly worth recommending, but I have been reading Darkover for years and have found enough enjoyment in Darkover that I want to read the rest. Darkover works better as concepts than as actual prose, but somehow the books tend to overcome the clunkiness.



The Stand, by Stephen King: 1100+ pages of post apocalyptic vision. This is the unabridged, expanded, updated, all new version from 1988 which brought The Stand back to its original glory. When it was published in 1978 The Stand was the victim of the publisher’s accountants who required the novel be cut in half for publication based on sell price and projected sales. This new volume gives King’s full vision. It starts with a virus on a military base and from one man spreads to infect a world. The virus has something like a 97 or 99% mortality rate and for the first several hundred pages we are introduced to the spread of the virus, watching towns and cities collapse and see how it spreads, how one person can infect many and how a virus can spread like...wildfire. But some people survive and we are introduced to some of those characters early. Then they gather, through accidents and visions of an elderly woman and the “Dark Man”. What follows is a battle of good versus evil, of the future of humanity and the evil inside us all. The Stand, in this format, is a serious time investment. It also may be Stephen King’s greatest, and most ambitious novel. I suspect, however, that the edition as published might be better than the expanded edition because over the course of 1100 pages I was unsure of when King would get to the point and when the story would advance. But that’s not what the 1100 page behemoth is about, this volume is about fleshing out the characters and making a richer reading experience. It is a rich reading experience, and the 1100 pages are far more focused than 500 pages of Lisey’s Story (for example), but the length and the leisurely time King takes during the middle sections might be a turn off for some readers. That would be a pity, because The Stand in all its full and fat glory is a beautiful post apocalyptic beast of a novel. Well worth reading, though perhaps 900 pages would have really nailed it down.