Being sick, I spent a lot of time in bed with nothing better to do than read, read, read and then read some more. I went on a Raymond Feist binge, devouring four more of his books.
Grades:
Silverthorn, Lovable
A Darkness at Sethanon, Lovable
Shadow of a Dark Queen, C+
Rise of a Merchant Prince, B
Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon have everything you could ever want from a fantasy series: adventure, magic, exotic lands, unusual creatures, and characters that you can’t help falling in love with.
Shadow of a Dark Queen takes place in the same world, but many years have passed and the main character from the previous books is mentioned to have died after falling and breaking his hip. How depressing! It’s bad enough that he died, but to have died like that . . . Though Shadow is an OK read, I cannot find it within myself to love any of its characters, not even the ones carried over from previous books. It’s a battle-oriented book, with wars, whores, rapes, and rapiers, but little to inspire wonder.
Its sequel, Rise of a Merchant Prince, is a little better, perhaps because it takes place primarily in the arena of business and not war, but its main character is, to put it kindly, a jerk.
Unless the next book of the series is amazingly good, Shadow and Rise will probably end up on the Chopping Block.
I read the next book, “Rage of a Demon King,” and I give it a C+, not enough to save the trio from the Chopping Block.