REREAD:

Erik and Roo!! ( )

Deze serie van Feist is nog steeds leuk, maar minder interessant dan de Keizerrijk-serie.

De karakters van Eric en Ru zijn echt heel leuk en zorgen ervoor dat je door blijft lezen. De plot is nog steeds leuk, maar is af en toe wel erg ver gezocht. Neemt niet weg dat het een boek is dat ik met plezier heb (her)gelezen. ( )

The basic story: a bunch of desperate men are dragooned, like a fantasy Dirty Dozen, for a dangerous mission into a strange land to try to save the world. Sailing from the Europe-esque fantasy setting where most of Feist's novels are set to an India-esque continent, the band of desperate men sneak, fight and spy their way across a war-torn continent in search of information that can save their land from a coming apocalypse.

I hadn't read this since I was a child. It holds up well as an adult — nothing special, but delightfully fun. The writing is competent, the worldbuilding thorough (if intentionally derivative of Earth), the characters interesting (if not compelling). This first book is largely setup for the later series; I recall loving the mercantile scheming of the sequel and the epic battles of the final two novels more than this first one. (I may in fact have read Book 2 before Book 1, since I was a terrible person as a child.) There are better fantasy novelists out there than Raymond E. Feist, but you don't need every book you read to be a genre-shaking revolution. These books are just plain fun. ( )

Weirdly, this might be my least favorite fantasy by Feist. I'm usually quite happy with them. Interesting characters, great locations, solid adventures, great plots. And generally, the worldbuilding is something quite good.

So what happened here? A confluence of factors that may not bother other people but firmly set me down into a camp of 'I don't care'. Maybe I was kinda disappointed with Erik. It started out fairly interesting and I kinda hoped it would go the standard direction of a hidden prince, but after the rape, murder, run and capture, I think I just started wondering where the rest of the tale could go.

Mercenaries. Secret missions. ... Well, it could have been pretty cool.

Unfortunately, I just wasn't all that interested. The amassing army, the somewhat inconsequential cameos of characters I did love, and the primary action did little to spark my interest. Much. I wanted to like it more than I did. I mean, after the previous two novels, I was pretty much riding high. To jump forward in time this much to the point where the king dies, however? I guess I got pretty bummed.

This won't be stopping me from continuing the series, but I will be hoping for more, later.

( )

Not as good as his great Riftwar Saga, but nonetheless a good reader by a master storyteller. ( )