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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
Eigenlijk eindigt het boek gewoon net als een andere deelserie. Ik heb helemaal niet het gevoel dat De Grote Saga nu eindelijk klaar is. Ik snap niet hoe het zo heeft kunnen komen, de Riftwar serie was zo fijn en zo diepgaand, je leerde echt personages kennen. Nu heeft iedereen wel een andere naam maar zijn ze even oppervlakkig en denken ze even weinig na over alles, maken ze even weinig groei door... Heel jammer!
(overigens wel perfect leesvoer voor in de trein na een lange dag. Maar echt heel jammer dat Feist het hoge niveau van de eerste 5 boeken niet kon vasthouden.)
(overigens wel perfect leesvoer voor in de trein na een lange dag. Maar echt heel jammer dat Feist het hoge niveau van de eerste 5 boeken niet kon vasthouden.)
What can I say? What can I possibly say about the final book in this epic saga that changed my life fifteen years ago? God, it's such a bittersweet moment. I feel incredibly sad to know there will never be another book in this series, or even on this particular world, but I am so, so thankful that Magician's End turned out to be so freakin' fantastic. For now, I don't want to read anything fantasy-related for a couple of days, because this book, this series, has been the most important series in the past few years. I can't even begin to explain or write down what this series has done for me, so I'm going to do that at a later stage, when I'll feel less sad.
Magician's End is, finally, a novel that can be compared to Feist's earliest works. It is amazing, it is exciting, it is enthralling, it is thrilling, it is emotional, but most of all: it is an ending. I was quite worried that some storylines would be forgotten or would not be satisfyingly completed, but I was wrong to doubt Mr Feist. His last works were not all that good, but with Magician's End he finally showed why I loved his works from the very beginning. It was a proper ending, and although sad in many ways (I knew some characters were bound to die..), Feist did an amazing job in connecting all the storylines together and give them proper endings.
But in order to understand this novel you have to have read everything Feist has ever written (with the exception of his only non-Midkemia novel Faerie Tale). Seriously. I mean it. There are so many references to earlier stories and characters that you would do the series a great injustice by not reading the rest of them before reading Magician's End. And I sincerely advice you, and everyone, to read this series. It is absolutely perfect fantasy. Midkemia will always be the world I know best after Earth, and I am quite sure that will never ever change. Go read it. May Ishap be with you.
Magician's End is, finally, a novel that can be compared to Feist's earliest works. It is amazing, it is exciting, it is enthralling, it is thrilling, it is emotional, but most of all: it is an ending. I was quite worried that some storylines would be forgotten or would not be satisfyingly completed, but I was wrong to doubt Mr Feist. His last works were not all that good, but with Magician's End he finally showed why I loved his works from the very beginning. It was a proper ending, and although sad in many ways (I knew some characters were bound to die..), Feist did an amazing job in connecting all the storylines together and give them proper endings.
But in order to understand this novel you have to have read everything Feist has ever written (with the exception of his only non-Midkemia novel Faerie Tale). Seriously. I mean it. There are so many references to earlier stories and characters that you would do the series a great injustice by not reading the rest of them before reading Magician's End. And I sincerely advice you, and everyone, to read this series. It is absolutely perfect fantasy. Midkemia will always be the world I know best after Earth, and I am quite sure that will never ever change. Go read it. May Ishap be with you.
Well, the ride has been a bumpy one. Mr Feist has written some gripping page-turners and thrown a few inconsequential potboilers in there for good measure. This large concluding tome wavers between both, and there are some tedious moments in it - like the discussion of magical theory and strategy. But when things are in motion - when battle commences, when people are on the move, when evil is being smote by magic - then things rock and roll.
It's hard to describe events as thoroughly conclusive. It's open just enough to where a new series could spin off from it. The book's title is descriptive enough without giving too much away, and through the 600+ pages, you *can* see it coming. But the journey is a mostly good one.
On to fresh fields and woods anew.
It's hard to describe events as thoroughly conclusive. It's open just enough to where a new series could spin off from it. The book's title is descriptive enough without giving too much away, and through the 600+ pages, you *can* see it coming. But the journey is a mostly good one.
On to fresh fields and woods anew.
