Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist: Let me first admit that I was biased against Mr. Feist, simply because of his name and the fact that I knew nothing about him. Like how I was biased against “Finding Nemo“. What a lame-sounding title, I thought to myself, when I saw billboards for Nemo. Then I saw the movie, and my opinion did a one-eighty degree turn and backed into the meat slicer. I exited the theater and felt like I was underwater, having gotten used to two hours (or however long the movie was) of shimmers and the wavelike motion light filtering through water and the motion of the water itself, respectively, cause.

So, Raymond E. Feist, let him not be sliced (for he is not cheese): I’ve seen his books loitering around the house, black and white and read all over by my younger siblings, but thought to myself… nah, what’s yet another fantasy cycle? I’ve read the first few books in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, and nothing can top those for blowing away the boundaries of every fantasy story I’ve encountered; I’ve been meaning to complete the whole thing. (So what’s yet another series? I have more important things to read.) And when I’m done with Mr. Jordan, I’ll read the Encyclopedia Britannica; by the way, it’s only a little bit longer (ha) than his (so far 11-book long) series. Then there’s the Sword of Shannara series and the genre-starting Hobbit and Lordses of the Ringses, which we should all be familiar with. Anyway, the point is, how much can be done within that same fantasy setting? There are always the same central themes… if I may indulge myself for a moment here, there’s: (1) an unprepossessing character who eventually gains experience points to become a hero, (2) some subset of (humans, dwarves, elves) on the side of good, (goblins, trolls, giant spiders) on the side of evil, individuals which go either way from (spirits, dragons, wizards), and of course through all this keep in mind that the striped toothpaste is swirled around a little bit, but it’s still striped, and nobody’s brushed their teeth with it, as of yet.

“Non sequiturs be damned”, said Polly as she put the kettle on. “Hold on a moment”, said Tom tightly, “I think that was, like, a metaphor”. Polly served the tea, when it was ready, with crackers and an arrest warrant, and didn’t say anything more. I picked up Raymond E. Feist’s book, and wasn’t able to put it down. Wait, that’s not true… What really happened is that I found the book in the bathroom and read the first few chapters over the course of several days. I figured I’d leave the book in there, and eventually, given enough time, I’d get through it. My goal was to finish the whole book, cover to cover, reading nowhere but the “library”, as we call it. Well, it was a noble goal, but I cheated.

As a side note, I asked my little sister this: “Think of all fantasy epics which have dwarves. Are there any of them in which the dwarves do not end up leading people through tunnels under a mountain?” I won’t give anything away about whether dwarves lead anyone under tunnels in a mountain in Magician: Apprentice, though. Because that would just spoil the whole story for you… Ha ha.

Anyway, Magician was a good story. Lots of loose ends that need toning, but I understand what I read was the first half of the first book in a series of three. It’s also the first book ever written by Mr. Feist, whom I now respect as a writer. His writing is choppy, and the story itself seems to have little flow. He’ll describe something at length (some political process the main character observed, for example, like a succession of kings and why a particular king was seemingly insane and wouldn’t allow his armies to fight for the good guys when petitioned for help, and the familial ties and relationships among a great number of royalty), and as we’re getting ready for the inevitable outcome (some sort of power struggle and last minute heroic intervention or maybe a battle of wits) the story completely changes pace (the king says “hey guys, okay sure, you can take my armies”). But that’s how life works (on our mundane little scales), so the plotting is refreshing.

That’s refreshing as in beer, not as in speech, even though I don’t find beer particularly refreshing. Mr. Feist doesn’t use big obstreperous words or throw complex, poetic, overly smooth or phrontifugic sentences at you, either. I like those, though… boldly parsing where no one has parsed before. Parse and labor. Someone get me Part Two of this thing.