Krondor: Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Saga) (Hardcover)

Krondor: The Assassins was something of a return to form with a reliance on some of the more familiar Feist characters such as James and William.

However Tear of the Gods is more akin to Betrayal as again it betrays its computer game origins. The book is a series of set pieces much as you would find in a fantasy RPG on your PC. The characters walk around, meet someone, are given quests and then go and have a fight.

The basic story is quite good, but it needed to be fleshed out more with increased characterization.

The series does shed some light on some of the events in the Serpentwar Saga and for that I would recommend this series to devotees of Feist, however for the casual reader, they would be more advised to read the Riftwar Saga or the Empires Trilogy

Feist's great ability was to describe his worlds in intricate detail and to bring forth characters that sprang from the pages in their realism. When magic and fantastical acts occured the reader could accept these without question. A talking dragon, a rift in space, a goblin, all were as believable as a taxi in London or New York.

His characters were real people and he made them interact with each other just as real people do, it did not matter that they were fighting the forces of darkness and evil aided by magic.

'Tear' on the other hand presents us with a plot so shallow that it is not worthy of the name. The work is so full of gratuitous slaughter that it lacks the moral depth of earlier works. The characters are automata, poor Squire James is but a shadow of his earlier self. Even the syntax is second rate and just how many 'deft blows' must one expect in one book?

Was this book really written by the same Promethean author who gave the world 'Magician'and 'A Darkness at Sethanon' - come on Feist you can do better than this!

The plot and tone never escape the simplistic and no new ground is covered... The book is a morass of cliches and caricatures, including the feisty (no pun intended) young magician heroine, a tough (and Scottish sounding, sorry that's Dwarvish in Midkemia, isn't it?) warrior priest who oozes old-campaigner style advice and the cowardly character who overcomes his fears long enough to be useful. Oh and I nearly forgot the dastardly, dastardly villain.

And then there are the fight scenes. Lots and lots of fight scenes. After every couple of pages of tedious dialogue or exposition, Feist seems to feel obligated to produce another identi-kit style battle sequence, occasionally changing the nature of the opponent, but never the level of stupidity.

Ultimately, this book has nothing more to offer than padding out the scraps of information given out during the Serpentwar and something to prop up the coffee-table...