I can't believe it's over. I know it's been 30 books but I just love the world Feist created. I love Midkemia and all the characters that lived in it (and died in it). This is not going to be one of my normal review, 'cause I just can't possibly review this book the normal way. It is just going to be me, raving non stop about how awesome Feist is and how awesome this series is and how sad I am it's over.
When I first got the book I was like this
And then I started reading and fell right back in love with the story. The are two main wars going on at the moment the book starts. The magic war: magicians vs Dread and the human war aka war for the next king. I loved both for different reasons. I loved all the tactics and attacks and battle scenes in the human war but when there is a threat that could end the whole universe and you get to learn more about it and how to stop it then the matter of how will be the next king just kind of seems small.
This book had everything we came to love in the previous books, even some characters that were dead!!! And then there were the dragons...
Not that kind of dragons... more like those...
Since this was the last book I was expecting a lot of characters to die but thankfully almost none did. Besides some that I was certain they will. After all it is called Magician's End.
And yes, there were some moments that were slow, especially when they kept on analyzing the Dread and what was going on and I was waiting for the battle to begin.
Then I realised that this was it, the end! I tried to read as slow as possible but still the end came. And it left me such a bittersweet taste. And yes, I cried! I was cry reading Feist's books.
There is really nothing more that I can say at this moment. Just...Again! I want to read the whole series again!!!
When I first got the book I was like this
And then I started reading and fell right back in love with the story. The are two main wars going on at the moment the book starts. The magic war: magicians vs Dread and the human war aka war for the next king. I loved both for different reasons. I loved all the tactics and attacks and battle scenes in the human war but when there is a threat that could end the whole universe and you get to learn more about it and how to stop it then the matter of how will be the next king just kind of seems small.
This book had everything we came to love in the previous books, even some characters that were dead!!! And then there were the dragons...
Not that kind of dragons... more like those...
Since this was the last book I was expecting a lot of characters to die but thankfully almost none did. Besides some that I was certain they will. After all it is called Magician's End.
And yes, there were some moments that were slow, especially when they kept on analyzing the Dread and what was going on and I was waiting for the battle to begin.
Then I realised that this was it, the end! I tried to read as slow as possible but still the end came. And it left me such a bittersweet taste. And yes, I cried! I was cry reading Feist's books.
There is really nothing more that I can say at this moment. Just...Again! I want to read the whole series again!!!
30 books in 20 months and I'm done. Really liked the ending and epilogue. One of the better books from his recent bunch.
First I want to start this off by talking about a study that I heard about back when I was in high school. I suggested that when people sit down to watch a TV show over and over, your brain treats the TV show like a good friend. By extension, when the show finishes its run, it feels like a friendship ending. That's how I feel finishing this book.
It would feel unfair to me to have this just be a review of this book. One of the strengths of Raymond E. Feist's writing is how bloody freakin prolific he is. 30 books that all contain at least some of the same characters, take place within the same world (I use that term loosely), and manage to theoretically span some 200(?) or so years.
I, at this point, desperately want them to release some massive multi-issue bound books with whole page pictures and decently sized maps. I want to be able to put the Magician series (as I'm calling said 30 books) on one shelf similar to the way my mother and grandmother had encyclopedias on theirs. The series is expansive in scope and yet simple in story. It reminds me more of Harry Potter than anything else. At first scrap the stories and characters seem simple, but as time goes on and you read more about them their depth becomes apparent. A review of any one book in the selection would be to ignore the greater part of the whole.
That is not to say that as a whole they are without flaws. They exist, and become especially apparent when you sit down to read all 30 in a row (or 29/30 like me). Little things here and there, a character who wasn't present suddenly is, six horses instead of 5, things like that. Things that fail to take away from the entire story.
The other thing that is wonderful about the series is that he isn't afraid to kill the puppy. I don't know if this is an actual saying, but it relates back to the movie Independence Day. In an early screen test of said movie there was a scene in a city where a dog is running around, suddenly the aliens attack, there is a blast crater in the street, and we move on in the story. It's at this point that people's interest in the movie begins to flag, because they can't believe they killed the puppy. A new cut is inserted into the movie, we see the dog scamper around some rubble, and everyone has a grand old time.
