Raymond E. Feist

At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master magician and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever.

Magician

Anyaconda

What a saga!!! This made it straight into my all time favorites list. I can't wait to continue on with Silverthorn and all the other books in the Riftwar Saga. Raymond E. Feist is the real magician.

Ed Kay

So many names, to go with all the races and peoples and legends and languages and countries and cities and histories, that they all start to blur into one random character string and you forget who everyone is supposed to be. And sooooo loooooong. But I guess that comes with the territory.

Thought I was a fantasy fan, but perhaps not the sweeping epics. I was bored by LOTR, I was bored by this for much of the time. Horrified to discover that this is part one of a trilogy - and that trilogy is only one of a set of NINE sequences about the Riftwars. You're very welcome to it.

Having said all that, I can't deny I was swept up at times, and despite the tedium I found I did care and even though most of it was entirely formulaic and predictable, I was still happy when "things turned out alright in the end".

A worthy pupil . . . A dangerous quest

To the forest on the shore of the Kingdom of the Isles, the orphan Pug came to study with the master magician Kulgan. But though his courage won him a place at court and the heart of a lovely Princess, he was ill at ease with the normal ways of wizardry. 

Yet Pug's strange sort of magic would one day change forever the fates of two worlds. For dark beings from another world had opened a rift in the fabric of spacetime to being again the age-old battle between the forces of Order and Chaos.

Magician: Apprentice

Prashanth Srivatsa

Classic fantasy. An enchanting world and fascinating characters, to some extent an inspiration for the sprawling epic, The Eye of the World, though narrower in scope than the latter. Lacking in characterization, but makes up for it with splendid magic and fun.

Apprentice (Riftwar Saga)

Bruce Wang

Kaitlin Cassell

This was hard for me to finish, but I hate to DNF a new author. The characters lacked substance, the story skipped through years with little explanation, and I was left with far too many questions to feel satisfied. How can I invest myself in the story when I have no idea who we are fighting and why? Give us something, man. Anything. 

I may continue the series out of mere curiosity for the strange worlds to uncover and war to be fought but I am in no rush - and that speaks volumes.

The Riftwar Saga--a classic of fantasy literature which no true fan should be without--opens with this tale of magic, might, and adventure. "One of the world's most successful fantasy fiction authors."--The Guardian 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. Praise for Magician: Apprentice "Understandably, this is one of the highest-regarded books in the world."--Fantasy Book Review "Totally gripping . . . A fantasy of epic scope, fast-moving action and vivid imagination."--The Washington Post Book World "Most exciting . . . A very worthy and absorbing addition to the fantasy field."--Andre Norton "The best new fantasty in years . . . has a chance of putting its aughor firmly on the trone next to Tolkien--and keeping him there."--The Dragon Magazine

Apprentice

elizabeth church

** spoiler alert **
           My dad has been asking me to read this book since forever and I even started to read it but stopped at around page 20, but I FINALLY DID IT!! YAY!! It was the end of the school year so I was in a really really bad reading slump but thanks to AudioBoooooook I was able to read it while driving to school or playing games on my phone. The imagery on this book *chef's kiss* like the storytelling was off the charts. OH MY GOSH AND WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THERE WOULD BE ROMANCE IN THIS BOOK?!?!!? There was even *drum roll please* a love triangle!! A. LOVE. TRIANGLE. Why did I not know about this cause I stg I would've read this book waaaay sooner if I would've known. I have to say I definitely ship Roland and Carline, instead of Pug and Carline. Pug and Carline together were cute but come on people Roland and Carline had the enemies to lovers BUT ALSO friends to lovers thing and I stg they were so cute together I was screaming. Their first kiss literally made me scream like he was teaching her how to fight with a sword and then kissed how am I not supposed to scream. And Pug was already long gone by then so really there was no competition. I don't even know what is going on with Pug right now... is he really dead? Cause I feel like that's insane, wasn't he the main character?? OH MY GOSH and Arutha!!! He's hands-down my favorite. Love that man. He better get a love interest in the next book or I'll be mad. I actually want to read the other books in the series: 1. because I need to find out if Pug is alive, 2. because I need Arutha to have a love interest. The only thing that was nooooot good that Raymond E. Feist did was when Arutha, Fannon, Kulgan, Tully, and the others met the Tsurani slave and said his foreign name was too hard to pronounce so they renamed him to Charles like mmmm nope, nope, that's gonna be a no for me sir. Other than that little bit of racial microaggression... I really enjoyed this book, and I'm excited to read the rest of the series.

Cams Campbell

I read this years ago as an adolescent and took the notion to give it another try. I find that many of the fantasy books I read as a kid, before I got my degree in Russian literature, bore me to tears. This started out feeling a little bit that way, but it got better and by the time I got to the second book, I was drawn right in.

I feel that it still lacks a certain something, depth perhaps. Although it's not a short book, so perhaps it's just about right. I'd have liked to have followed Pug's journey at the Academy in more detail; that was the section I enjoyed the most. Although I realise that a lot has been left unrevealed for the sequels. Thankfully I'm blessed with a poor memory and can't remember anything about the sequels. I'm not going to dive straight in to Silverthorn though. 

I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could, but I'm happy to round up rather than down for this one as enjoyed re-reading it more than I thought I would.

Rose Stanley

This is soooooo LOTR-lite, I mean c'mon, dwarves, elves, men, and a place called Gondor, I mean Krondor? Fairly sure there was a place called summat like Mordor too. Laaaazy! : P
Looking at other users reviews, I agree with them: great story, not great writing!

Ben Nathan

It was fine. I could tell that it was a precursor to lots of things that I've enjoyed. For the same reason that I'm not a huge fan of Watchmen but love what it influenced. I can appreciate but one book was plenty.

Ian Brakspear

Adam

I don't think I knew what I was getting into with this one. This is a gateway into a huge universe of Feist's works, which if the first is any indication are quite enjoyable. The story follows the rise of a magician through an unusual path. A lot of this story reminded me of Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive series - the alternate worlds, the distrust and struggles for power, along with rise to power. Ok, those are things that are in many stories, but perhaps the scope of the worlds hit on some similarities as well. I'll probably end up finishing off the Magician trilogy next year, as just thinking about the story makes me want to see where it goes next.

Sarah Sammis

Magician, available in ebook for the first time, is a masterwork of magic and adventure. The whole of the magnificent Riftwar Cycle, by bestselling author Raymond E. Feist, is now available in ebook

Magician

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