Raymond Feist: Magician

Once upon a time I got into a silly argument over what good fantasy was. The guy I was debating with, was convinced Lord of the Rings was crap. I was convinced otherwise, though LotR was the only fantasy book I had read.

So I asked him the inevitable question; what is good fantasy then? "Magician by Raymond Feist. Read it." Although I agreed to read it, almost two years went by without me reading it. Meanwhile I read other fantasy like Eragon and Wheel of Time

Magician was written in the early 1980's and was Feist's first book. In a later edition it was split into two books; Apprentice and Master. I accidentally came over Apprentice whilst in the Outland nerd store in Oslo. I bought it and decided to read it.

Magician: Apprentice is about Pug, a keep boy in Crydee who turns out to have a magician's potential and becomes an apprentice with Kulgan, the local magician. Kulgan can not help Pug get out his full potencial and suddenly the world of Midkemia is driven into a war. I'm not sure I wish to reveal more.

Book one was to me a quite ordinary fantasy book until a certain point. Then it took a series of turns that made it stand out. The book got better and better and I kept thinking of Feist developing as an author.

I had to buy book two and it just swept me away completely. Wow. The writing was great and the storyline so.. different from everything else, but still very available to the common reader.

If you want to start reading good fantasy and you think Lord of the Rings is boring, I recommend the Magician books by Raymond Feist.

Oh, btw, Magician is just the first book(s) of the Riftwar saga. I have just bought the next in the series, Silverthorn, but I have postponed it for two reasons;
1. Wheel of Time is calling
2. Magician was a climax and I just need a little break to digest it properly.

Fast reading; why?

Recently I have given a lot of thought to the speed of reading. Why? Well, I talked it over with my colleagues, and one of them had actually measured his own speed to a hundred pages an hour. 100! Wow, I thought. I must be slow.

Well, he gave reasons such as he's been reading a lot all his life. At that point, I might have skipped a few years of reading during the must crucial years, having tried to catch up later.

But is fast reading really something to brag about? Not being one, I would immediately say no. I feel that with my slow reading (and yes, I do read slowly) I am able to digest the material in another way. As I read, I pick up details and find myself able to enjoy beautiful sceneries or catch moods in a more profound way.

I tried reading fast. It worked for a while, but I found I was constantly thinking about reading fast, not about the material I was reading. Slowing down picked me up again.

Oh btw, I'm still reading "The Wheel of Time", now on book 10 out of 12. Meanwhile I've been reading other stuff, specifically Riftwar saga by Feist. I'll come back to that later.