Raymond E. Feist will kill the puppy. He'll kill characters, and this book he killed the ones I thought would make it to the end. It was impressive, painful, and very much a better read because of it. I mean on the one hand, yes, the good guys are going to win. It is a traditional style fantasy/sci-fi story after all. On the other hand just because they win doesn't me they shouldn't have to pay a cost to do so. Thus death, destruction, murder, betrayal.
The books are very human, and this one in particular. It was a prime example of what writing can create, and what people should look for in it. Seriously, I wasn't kidding about wanting those big expensive bound versions for my bookshelf.
It would feel unfair to me to have this just be a review of this book. One of the strengths of Raymond E. Feist's writing is how bloody freakin prolific he is. 30 books that all contain at least some of the same characters, take place within the same world (I use that term loosely), and manage to theoretically span some 200(?) or so years.
I, at this point, desperately want them to release some massive multi-issue bound books with whole page pictures and decently sized maps. I want to be able to put the Magician series (as I'm calling said 30 books) on one shelf similar to the way my mother and grandmother had encyclopedias on theirs. The series is expansive in scope and yet simple in story. It reminds me more of Harry Potter than anything else. At first scrap the stories and characters seem simple, but as time goes on and you read more about them their depth becomes apparent. A review of any one book in the selection would be to ignore the greater part of the whole.
That is not to say that as a whole they are without flaws. They exist, and become especially apparent when you sit down to read all 30 in a row (or 29/30 like me). Little things here and there, a character who wasn't present suddenly is, six horses instead of 5, things like that. Things that fail to take away from the entire story.
The other thing that is wonderful about the series is that he isn't afraid to kill the puppy. I don't know if this is an actual saying, but it relates back to the movie Independence Day. In an early screen test of said movie there was a scene in a city where a dog is running around, suddenly the aliens attack, there is a blast crater in the street, and we move on in the story. It's at this point that people's interest in the movie begins to flag, because they can't believe they killed the puppy. A new cut is inserted into the movie, we see the dog scamper around some rubble, and everyone has a grand old time.
Raymond E. Feist will kill the puppy. He'll kill characters, and this book he killed the ones I thought would make it to the end. It was impressive, painful, and very much a better read because of it. I mean on the one hand, yes, the good guys are going to win. It is a traditional style fantasy/sci-fi story after all. On the other hand just because they win doesn't me they shouldn't have to pay a cost to do so. Thus death, destruction, murder, betrayal.
The books are very human, and this one in particular. It was a prime example of what writing can create, and what people should look for in it. Seriously, I wasn't kidding about wanting those big expensive bound versions for my bookshelf.
I loved the ending of this book, but I didn't love that the series has now come to an end. I've been reading Raymond Feist's Midkemia series for more than half my adult life, since I first picked up and read the back of a book called Magician in my early 20s.
I put the book back on the shelf that first day but, every time I went into the bookshop, I was drawn by the cover and the basic premise of the novel and eventually I bought it and set off to read it expecting nothing more than just an enjoyable few hours wasted.
How wrong I was, it was the start of a journey which has only now ended some 20 years and nearly 30 books later with a novel which fortunately lived up to all my expectations for the conclusion of a story of such epic scale that it had to go back to the beginning.
Feist's Pug has been at the heart of these novels but he's not a hero in the traditional sense of the word, his path to greatness has come at great personal cost and over a lifetime of trials and troubles.
His magic, while powerful, has never been of the "wave your fingers and solve all ills" and in Magician's End we see him struggling with the ultimate outcome of everything that had gone on before. All conflicts and conquests are, when it comes down to it, nothing more but humps on a road which leads to a pyrrhic victory or utter destruction.
Other reviewers have mentioned the return of characters from the past, Kulgan Pug's first magician mentor, King Borric, Arutha's eldest son, even Jimmy the Hand makes a fleeting appearance, in image if not in substance, and at the heart of this book - as it has been at the heart of all Feist's works - is that it is the capacity for love which makes everything worth it in the end.
Their appearances are all to teach various lessons to the most powerful magic users on Midkemia. To go back to the beginning, that the simplest answer is usually the right one, that it's all a matter of perspective and that, if you have to do anything, doing it for love (whether that be love of the land, love of another person, love for ones country, love for information) is as good a reason as any other.
There are two distinct paths through this novel, what's happening with the conDoin brothers (who couldn't have been more like our original Arutha, Lyam and Martin if they tried!) during the brewing Civil War for the Throne of the Isles, and Pug and his fellow magicians' journey to find out what is at the "Heart of Darkness".
