A Kingdom Besieged by Raymond E. Feist
Review by MJ
Here we go, I was thinking, a fantasy novel by a well known and respected author, this is bound to be a good read. How wrong can you be?
Writing a good fantasy novel is difficult; there’s potentially nothing familiar for the reader, the places and people are going to be completely new. Therefore I was prepared to work at it. From the first page I was dropped into a complex and confusing world of kingdoms, cities, dimensions and locations. A map would’ve been immensely useful at this point but alas there wasn’t one to be had. Things were made even more baffling by characters who came from the East referring to travelling West while others talked about the East as somewhere far away, being already in the West (or so I inferred), while the rest were all on the coast except those who were inland but also on the coast. Are you with me now? Thought not.
The characters themselves were tied up in an endless Gordian knot of inter-relationships spanning time and space. Throw in a plentiful supply of adoptions and a sprinkle swearing brotherhood – and sisterhood – to each other and it became impossible to untangle what who was who to where and how.
Let’s turn to the narrative itself. Like many people I enjoy a good yarn that weaves together a number of strands taking you to a dramatic culmination of seemingly unrelated elements. This book has more strands than a Persian rug; what’s more a rug put together by a blind and possibly one armed welder with half a loom and no idea what they’re doing. For example it starts with a fairly hefty section set in a parallel dungeon dimension; these characters then disappear for a large part of the book only to reappear later on. Unfortunately their particular story bears only the flimsiest relation to and no interaction with the other characters in the book.
But wait, this is part one of a saga set in a land where I believe many other of the author’s books are also set. Maybe that excuses some of the complexities but not all. Not to worry as each novel should be able to stand on its own, so let’s see what happens at the end where loose ends will be neatly tied up and explanations forthcoming. Again, sorry to disappoint you but the book just... ends. It’s almost as if the author was working to a word quota and having reached it typed the end of the sentence then sent it off to their editor. There is no dramatic last scene, no gripping conclusion, not even a cliff-hanger to encourage you to read the next instalment. I even checked the spine to see if there was evidence of a chapter having been ripped out. Nothing.
There are a number of other complaints I could make; character names were sloppy, grammatical and other errors had crept in. But I feel to say more would just be souring the wine further.
I really wanted to enjoy this book; from the outside it had all the ingredients of a minor masterpiece. But inside was a stale, haphazard mix of words and poorly executed ideas. Disappointed only just covers it.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kingdom-besieged-raymond-e-feist/1026634461
Here we go, I was thinking, a fantasy novel by a well known and respected author, this is bound to be a good read. How wrong can you be?
Writing a good fantasy novel is difficult; there’s potentially nothing familiar for the reader, the places and people are going to be completely new. Therefore I was prepared to work at it. From the first page I was dropped into a complex and confusing world of kingdoms, cities, dimensions and locations. A map would’ve been immensely useful at this point but alas there wasn’t one to be had. Things were made even more baffling by characters who came from the East referring to travelling West while others talked about the East as somewhere far away, being already in the West (or so I inferred), while the rest were all on the coast except those who were inland but also on the coast. Are you with me now? Thought not.
The characters themselves were tied up in an endless Gordian knot of inter-relationships spanning time and space. Throw in a plentiful supply of adoptions and a sprinkle swearing brotherhood – and sisterhood – to each other and it became impossible to untangle what who was who to where and how.
Let’s turn to the narrative itself. Like many people I enjoy a good yarn that weaves together a number of strands taking you to a dramatic culmination of seemingly unrelated elements. This book has more strands than a Persian rug; what’s more a rug put together by a blind and possibly one armed welder with half a loom and no idea what they’re doing. For example it starts with a fairly hefty section set in a parallel dungeon dimension; these characters then disappear for a large part of the book only to reappear later on. Unfortunately their particular story bears only the flimsiest relation to and no interaction with the other characters in the book.
But wait, this is part one of a saga set in a land where I believe many other of the author’s books are also set. Maybe that excuses some of the complexities but not all. Not to worry as each novel should be able to stand on its own, so let’s see what happens at the end where loose ends will be neatly tied up and explanations forthcoming. Again, sorry to disappoint you but the book just... ends. It’s almost as if the author was working to a word quota and having reached it typed the end of the sentence then sent it off to their editor. There is no dramatic last scene, no gripping conclusion, not even a cliff-hanger to encourage you to read the next instalment. I even checked the spine to see if there was evidence of a chapter having been ripped out. Nothing.
There are a number of other complaints I could make; character names were sloppy, grammatical and other errors had crept in. But I feel to say more would just be souring the wine further.
I really wanted to enjoy this book; from the outside it had all the ingredients of a minor masterpiece. But inside was a stale, haphazard mix of words and poorly executed ideas. Disappointed only just covers it.
- ISBN-13: 9780061468407
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date: 2/28/2012
- Pages: 400
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kingdom-besieged-raymond-e-feist/1026634461