Not quite another trip to Krondor

Title of this post is because, while the name of the book is Krondor: The Betrayal very little of it takes place in the city of Krondor. Most of it is situated in the outlands of the Western Kingdom. Betrayal is the first book of the Legacy sub series of Riftwar. The second book I talked about in the previous post and I enjoyed it so I figured to get the other books in the set. While Squire James is also one of the main characters in this book he shares more of the spotlight in this one with a much larger cast of characters. There is his friend, and fellow squire, Locklear, A Dark Elf chieftain Gorath, Owyn, a younger son of lesser nobility studying to be a magician, Pug, the pre-eminent magician of his time and the character who seems to have started the whole over arcing cycle and Patrus, a highly entertaining old coot and lesser magician.

The book starts with the coming of Gorath, a moredhel or dark elf, to a town on the Northern Borders of the Western Kingdom from the icy lands north of the mountains where most of his race has been forced due to the coming of humans. Needless to say the moredhel aren’t really fond of humans and due to a war or two between them, or at least where they were on opposite sides, most humans aren’t exactly willing to clasp them to their bosoms. That being said Gorath has decided to make common cause with the humans to save his people from what he considers a bigger danger and so comes out of the North bearing a warning for the Prince of Krondor. He comes across Squire Locklear of the Royal Court, who has been banished to the godforsaken locality to serve the local noble because of some dalliance with the wrong woman. Locklear decides that getting Gorath to the prince is worth risking his wrath at leaving the exile decreed for him. And off we go on another adventure in the Kingdom of the Isles. BTW, although there is a Kingdom of the Isles with a king and other nobles to go with it, it seems, at least in these books, that most of the fighting is done by the Western half of the kingdom and its ruling prince. The Eastern half seems to sit on its ass a lot. The book covers the various travels and travails of the squires, magicians and Gorath in one set of groups or another as they combat the danger that the moredhel saw threatening his folk and the humans. As in Assassins the adventure, and story, are fairly straightforward though Feist throws in a few twists and turns you might not see coming.

One wonders if Betrayal originally started out to be the beginning of a new sub series. It stands on its own even more than Assassins does as there is no previous story to refer back to the way Assassins sometimes does other than general references to the cycle as a whole and there is no lead in to future stories as there is at the end of Assassins. It makes a good start if one would like to start any of Feist’s books as it has a satisfactory conclusion and one wouldn’t know it was part of a series if one didn’t know any better.

All in all another good book by Feist and enough to have me looking for other books in the Riftwar Cycle as I have already ordered the third book of this subset, Krondor: Tear of the Gods. Right now I have my eye on the Serpent War saga, a set of 4 books set in Riftwar universe. Really would like to read the original Riftwar saga but still searching for a fairly good copy of the first novel, Magician. Seems that either there aren’t a whole lot of them around or people don’t wish to part with them.

Beginning to think that the stroke was a bigger problem than I thought it would be. Having not done much reading for over a year just because of the sheer difficulty of it with an arm that wouldn’t grip a book properly and having a lot of time on my hands owing to being without gainful employment because of it, I am back to reading with a vengeance. I always was a big reader but my forays to the bookstore occurred a couple times a year at which times I would load up on a hundred or so dollars worth of books, mainly paperbacks with the occasional hardback. When I started collecting I usually saved my money for purchasing early books, hardcover, of those authors I enjoyed and was collecting, some of which were not cheap, and spending my time doing a lot of rereading of books I had. Now, with time on my hands and the discovery of a few new authors I enjoy, my book collection is again expanding rapidly. For example Mr. Feist has published approximately 30 novels in the Riftwar cycle. I have 2 at present which means another 28 books, give or take, will be heading for my shelves depending on various factors. Not to mention there are still some books by those authors I am already collecting that I still do not have. Some, such as Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight and Dragonquest I may never own due to scarcity and cost, though I do have a signed copy of White Dragon. Others though are within my means, or were not too long ago, if I can just find the right copy. Be that as it may I seem to be buying books at a far greater pace than ever before and if I’m not careful I may soon be buried in them.

Hokay, enough for now. I hope my humble opinion was of some use to someone somewhere. I try not to go too far about the plot or scenes in the book as so not to spoil anything for the potential reader. If I should ever go too far just slap me. Thanks for the listen.