While I agree with a previous reviewer that the political strife, battles and general manoeuvring about of Henry, Martin and Brendan is the more pacey and exciting part of Magician's End, I have to say I preferred the quieter, introspective moments of Pug's journey. I had more tearful moments reading those chapters than I can remember in a long time.
Tomas' passing was beautifully done, fitting that such a man of power should go in such peace, I loved how it hearkened back to his earliest interactions with Ashen-Shugar as Tomas fought the overwhelming nature of the Valheru.
Previously Feist had peed me off beyond measure with his death of Arutha off page and due to a broken hip. This book round he did it with Dolgan, King of the Dwarves and such a major character from the beginning. Having him die, and the fabled Hammer of Tholin buried along with him, in a throwaway one-liner made me really cross!
As this was the "end" I knew deaths would be coming and I have to admit to only being slightly surprised by Feist's final "twist" in the tale. Still, it worked perfectly in ending the cycle of both Pug and my journey through Midkemia and I will always be profoundly grateful that I went back and picked up that book with its intriguing title and cover for his novels have provided me with such joy over the years.
I put the book back on the shelf that first day but, every time I went into the bookshop, I was drawn by the cover and the basic premise of the novel and eventually I bought it and set off to read it expecting nothing more than just an enjoyable few hours wasted.
How wrong I was, it was the start of a journey which has only now ended some 20 years and nearly 30 books later with a novel which fortunately lived up to all my expectations for the conclusion of a story of such epic scale that it had to go back to the beginning.
Feist's Pug has been at the heart of these novels but he's not a hero in the traditional sense of the word, his path to greatness has come at great personal cost and over a lifetime of trials and troubles.
His magic, while powerful, has never been of the "wave your fingers and solve all ills" and in Magician's End we see him struggling with the ultimate outcome of everything that had gone on before. All conflicts and conquests are, when it comes down to it, nothing more but humps on a road which leads to a pyrrhic victory or utter destruction.
Other reviewers have mentioned the return of characters from the past,
Their appearances are all to teach various lessons to the most powerful magic users on Midkemia. To go back to the beginning, that the simplest answer is usually the right one, that it's all a matter of perspective and that, if you have to do anything, doing it for love (whether that be love of the land, love of another person, love for ones country, love for information) is as good a reason as any other.
There are two distinct paths through this novel, what's happening with the conDoin brothers (who couldn't have been more like our original Arutha, Lyam and Martin if they tried!) during the brewing Civil War for the Throne of the Isles, and Pug and his fellow magicians' journey to find out what is at the "Heart of Darkness".
While I agree with a previous reviewer that the political strife, battles and general manoeuvring about of Henry, Martin and Brendan is the more pacey and exciting part of Magician's End, I have to say I preferred the quieter, introspective moments of Pug's journey. I had more tearful moments reading those chapters than I can remember in a long time.
Tomas' passing was beautifully done, fitting that such a man of power should go in such peace, I loved how it hearkened back to his earliest interactions with Ashen-Shugar as Tomas fought the overwhelming nature of the Valheru.
Previously Feist had peed me off beyond measure with his death of Arutha off page and due to a broken hip. This book round he did it with Dolgan, King of the Dwarves and such a major character from the beginning. Having him die, and the fabled Hammer of Tholin buried along with him, in a throwaway one-liner made me really cross!
As this was the "end" I knew deaths would be coming and I have to admit to only being slightly surprised by Feist's final "twist" in the tale. Still, it worked perfectly in ending the cycle of both Pug and my journey through Midkemia and I will always be profoundly grateful that I went back and picked up that book with its intriguing title and cover for his novels have provided me with such joy over the years.
A fitting and fantastic end to a brilliant cycle of fantasy. Looking forward to what Mr Feist has for us next.
A good ending to an epic series. All the different threads are twisted and turned into an ending it would be difficult to improve.
I was hoping for WoW and got pretty good. I do like how he wrapped up most of the threads from multiple series though and this book was definitely better than the first two books in this series.
4 Stars for many years of reading stories in this universe and recommended for all who have been on the Feist journey with me...
4 Stars for many years of reading stories in this universe and recommended for all who have been on the Feist journey with me...